Archive for category: Updates

Labor Day is an opportunity to hit the streets! This is true every year, but especially right now – at a time when we are facing unprecedented attacks against immigrant workers, women, LGBTQ+ people, and really our entire community in the Bay Area.

Please come out to one of these actions on Monday! (Flyers attached, times and locations below)

San Francisco
16th & Mission
@11am

Oakland
Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza (12th St BART station)
@12pm

See you there!

Lilibeth Bonifacio (415) 864-8770 ext. 748

• Olympic Club (both Lakeside & City Club)
• Bohemian Club
• Pacific Union Club
• St. Francis Yacht Club
• Francisca Club
• Family Club
• Scoma’s Restaurant 
• Ghirardelli Chocolate 
• University of San Francisco 
• San Francisco Zoo
• Jewish Center Home
• Town and Country Club
• Moscone Center 
• War Memorial
• Green Hills Country Club
• Lake Merced
• Millbrae House of Pancakes
• San Mateo Event Center
• San Mateo Elks Lodge

Priscilla Paras-Huerta (415) 864-8770 ext. 714

• Chase Center
• Oracle Park
• SFO (International A, International G, Terminal 1)
  

Josephine Rivera

• Gate Gourmet
  
• SFO (Terminal 2 & Terminal 3)

Jose Soto (415) 864-8770 ext. 804

• Aramark Rail Services
• Bayer Cafeteria
• Caspers
• Compass at California State, East Bay
• Food Service Partners/Nourish East Bay
• Lawrence Livermore Lab
• Massimos
• Phillips 66
• San Ramon Center
• Sky Chefs (SFO and OAK)
• Sodexo CSAA
• St. Mary’s College

Kathy Hu (415) 864-8770 ext. 768

• Flying Foods
• Gate Gourmet (SFO)
• SFO Lounges

Jesse Johnson (415) 864-8770 ext. 758

• Aramark Oakland Coliseum
• High Flying Foods at OAK
• Levy’s at Oakland Arena
• SSP Oakland
• Vino Volo at OAK
• World Duty Free at OAK

Caitlin Clift

• Compass at Google (San Francisco and San Bruno)
• Flagship at Facebook and Meta (San Francisco and East Bay)
•  San Pablo Lytton Casino
• Sodexo at Waymo

Paola Chacon (415) 864-8770 ext. 736

• Castlewood Country Club

Read this op-ed by Local 2 leader Marty Bennett in the Sonoma Press-Democrat or text below.

The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented assault on federal workers, their unions, and the entire American labor movement. According to Randy Irwin, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, “This is the biggest attack on collective bargaining rights in the history of our country.” If not halted, the administration’s actions threaten essential federal programs and public services and will undermine fundamental labor rights for all workers.

The war against federal workers and their unions has proceeded on multiple fronts during Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.

First, Trump and tech multibillionaire Elon Musk, who directed the Department of Government Efficiency and refers to federal workers as a “parasitic class,” have terminated tens of thousands of probationary government employees. The New York Times reports that nearly 280,000 federal workers have been fired, taken buyouts, or seen their jobs slated for elimination.

Federal courts have ordered the reinstatement of many federal employees, finding that the mass firings violated civil service protocols and other federal employment protections. Simultaneously, lawsuits against the mass firings filed by state attorneys general and federal worker unions are moving forward in the courts. The Supreme Court will rule on these cases.

Second, in a sweeping March 27 Executive Order, Trump withdrew recognition from unions representing 1 million federal employees, citing national security concerns.

Although the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 granted federal workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, the law allows the President to exempt certain workers from national security agencies, such as the FBI and CIA.

However, workers in agencies unrelated to national security, such as Food Safety and Inspection, Environmental Protection, and Health and Human Services, are now excluded from union representation and collective bargaining.

Third, the Trump administration unilaterally voided a contract negotiated by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) representing 47,000 Transportation Security Officers at the nation’s airports. Moreover, the Trump administration seeks to rescind the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal employees exempted by his March 27 Executive Order.

Federal worker unions have now filed a lawsuit claiming retaliation for opposing the mass lay-offs and attacks on their members. The lawsuit also claims the administration too broadly applied the national security exemption to federal agencies.

Many historians and labor leaders are now characterizing the Trump administration’s assault on federal workers as labor’s Pearl Harbor.  History provides clues to what will occur next.

The federal government is the nation’s largest employer, and labor relations in the public sector shape those in the private sector. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired and permanently replaced 12,000 striking air traffic controllers, inspiring a sustained anti-union offensive by private sector employers who in the 1980s broke high-profile strikes in meatpacking, mining, and newspapers. Subsequently, the number of strikes dropped to a post-war low, and union membership fell dramatically.

By discharging tens of thousands of federal workers, withdrawing union recognition, and attempting to revoke legally signed contracts, Trump has gone far beyond Reagan. This is despite the fact that 70 percent of Americans approve of unions, the highest level recorded by Gallup polling since 1965.

The worst is yet to come.

Ultimately, Trump, many of the nation’s largest corporations, and the extremist Republican Party want to overturn the National Labor Relations Act, or labor’s Magna Carta, passed in the 1930s, which ensured First Amendment freedom of association protections for most workers who organize and seek to bargain collectively.

The Trump administration understands that unions are obstacles to even higher profits for the billionaires and that unions can potentially mobilize 14 million members to oppose the emerging fascist state.

Much is at stake for the public: food and airline safety; protection for air and water quality; medical research for infectious diseases; access to national parks and to quality health care for veterans; federal emergency relief for storms, floods, and fires; and postal services are all threatened by Trump’s assault on federal workers.

Labor, in turn, needs public support. Only by building alliances with faith, civil rights, environmental, veteran, and other organizations opposing fascism; aggressively mobilizing union members to demonstrate in the streets nonviolently; and engaging members to take back the House in 2026 can labor survive this historic crisis.

Martin J. Bennett is Instructor Emeritus of History at Santa Rosa Junior College and a consultant for UNITE HERE Local 2.