Newly organized workers are waiting an average 458 days to secure their first contract, with many taking even longer as employers drag out the process thanks to lax labor laws. That’s unacceptable.

Tell your lawmakers it is time to stand with working people and make it easier to get a first contract.

There is bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., to add meaningful leverage for workers in their first contract fights and ensure they get the protections of a union contract in months, not years. The Faster Labor Contracts Act (H.R. 5408; S.R. 844) would create an enforceable timeline for bargaining a first contract. If negotiations are going well, the parties can choose to continue bargaining as normal. If negotiations stall, this bill would refer the dispute to mediation and, ultimately, binding arbitration. A first contract could be settled within a few months.

The good news is the Faster Labor Contracts Act just passed the U.S. House of Representatives, thanks to pressure from working people. The bad news is the Senate has not yet taken action.

It is time to stop employers from union busting by dragging their feet. Ask your senators to add their names to the Faster Labor Contracts Act today.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued the following statement in response to today’s Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections:

Today’s decision is a devastating blow to working families and the stability of our economy. We stand proudly with the valued members of our unions and communities with TPS as we continue the long-term fight for justice. 

By allowing the Trump administration to disregard the law, the court has put the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers at risk. TPS holders from Haiti, Syria and other countries came here fleeing danger, instability and crisis. They have built lives here, joined unions, and become integral to our workplaces and economy.

Let’s be clear about who pays the price for this decision: working people. It’s not just wrong—it is a recipe for economic disaster that will create chaos in workplaces, disrupt key industries, and make it easier for bad bosses to exploit fear and drive down workplace standards and conditions for everyone.

The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda seeks to pit working people against each other—but the labor movement rejects that politics of fear. Congress must act immediately to protect TPS holders and stabilize our workforce by creating a broad and swift pathway to citizenship for those whose labor helps our country to prosper. We will keep fighting alongside immigrant workers and their families, because an injury to one is an injury to all.

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Statement online here

Hawai’i Nurses Association/OPEIU Local 50 President Rose Agas-Yuu and OPEIU Local 40 President Dina Carlisle address the 30th AFL-CIO Convention on the bravery and commitment shown by nurses across the United States.  OPEIU represents more than 25,000 nurses and healthcare workers throughout the country.

Today we honor the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees across the globe and in our communities.

Whether refugees are fleeing political persecution, conflict or environmental disasters, OPEIU believes in protecting and defending their human rights at all costs.

Through IRC Workers Unite, a coalition of unionized workers from 15 International Rescue Committee offices, OPEIU supports the fight for refugee rights and the rights of workers who support refugees.

To Our OPEIU Family:

OPEIU is proud to celebrate Juneteenth! 

On this day in 1865, the last Black Americans living in slavery were finally freed. We commemorate the millions of Black people brought to the Americas against their will over the course of centuries who, in unimaginably horrific conditions, built the country’s wealth for white slaveowners. While the practice of enslaving Black people was made illegal with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, its consequences have never been fully addressed. As a result, severe economic disparities persist today. 

The abolition of chattel slavery was the result of hundreds of years of slave resistance alongside tremendous solidarity from working people across the United States. That same solidarity is needed today if we are to uphold our nation’s promise of being a place where people have the freedom to truly control their own labor. We must also continue the fight to eradicate slavery, as millions of Americans continue to work against their will in debt bondage, forced prison labor or blatant human trafficking. 

We must be steadfast in opposing any system where workers are not compensated for their labor, do not have the power to negotiate their salaries or cannot leave their job at their own will. We also must stand up for full equality in our workplaces and our union, employment opportunities with living wages for all and legal reforms that uplift impoverished Black Americans rather than incarcerate them.  

While keeping this in mind, let us spend today celebrating the central contribution of Black Americans to the United States, pay respect to their immeasurable sacrifices and consider lessons from their history of resistance that achieved this historic step in 1865, and continues to make tremendous progress for all workers. 

Happy Juneteenth from OPEIU

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