Trader Joe's is a company that carefully cultivates a progressive reputation. But over the past few years, we have seen the company culture shift from a workplace with incredible pay, benefits, and atmosphere, to a company with increasing turnover, declining benefits, and stagnating wages. The pandemic put those changes into stark relief as “essential” workers everywhere were asked to risk their health in order to keep the economy going. These two factors—the company’s internal changes and the pandemic—made it clear that we needed to have a say in our workplace, and that a union was the only answer to that need. A union could also bring Trader Joe’s back into alignment with its own core values, the values that had made it a great place to work and shop in the first place. Even though we have won elections in four stores, Trader Joe’s continues to union bust and refuse to bargain in good faith. Recently, Trader Joe’s fired Steve Andrade, one of the crew members in Hadley, MA for completely frivolous reasons. In his termination paperwork, management claimed that a power tool belonged to Steve, and its presence in the store created a safety issue serious enough to warrant firing him. The catch? This tool didn’t even belong to Steve. In fact, the tool was at the store long before Steve started working in Hadley nine years ago. Since we won our first union election, we’ve heard from hundreds of crew members across the country eager to unionize their stores, and we are helping many of them organize right now. But instead of allowing the free and fair elections they promised their workers, or bargaining in good faith, Trader Joe’s has hired a union-busting law firm and is fighting us every step of the way. Trader Joe’s has fired union supporters, threatened and coerced workers, and continues to drag their feet at the bargaining table. We can only win when we stand together in solidarity. Can you take a moment to sign our petition to demand that Trader Joe’s stop union-busting and reinstate workers fired for organizing?

Did you know? UPS CEO Carol Tome made $19 million last year. A part-time worker who would have to work for 1347 years at $15.50 to earn that much! UPS made over $26.2 billion in profits during the last years of the COVID pandemic at the expense of more than half of UPS’s 350,000 employees, who make poverty wages as part-time workers. UPS, the largest trucking company in the U.S., pays part-timers just $15.50 an hour to do back-breaking working loading and unloading trucks and sorting packages. These jobs come with a lot of pressure, back-breaking work, harassment, surveillance, and getting injured on the job is always a looming possibility. UPS workers, and all workers, deserve better pay and safer working conditions.Workers' lives and livelihoods are not a game. This is why UPS customers, workers and the public are uniting to make UPS deliver for working families.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced a new tax filing software that went live for 12 states in 2024. This question-based software will allow people to send their returns electronically to the government for free! If broadly available, this software would allow Americans to avoid profit-hungry companies that act as middlemen when we e-file our taxes. But the tax preparation lobby strongly opposed IRS free direct filing software, and it was difficult to even get the 12 states we had in 2024 in a pilot—so we need your help to demonstrate overwhelming support for the program! Image Credit: Orange County Register

We believe that these changes will significantly reduce the financial burden on residents and workers while still ensuring that the town has sufficient resources during the peak tourist season. It is time to reclaim the spirit of "Public" in our Public Landing and reaffirm its role as a community space that is accessible and welcoming to all.

We’re breathing in dirty air right now which will decrease our life expectancy. We have a fundamental right to a healthy environment. With the current AQI levels in and around the state of PA, many of us are experiencing health issues because of the Canadian Wildfires. Scientists have expressed to us that events like this will continue to happen more frequently due to Climate Change inaction. We deserve a future and that is why we should all sign this.

Background work can often involve working very long hours, working in unfavorable weather conditions, and working with very little food, and all of this for very close to minimum wage pay. Yet, background actors tend to have their performances devalued. Often, they are treated more like props than like actors. Some industry professionals are so disrespectful toward background actors that they label extras, “props that eat”.

If allowed to pass, this proposed bill would put real families out of work, the wine selection for the consumer would suffer and local winegrowers would be forced to downsize.

President Biden said, “I sincerely hope that the writers’ strike in Hollywood gets resolved—and the writers are given the fair deal they deserve—as soon as possible. This is an iconic, meaningful American industry. And we need the writers, and all the workers, and everyone involved to tell the stories of our nation.” Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony, acting under the umbrella of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), are refusing to treat writers with dignity and respect. In a letter to its members, the Writers Guild of America’s Negotiating Committee wrote that “From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a "day rate" in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and on AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession.” The impact of the companies' greed is not just causing harm to these workers, it is limiting the stories that come from the communities we need to hear from most. As the industry’s business model becomes unsustainable for emerging writers there will potentially be fewer stories penned by historically marginalized communities. The lack of representation impacts us all —and it’s especially jarring given right-wing attacks on sharing diverse stories in classrooms and libraries. It also just means the range of TV shows we get to see will be worse. It's pretty clear that writers and creators should be fairly compensated to ensure creative talent of all backgrounds can contribute to the quality content we all love. The Writers Guild of America simply wants a fair contract. Please add your name to support these writers and the millions of people their work impacts every day.

Tenants have rights! If they won’t hear us separately they will have no choice but to hear us all together. Our safety and quality of living matter. We need resolutions and not excuses! From plumbing issues to loitering. We deserve better!

Bring Rep. Ciscomani to Tucson for a live town hall with his new constituents. We deserve to question our representative to Congress.

Starbucks' new CEO has a chance to turn the company around and treat workers with respect. Let's call on him to act! Starbucks, like so many corporations, is doing everything in its power to keep workers from winning their union and a fair contract. They know when we stand together, we're more powerful and can win the respect we've earned.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid provide safety and security for the millions of seniors, families, and veterans who rely on these benefits to retire, access health care, and feed their families. Speaker McCarthy and the House Majority are threatening to force a catastrophic economic default unless their extreme demands to gut these overwhelmingly popular and hard-earned benefits are met. Their willingness to hold the economy hostage and make working people pay the price is nothing short of extreme and dangerous. Default would devastate individual Americans and communities of color across the country. After a lifetime of hard work and paying in, 48.6 million seniors rely on Social Security assistance every month to pay their bills. Nearly 64 million seniors rely on Medicare for their health coverage. More than 84.8 million Americans receive life-saving coverage through Medicaid. The entire country will suffer if our economy defaults. The majority of the House GOP supports cuts to essential programs. The Republican Study Committee, which includes 75% of House Republican members, released a budget for 2023 that would take measures to reduce or eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SNAP benefits – voucherizing, means-testing, cutting funding, and imposing stricter requirements to gut coverage for millions of Americans.