Category: CWA

Last week, AFA-CWA-represented Flight Attendants at Horizon Air voted 99.8% to authorize a strike at the wholly-owned Alaska Air Group regional airline. The vote is the result of seriously delayed bargaining and months of outrageously low economic proposals from Horizon management.

“We have dedicated our lives to Horizon and the communities that we serve,” said Lisa Davis Warren, president of the Horizon chapter of AFA-CWA, representing 650 Horizon Air Flight Attendants. “We are simply asking for the pay, benefits, and improvements we have earned. But Horizon management seems uninterested in resolving this dispute or showing the slightest concern for frontline workers who can’t afford rent or other basic life necessities.”

Their demands include living wage pay increases; increased pay for time at work, including while boarding the plane; better benefits; and work rule improvements.

The right to strike is triggered when the National Mediation Board (NMB) declares that negotiations are deadlocked and releases both parties into a 30-day “cooling off” period leading to a strike deadline.

Last week, in a mail ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), workers at Coforma voted overwhelmingly to join CWA. These workers handle digital engineering and design for government services, including those conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Internal Revenue Service’s e-filing system.

Workers cited concerns over possible layoffs, especially with the expansion of artificial intelligence, and wanted a say in decision-making, clearer evaluations, and standardized pathways to promotion. To show their determination, workers coordinated a messaging campaign to send thanks and words of encouragement to a coworker who faced disciplinary action after voicing support for the union effort in a department meeting. The union has filed an unfair labor practice suit with the NLRB.

Many workers also signed a statement, delivered to the CEO, with a demand for recognition and a “vote yes” pledge before mail voting began.

“Our organizing committee worked hard having conversations with coworkers, listening to their concerns, and running a strong campaign,” said Principal Design Researcher Julie Pedtke. “I’m proud to be part of a growing labor movement at this inflection point for the tech industry, modeling more accountable and inclusive ways of working and showing others what’s possible.“

Congratulations to these new CWA members. They will now join CWA Local 1103.

Minnesota trade unionists active in worker assemblies are among the 15 people indicted by the federal government today, as part of a sweeping crackdown on organizing in opposition to the ICE and Border Patrol since December 2025. Among a slew of other allegations, the indictment cited some of the individuals’ participation in assemblies of trade unionists and other workers held at the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis as evidence that the activists participated in a criminal conspiracy.

Experiments with a shorter workweek have shown that working fewer hours improves worker well-being and productivity. But we can’t expect employers to implement this transformative change of their own volition.

Acting secretary Keith Sonderling threatens to withhold administrative funds from states for first time in history

Keith Sonderling sent letters to 53 states and US territories demanding action to “combat waste, fraud, and abuse” within the unemployment insurance program, threatening to withhold administrative funds from states for the first time in history.

“We are officially putting governors on notice,” said the acting US secretary of labor. “The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars – no state should allow it either. If states allow it, they will suffer the consequences. This department is no longer afraid to use every lever available to ensure taxpayer money is protected.”

The agency did not provide data on fraud or alleged fraud in unemployment systems, but highlighted three Democrat-led states – California, New York and Illinois – and made claims about each.

They say California owes $20bn to the federal government for a loan during the Covid-19 pandemic. California has struggled paying off the loan, as they did with a similar federal loan received during the 2008 economic recession, due to the current set-up of how employers are taxed to fund unemployment. The unemployment payroll tax system in California has been unchanged since 1984 at a taxable wage ceiling of $7,000 on a worker’s wages and maximum tax rate of 5.4%, leaving the state with insufficient funds to cover its unemployment reserve while legislators on both sides of the political aisle have been working to try to resolve the issue.

The Department of Labor also claimed that New York loses an estimated $2m a day in unemployment insurance fraud and improper payments, but did not differentiate between the two. They also cited that Illinois had improper payments of $320m, at a rate of 14%.

Improper payments are not fraud, rather are most often cited as due to antiquated technology, with an estimated improper payment rate of 14.9% across the US.

While New York, California and Illinois have high improper payment rates compared with the rest of the US, several Republican states also have leading improper payment rates. Florida is reporting a 36.43% improper payment rate, more than double the rate in California at 16.85%, based on data from 2021 to 2024.

“Fraud is still a problem and it hasn’t gone away since the start of the pandemic but this press release is part of the problem, why the fraud isn’t going away,” Michele Evermore, senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, told the Guardian.

She noted that states should be able to seek help from the US Department of Labor instead of being blamed solely for the issue – with threats.

“No state wants to pay fraudulent benefits to criminal actors,” she added. “It should be an all of government, all of society response, instead of calling out governors they have a political beef with. It’s not the right way to soberly and stoically deal with a problem that everybody faces.”

Sonderling appeared on Fox News on Wednesday morning to discuss the letters.

“I will essentially cut off the states’ administrative funds and then they won’t be able to administer this unemployment insurance due to the fraud,” said Sonderling, who then claimed Democratic governors are the states with the highest fraud, without citing any evidence or data to substantiate the claim.

In May 2025, the Department of Labor sent letters to state unemployment agencies requiring them to return any unspent funds allocated in the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), a move criticized by unemployment experts for the disruption it would cause to states in the midst of modernizing their unemployment systems and efforts to fight fraud.

Estimated fraud during the Covid-19 pandemic in unemployment insurance across the US between April 2020 to May 2023 was between $100bn to $135bn, according to the Government Accountability Office, though the Department of Labor argued the estimate was overstated.

In May, columnists, photographers, and reporters with the Idaho Statesman, represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA Local 37085) and affectionately known as the “Idaho NewsGuild,” engaged in a one-day unfair labor practice strike over unfair wages and management’s use of generative artificial intelligence. Idaho members joined other news workers also represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, from the Tacoma News Tribune, the Tri-City Herald, the Bellingham Herald, and The Olympian, calling out owner McClatchy Media. Statesman members accuse McClatchy of engaging in bad faith bargaining and refusing to bring decision-makers to the table or even identify them.

Workers expressed major concerns over the use of AI in generating news content. The content, like an AI-generated story posted last year that mistakenly reported a local brewery had closed, undermines credibility in the newsroom. Wages are also a concern for members, as McClatchy is offering a paltry 2% wage increase, despite cost-of-living increases in rent and other essentials.

Idaho NewsGuild members have been bargaining since May 2025.

Despite all being represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, the Idaho NewsGuild workers are currently bargaining a separate contract from the other four news outlets who took part in the strike. Both bargaining teams have decided to put the current proposed contract language before the members to gauge where members stand on it. That vote will likely be held next week.

Protect your pet with affordable coverage from Pets Best. Union members can find plans for as low as $1/day and start protecting their furry family members today.

• The Union Plus pet insurance program, provided by Pets Best, reimburses you up to 90% on eligible veterinary bills.
• Our most budget-friendly plan is the Accident Only plan for $10 or less per month!
• For more coverage options, explore illness and routine care plans customized to your pet and your budget.
• Plus, all Pets Best customers get free access to the 24/7 Pet Helpline staffed by veterinary experts to answer any pet health or pet behavior concerns.

Get a Quote Today!

NEW JERSEY – The Communications Workers of America (CWA), District 1, stands in full solidarity with the people detained at Delaney Hall in Newark who have laid down their labor and refused their meals to demand dignity, safety, and freedom.

Make no mistake: this is a labor struggle. The people held inside Delaney Hall are forced to cook meals, clean the floors, and keep the facility running — for as little as one dollar a day. These workers are on strike to protest the unconscionable conditions they are forced to endure and the basic due process they are entitled to, but have been denied.

While the private contractors who operate these detention centers bank millions, the workers who sustain them are denied the most basic protection and respect. When workers in those conditions organize, withhold their labor, and act together to demand better, they are doing what working people have always done to win justice. We recognize a strike when we see one.

The labor movement was built on the principle that no person should be exploited, silenced, or treated as less than human because of who they are or where they come from. The demands coming from inside Delaney Hall — an end to medical neglect, an end to exploitative labor, the release of the elderly, the young, and the sick, and the restoration of basic due process — are the same demands for dignity, equity, and justice that animate our own fight every day. An injury to one is an injury to all.

We honor the courage of the strikers and of the families and community members standing watch outside the facility, and we defend their right to peaceful protest. And we condemn in the strongest terms the escalation and violence by ICE and state police against people peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.