The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the U.S. Department of Justice have jointly filed a motion to end federal oversight of the union after nearly 37 years of monitoring, marking the longest such monitorship in U.S. history.

The current oversight stems from a 1988 civil racketeering lawsuit brought by then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, which alleged that organized crime had run the Teamsters as a racketeering enterprise for decades Reuters. In 1989, a consent decree was reached, requiring a court-appointed monitor to oversee internal affairs, changes to the union’s election process to ensure fairness, creation of a review board to investigate corruption allegations.

The consent order was established in 1989 when the IBT settled this lawsuit filed after years of corruption and mob influence. It was replaced in 2015 with the final order which established the current anti-corruption program consisting of the Independent Review Officer and the Independent Investigations Officer.

As part of the original consent order, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) fought for and won the right to vote for International Union officers and Convention Delegates under democratic rules with an independent election supervisor. These rights are now written in the Teamsters Constitution and will continue without change.

Under the joint motion filed, Judge Barbara Jones, the Independent Review Officer, will continue to play an oversight role for another three years with an option to extend if she believes the IBT has not sufficiently maintained its disciplinary and audit systems at the end of that term.

An interesting fact is that TDU has had a volatile history with Sean O’Brien and as a result O’Brian was suspended for two weeks in 2013 after an Independent Review Board found out he had violated union rules by threatening TDU members during a Rhode Island election rally.

There is also a concern within the labor movement that Teamsters for the Democratic Unions support for O’Brien has aligned the union with far-right politics, With the TDU annual convention approaching, some TDU members and reform groups, such as Teamsters Mobilize, report they have been banned from attending TDU conventions, citing political alignment with O’Brien and Trump CounterPunch.org. Critics say TDU has abandoned its reformist image, instead elevating its own members into leadership roles while O’Brien steers the union toward nationalist politics.

Politics within the labor movement are fierce and union officials they will eat their own the minute they see any challenge to their authority including rank-and-file members.

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The NLRA currently imposes no timeline for reaching a first contract. The labor movement’s goal for years has been to legalize a timeline for contract negotiations and forced arbitration if short timeline is not met.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act (H.R.5408) passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support on June 9, 2026.

The FLCA would amend the National Labor Relations Act to require employers to bargain with newly organized workers within 10 days of voting to form their union. Establishing a timeline for all parties to negotiate, the legislation provides a path to mediation if no agreement is reached within 90 days and a referral to arbitration to ensure first contracts can be quickly completed.

This constitutes a maximum bargaining period of 120 days – 90 days of bargaining followed by 30 days of mediation – before either party can invoke mandatory arbitration.

High Costs and Risk to Small Businesses, forced contracts could include expensive, long-term obligations such as large pension commitments or costly benefits packages. These mandates could limit hiring, slow growth, or even force companies into bankruptcy if the terms are unworkable, small businesses may lack the resources to absorb such obligations.

I see the potential for bad-faith bargaining where unions would resist coming to an agreement based on the financial realities of the company, to stall or avoid concessions, knowing that arbitration could award them a better deal than they could secure at the table. This would make negotiations more adversarial.

Many unions see the FLCA as a transformative piece of labor reform that could significantly shorten the time between a union vote and a binding contract, while holding employers accountable for timely negotiations but some labor advocates have reacted with alarm to the act, arguing it is a thinly veiled attack on collective bargaining rights, emphasizing that compressing negotiation timelines systematically advantages well-resourced corporations over workers who need time to organize, consult members, and counter complex employer proposals.

There are some unknowns to this bill, for example, based on the current iteration of the legislation, it is not entirely clear who would have to pay for all this. Arbitration can be expensive and the law requires a panel of three arbitrators.

The FLCA is not law yet. It requires Senate passage and the President’s signature before taking effect. However, the bipartisan House vote and the presence of a companion bill with growing Senate support suggest this legislation has strong momentum.

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Will AI be the cause of the next boom in Union Organizing? There are some significant reasons that can’t be ignored when planning a union awareness and avoidance strategy especially if AI is affecting the employees feeling of job security.

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The Labor movements narrative is always the same, any company that opposes union activity are union busters and anti-worker, this article criticizes companies that hire attorneys and consultants that educate their employees on the realties and limitations of labor unions, not lie to them while union organizers not only obfuscates the truth but also flat out misrepresent the ability of unions to achieve the goals that they are enthusiastically promising them.

Actually one of the Attorneys and consultants’ responsibilities is to prevent the employer from violating workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRB) and I find that a vast majority of employers fight hard to protect their employees’ rights while the unions fight to legally prevent these conversations from occurring, stating that it violated the workers’ rights.
One of the unions objectives is to instigate management violations of the ACT and to create an atmosphere where worker anger and mistrust of management flourish, 101 union organizing is from the start of the worker inoculation process, find ways to discredit the company, attack its moral authority and corporate image.

To make it clear, unions will gladly lead potential and current members into situations without the full facts, during my time as both as a national organizing and strike director I have had exasperated workers come to me asking for answers, one time on a strike into the 2nd year at a food bank with his young child, he asked me when the legal process was going to be over and we can get back to work, I responded that I didn’t know but he better keep his A** on the strike line.

Union officials and many politicians are always stating the awful reasons there need to be changes in the NLRB labor law. I remember when Kate Bronfenbrenner, who is the Director of Labor Education Research at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University published stats on management abuse on union organizers, the last report that I read declared that over a five year period 34 percent of the elections that companies fired employees for union activity, in 57 percent of elections, employers threatened to shut down all or part of their facilities, and in 47 percent, employers threatened to cut wages and benefits. When I was an organizing director, I received many of these surveys from Cornell University and of course we responded that company abuse was responsible for any organizing losses.

This article calls the right of management to educate employees on the realities of union membership a “deliberate assault on a fundamental human right”, I have witnessed many union officials and their supporters attack members who push back on leadership actions or cross a picket line because they need to feed their family to the point of unrestrained brutality, where are their human rights?

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The UAW Local 2093 at the Three Rivers plan will be in a tough position getting their contract objectives met with American Axle and with a 98 percent could end up in a protracted strike, unlike the Big Three automakers which have a national contract for all UAW members at each automaker, supplier companies like AAM negotiate separate contracts with their own local union representatives, each plant or facility has its own UAW local that negotiates directly with management for that site which greatly reduces bargaining leverage for the union.

The UAW did attempt to improve their bargaining leverage with a Coordinated strike vote with both American Axle in Three Rivers and the Stellantis’ Sterling Heights Ram 1500 plant which is having outsourcing issues with Stellantis.

The near-simultaneous strike authorization votes at American Axle and the Stellantis facility pointed to a coordinated UAW approach to leverage pressure across multiple employers. By aligning timelines, the union would have increased bargaining power and signal a preparedness to escalate actions if demands were not met at both companies.

Immediately, the votes would have heightened tensions at both plants and accelerated negotiations. In the short term, a strike at Sterling Heights could have halted the Ram 1500 production, affecting dealer inventories and local suppliers, while American Axle stoppages would have damaged GM’s supply chain. Long term, outcomes could have set precedents for wage restoration, outsourcing limits, and future contract enforcement in the auto industry, strikes are designed to cause maximum damage to the company’s ability to operate and profit, successful strikes which extract concessions from management are also the unions best sales pitch for potential new organizing members.

Unfortunately for the AAM UAW local, this lifeline was severed when the Stellantis Sterling Heights facility, which employs roughly 6,000 union workers, resolved the grievances tied to outsourced skilled trades work, resolving these issues lead the UAW to cancel the strike vote.

More potential strikes are on the horizon this year, the contract covering 20,000 Verizon workers in 25,000 Steelworkers at Cleveland Cliffs and US Steel mills have contracts expiring on September, In October, contracts will expire for 17,000 Boeing engineers and techs, June, about 14,000 UFCW members at Kroger in Michigan, 6000 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate Employees, and many more.

Strikes can be devastating to companies and workers lives but can be avoided, Unions are not going away, and companies don’t have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.

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There are many issues here, Teamsters local 243 notified the National Labor Relations Board that they “officially withdraws and disclaims interest” a union will only withdraw interest if they no longer have the support of their members or the unit is no longer worth the expense and time to do the hard work of obtaining a CBA. if the union truly were dedicated to organizing this national chain, they would have had a better national strategy and structure to address the issues and the concerns of the workers not only at this location but on a national level.  

This union had motivative workers who connected with Labor Notes and Teamsters for a democratic Union (TDU) organization for support and utilized how to organize literature from TDU, they also had on hand support from some Starbucks organizers.

Workers was quoted as saying “the path forward often felt uncertain “We were so focused on unionizing we didn’t really think to ask them for a plan.  None of the Chipotle employees who voted to unionize had ever been a part of a union before, and affiliating with the Teamsters was a crash course in understanding the structure and mechanics of large international unions”. And that workers in the store lost faith that the union had a viable plan to overcome the company’s resistance.”

I have stated many times that organizers often only tell the targeted organizing workers what they want to hear and don’t prepare them for the hard work it takes to obtain the first contract. That burden is carried by the union staff that is actually at the table.

This is a short-term victory for the company, the unit is still frustrated with management and with about 4,000 restaurants in the US including all company-operated locations and international partner-operated restaurants they are a big target, other national unions as well as the Teamsters are going to continue to target these locations especially with the renewed push by both big labor and grassroots organizations to concentrate on big organizing campaigns, I remember when the first Starbucks was organized, now there are over 11,000 workers at 500 Starbucks locations,125 in 2025.

While there is union activity at this restaurant chain I haven’t seen evidence of a true cohesive strategy or sophisticated well-funded national corporate campaign to date but unions are not going away, and companies don’t have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.

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Want to know why the unions come knocking? It usually isn’t the big concerns but more than likely would be from a series of smaller concerns that build up layers like a giant onion. You have to peel the layers back to see the real reasons and they are usually easy to address in the early stages.

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One worker at this facility was quoted saying “Between being told we should get back to work while a coworker is getting CPR and being told not to help, I just can’t support a corporation like that. We are just numbers,”

There are unavoidable tragic events that happen in every workplace environment, and I am sure that many of the management team were devastated also, but someone has to have some common sense, maybe by removing the coworkers from the immediate area and having a counselor in the aftermath available to assist employees including management who were affected by the death of their coworker instead of making the next union organizing flyer for them.

I remember a few years ago working on an organizing campaign at a large cold storage warehouse, one of my consultants told me that a high low driver twisted her leg and she was waiting in the cafeteria for someone to drive her to the clinic, we went to talk with her to make sure that she was ok, I also told her supervisor and HR director to go and make sure she knew that she had their support and they were concerned for her. They honestly were concerned and immediately went to talk with her, this small but sincere act of kindness spread around to the rest of the work force and was instrumental in improving employee relations at a critical time.

Many workplace situations can either be a I told you that they don’t give a sh%* about us or I really appreciate how they handled this, they do care moment.

I have seen many private company owners, CEO’s, and all levels of management staff who truly care and want the best for their employees but the employees don’t believe that they are respected and their perception is their reality.

A consistent, honest and respectful communication program is essential in maintaining a productive facility.

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There are many important reasons companies oppose union organizing campaigns, including increases in operating cost, they also have an impact on productivity and productivity growth.

Studies have shown negative impacts of unionization on both output per hour and on productivity growth. The Clark Institute found productivity losses between 3.0 and 4.0 percent based on an analysis of company level data for 902 manufacturing businesses over a twenty-year period.

The Hirsch group (2004) found negative total productivity effects of 2.0 to 4.4 percent depending on the union density in the company, the lower end of 2.0 percent productivity loss estimated by the Hirsch group for a company with only 10% union density would reduce profits by 19.8 percent. Even small production losses can have a major impact on a company’s financial performance. In ten years, the unionized company’s profit per labor hour will be 23.6 percent less than the non-union company before accounting for the effects of compensation cost premiums or initial productivity differences.

The cumulative effects of slower productivity growth on top of the initial differences in compensation result after 10 years in the unionized company, significantly lagging the non-union competitor in profit by 37.4 percent.

The Council on Union-Free Environment study of reviewing the actual case analysis of confidential companies determined a higher liability of 30%-40%. Unionization of an employee making $10/hr., the cost would increase $8290/yr.

It also creates an erosion of management flexibility and control, collective bargaining agreements transfer significant decision-making authority away from management, reducing the speed at which a company can adapt to market changes. Disciplinary action, becomes a multi-step process subject to grievance procedures and arbitration, replacing managerial judgment with a formalized, legalistic process.

A company’s ability to implement new technologies or restructure job duties is diminished, requiring mandatory negotiation before changes take effect. This process causes delays that can span months or years, disadvantaging the unionized company.

Given these reasons and more, it doesn’t make sense that many companies don’t put more emphasis on staying union free before union activity ever takes place, the initial goal of a union organizer is to find weaknesses in the management structure and leverage it against the company.

First, management needs to treat workers fairly, and I cannot emphasize enough for management teams to build trust, mutual respect and open communication, to utilize emotional intelligence to win over employee’s trust and engrain them in the solution to the labor crisis/union campaign or high turnover problems, getting to this level of understanding and motivating through emotional intelligence requires the opening of your senses, by talking less and listening more.

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Interesting events are happening in the banking industry, Wells Fargo has had a lot of union activity, several units have filed for a decertification vote with mixed results. According to the Wells Fargo Workers United-CWA web site there is no ratified contracts signed yet, the first union contract negotiations started in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 5, 2024, with Wells Fargo management, there are 22 union branches across 14 states that organized, the union is seeking a national contract.

While some credit unions have unionized workforces, unionization at banks has been rare until recently.

The US banking industry was once a very hard target that unions avoided, Beneficial State Bank, serving California, Oregon, and Washington, was the first US bank organized in 2020 was the first bank unionized in 40 years, Beneficial State Bank voluntarily recognized the Communication Workers of America after over 100 of its employees across 13 locations demonstrated majority support for the CWA in three states

Continuing the trend, in January 2022, employees at Genesee Co-Op Federal Credit Union in Rochester, NY unionized. Employees unionized and In January 2023, Lake Michigan Credit Union workers also successfully unionized the Wyoming, Michigan location.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only 1.1% of workers in the banking and finance industry are unionized. A 2013 study, it was commissioned by the Committee for Better Banks, a New York based group advocating for the rights of banking and finance employees stated on their site that “mass layoffs, high turnover, lagging pay and benefits, and a lack of transparency as the driving factors spurring banking and finance employees’ interest in unionization, and those concerns have only increased in recent years”. The Committee for Better Banks is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (“CWA”) union and is part of their strategy to increase their organizing attempts.

Companies no longer have the luxury to ignore union activity, well trained supervision who understands union tactics and how to spot union activity along with a comprehensive communication policy are vital to maintaining a productive union free environment.
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