Mercedes-Benz has settled an NLRB case stemming from the UAW’s failed 2024 organizing effort at its Vance, Alabama plant. The settlement is small in dollar terms but worth a close read for any employer navigating a union organizing campaign. The core agreement: Mercedes will distribute a notice acknowledging certain employee rights and committing not to…

Benjamin Fong’s recent essay makes a case that’s hard to dismiss: the labor movement either organizes Amazon, or it slowly disappears. The historical analogy is the CIO of the 1930s. After years of decline, the CIO cracked General Motors with the 44-day sit-down strike of 1937 and revitalized American labor. Fong argues that today’s equivalent…

A Q1 2026 NLRB review found that an increasing number of representation petitions targeted units of 10 workers or fewer. That’s a notable shift, and one that employers need to understand strategically. The NLRB’s American Steel Construction decision reinstated the Specialty Healthcare “overwhelming community of interest” standard, which makes it significantly easier for unions to…

Two dozen Culinary Union members were detained during civil disobedience near Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas as contract negotiations with airport food vendors stalled. The Culinary and Bartenders unions represent hospitality workers across 21 airport outlets — cooks, bartenders, servers, porters, fast-food workers. The key issues: workers have not received raises in three…

The Center for American Progress just modeled what would happen if the United States adopted sectoral bargaining — a system that sets minimum standards across an industry while still allowing workplace-level negotiations to build on those standards. The conclusion: more than double the share of U.S. workers would be covered by collective bargaining agreements. For…

The NLRB just ordered Kuraray America to bargain with a unit of lab analysts it refused to recognize. The case is a textbook run of the “technical refusal to bargain” playbook. Last October, lab analysts at Kuraray’s La Porte, Texas plant voted in a self-determination election to join an existing production and maintenance unit represented…