Dan DiMaggio

Workers at Wells Fargo are organizing the first union at a major U.S. bank—in one of the least-organized industries in the country. The first branch where workers won a union vote, in 2023, was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then, workers have have voted to join the Communications Workers (CWA) at 29 more branches from Apopka, Florida, to Casper, Wyoming. So have 35 workers who review customer and employee complaints at the bank. These workers, a total of 200, are a small fraction of Wells Fargo’s 217,000 employees.

Workers at Wells Fargo are organizing the first union at a major U.S. bank—in one of the least-organized industries in the country. The first branch where workers won a union vote, in 2023, was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then, workers have have voted to join the Communications Workers (CWA) at 29 more branches from Apopka, Florida, to Casper, Wyoming. So have 35 workers who review customer and employee complaints at the bank. These workers, a total of 200, are a small fraction of Wells Fargo’s 217,000 employees.

More than two years after voting in a union, the 220 workers at TCGplayer, the eBay-owned online marketplace for trading cards, hoped they might be getting close to securing a first contract. Instead, they’re fighting to save their jobs. On May 22, the company abruptly announced that it was shuttering its Syracuse, New York, authentication center and moving operations to Louisville, Kentucky. Spurred by unfair discipline and low pay, workers at TCGplayer became the first U.S. eBay workers to organize a union, joining Communications Workers Local 1123 in a March 2023 vote.

Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast returned to work September 16 following a month-long strike. Members of the Communications Workers (CWA) in nine states from Kentucky to Florida walked out on an unfair labor practice strike August 16 over accusations the telecom giant was bargaining in bad faith. The strike included technicians, call center workers, and others who build and maintain the AT&T network. AT&T pulled in $24 billion in profits in 2023. CWA represents 65,000 AT&T workers in the U.S., scattered across more than a dozen collective bargaining agreements.

Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast returned to work September 16 following a month-long strike. Members of the Communications Workers (CWA) in nine states from Kentucky to Florida walked out on an unfair labor practice strike August 16 over accusations the telecom giant was bargaining in bad faith. The strike included technicians, call center workers, and others who build and maintain the AT&T network. AT&T pulled in $24 billion in profits in 2023. CWA represents over 150,000 AT&T workers in the U.S., scattered across more than a dozen collective bargaining agreements.

Members of the second-largest farmworkers union in the U.S. will elect leaders on September 21 and 22. It’s a rerun of an election two years ago, following accusations that many members were effectively disenfranchised in that vote. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee agreed to the new election in a voluntary compliance agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) last year. The union has 1,500 members in North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio.

UPDATE: On September 15, CWA announced tentative agreements with both AT&T Southeast and AT&T West. Workers at AT&T Southeast returned to work on September 16. Members will still need to vote on both deals. Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast have been on strike since August 16. They may be joined soon by another 8,500 workers at AT&T in California and Nevada.

We are happy to report that Secrets of a Successful Organizer has now been translated into seven languages: Spanish, Japanese, German, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Swedish, and, most recently, Danish and Quebecois French. (See below for details on how to get copies.) We’ve also heard from union activists in Brazil, Norway, and Poland who are interested in translating it. The book has provided inspiration and practical tips to workers across the globe attempting to revitalize their unions and build collective power in their workplaces. The English edition has sold 40,000 copies.

Is it time for a big, united strike by millions of union members against the billionaire class? We get pitched this idea sometimes at Labor Notes. Usually we dismiss it as coming from starry-eyed dreamers eager to pass over the hard work of organizing and skip ahead to the “general strike.” But now the call is coming from a major international union: the United Auto Workers, whose new contracts covering 146,000 workers at the Big 3 are strategically set to expire on May 1, 2028.

A previous version of this article was published on October 31. After a six-week escalating strike, the Auto Workers (UAW) ratified agreements with each of the Big 3 automakers. The deals are a sharp about-face from decades of concessions. The new contracts go further than many people thought possible, on issues that the companies had insisted were off the table. Stellantis agreed to reopen its idled Belvidere, Illinois, assembly plant. The companies will include most new battery plant workers i…

All three dominoes fell in a few days. The Auto Workers (UAW) now have agreements with each of the Big 3 automakers. The new contracts are a sharp about-face from decades of concessions. The tentative agreements go further than many thought possible on issues that the companies insisted were off the table. Stellantis agreed to reopen its idled Belvidere assembly plant. GM and Stellantis will include new battery plant workers in their master agreements. While the contracts don’t abolish benefit t…

The run-off election for president of the United Auto Workers is underway. Ballots hit the mail January 12 and counting will start March 1. The election pits challenger Shawn Fain, an electrician from Kokomo, Indiana, and an international rep, against incumbent president Ray Curry. The 400,000-member union represents workers at the Big Three auto plants, auto parts factories, and other sectors including heavy equipment manufacturing and higher education. Curry picked up 38.2 percent in the first…

Auto workers at a General Motors plant in central Mexico delivered a landslide victory to an independent union in a vote held February 1-2. It’s a major breakthrough for workers and labor activists seeking to break the vice grip of the employer-friendly unions that have long dominated Mexico’s labor movement. Turnout among the plant’s 6,300 eligible voters was 88 percent. The independent union SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union) picked up 4,192 votes—78 percent of the vote.

It started with a few hundred West Virginia teachers and school employees pulling one-day walkouts. It became an unqualified victory in that state, which educators elsewhere were quick to emulate. Teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kentucky are now striking, sicking out, rallying, and Facebooking to push officials to raise their salaries and defend their benefits. After 13 days on the picket line, West Virginia teachers won a statewide across-the-board 5 percent raise, plus a task force to find a permanent fix to the state’s underfunded Public Employees Insurance Agency.