A proposal to make it easier for workers to access all of their retirement funds across different employers has passed into law after being added to the omnibus funding bill last week, marking a small win for workers. The Retirement Savings Lost and Found Act, first introduced by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Steve Daines (R-Montana), creates an online “lost and found” database…
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Republican U.S. Representative-elect George Santos has admitted that he told numerous lies about his résumé on the campaign trail amid calls for him to resign after reporters uncovered the lies in an explosive investigation last week. On Monday, Santos, elected to represent New York’s 3rd congressional district in November, told the New York Post that he “embellished” his professional background…
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The Senate voted to include a measure to expand basic workplace protections for pregnant people in its omnibus funding bill on Thursday, marking a win for labor advocates during a time of precarity for reproductive rights in the U.S. Senators agreed to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in a 73 to 24 vote on Thursday as the chamber considered a series of amendments to the omnibus funding bill.
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New reporting finds that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was warned by a confidential informant that the far right saw a December 2020 tweet from President Donald Trump as “a call to arms” to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021, adding to a mountain of evidence that federal agencies were unprepared on the day of the attack despite having had ample warning. Weeks before the attack…
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As labor regulators fight for increased funding for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and activists wrap up a watershed year for the labor movement, new polling finds that a majority of voters support the movement’s goals and are in favor of upping the agency budget and increasing penalties for employers that violate labor laws. A survey of over 1,300 likely voters, released this week by…
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New York warehouse employers must now follow stricter rules regarding quotas on their workers, according to a law drafted with input from Amazon Labor Union (ALU) in response to Amazon’s severe productivity requirements. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Warehouse Worker Protection Act on Wednesday, after the bill passed the legislature this summer. The law is modeled after a similar law passed in…
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New data shows that the gap between the top wealthiest Americans and the working class reached new heights last year as multimillionaires in the top 1 percent experienced the highest wage raises in real, inflation-adjusted dollars while the wages of the bottom 90 percent fell. In 2021, the top 1 percent of earners saw their annual wages rise by 9.4 percent. The raise for the wealthiest of the 1…
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Trader Joe’s workers in Louisville, Kentucky, have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to form a union, seeking to become the third-ever Trader Joe’s location to do so. Workers have petitioned to join an independent union, Trader Joe’s United, which was formed earlier this year by a now-unionized location in Hadley, Massachusetts. The union says “well over” 30 percent…
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Explosive new reporting reveals that former senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway appears to have reached a business agreement with prominent conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo in 2017 — an agreement that apparently paid off in spades for the activist when Conway advocated for President Donald Trump to nominate Supreme Court justices backed by Leo. Politico reported on Tuesday that…
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After months of advocacy from pro-labor groups and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union members, members of Congress have included a modest funding boost for the NLRB in the must-pass omnibus funding bill, which the NLRB union says will help stave off major funding problems in the short term. The bill proposes a $25 million budget increase for the agency tasked with carrying out union…
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) is raising alarm that Elon Musk is shirking legal responsibilities, misappropriating resources and ignoring potential conflicts of interest in his ownership of Twitter, saying in a new letter to Tesla’s board chair that Musk is treating the social media website as a “private plaything.” In her letter sent on Sunday, Warren raised concern over the way that…
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The House January 6 Committee voted unanimously on Monday to refer former President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for four criminal charges, including insurrection, bringing to a head their investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly two years after the attack took place. Noting the ample volume of evidence they have collected in their 18- month-long…
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The House passed a long-awaited bill last week that would allow residents of Puerto Rico to vote on the fate of the U.S. territory, whether that be statehood, independence, or otherwise — a move that advocates say is crucial to beginning to right the harms of colonization that have long plagued the island. The Puerto Rico Status Act passed on a bipartisan basis by a 233 to 191 vote on Thursday…
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More than 1,000 Starbucks employees at about 100 stores nationwide walked off the job on Friday in protest of the company’s union busting, waging what is now the largest national strike action in the union campaign’s history. Workers are embarking on a three-day strike that will last through the weekend in what Starbucks Workers United has dubbed the “Double Down Strike,” in response to the…
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) had a strong message for Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Thursday as he went on an account banning spree on the platform: step back from “proto-fascism” and stop lobbing false accusations of doxing at journalists. “You’re a public figure. An extremely controversial and powerful one,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter in response to Musk claiming, without evidence…
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As Donald Trump faces yet more legal troubles and gears up for another presidential run in 2024, new polling finds that he is now more unpopular than he ever was during his presidency — during which he was rated the most unpopular president in nearly 100 years. Polling of over 1,600 adults, including over 1,400 registered voters, released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, finds that a mere 31…
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled this week that companies that illegally fire workers will face an expanded set of penalties for the action, aimed at deterring companies from committing unfair labor practices and helping workers bounce back after being unexpectedly fired. Typically, when an employee is found to be illegally terminated, companies are required to issue remedies like…
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Progressive lawmakers and labor advocates are saying that a crucial funding boost for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) must be the “highest priority” for Congress to pass before the end of the year as lawmakers consider a funding package for 2023. In a press conference on Tuesday, Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-New York), Ro Khanna (D-California), Andy Levin (D-Michigan)…
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Conservative state lawmakers waged an assault on state courts in 2022, introducing dozens of bills that seek to give themselves more power by preventing courts from being able to block unlawful abortion bans or election restrictions, in what appears to be a step in fascism’s “legal phase.” A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice finds that lawmakers across 25 states considered at least 74…
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Recently uncovered financial documents reveal that last year, as Elon Musk was taunting the United Nations over his choice to withhold $6 billion that he said he would donate to solve world hunger, the right-wing billionaire gave the money to a different source: his own foundation. Late last year, Musk donated roughly $5.7 billion worth of Tesla shares, as many wealthy people do through donor…
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Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) called for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) to be removed from Congress on Monday after the far right lawmaker remarked that, had she led the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, she would have “won.” At a gala held by the New York Young Republicans Club over the weekend, Greene said that, “if Steve Bannon and I organized [the attack], we would have won.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) has called for the implementation of stricter ethics rules governing Supreme Court justices after explosive testimony from a former conservative activist revealed that certain right-wing justices had maintained close relationships with conservative evangelical groups over the course of decades. On Thursday, evangelical minister Robert Schenck testified…
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A new investigation finds that hundreds of people on membership rolls for the far right group the Oath Keepers are current or former employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — the agency theoretically tasked with defending the public against extremist right-wing movements. According to a report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and the Organized Crime and Corruption…
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has vowed to vote against the 2023 national defense budget, saying that it is unconscionable to spend that amount on defense when millions across the U.S. are struggling to survive. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Sanders said that he is planning to continue his tradition of voting against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) when it soon…
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Right-wing billionaire Elon Musk has given prominent conservative figures access to Twitter’s internal systems this week to create and publicize the so-called Twitter Files — a trove of information that Musk is using to “expose” the social media platform’s supposed left-wing bias under its previous management but that, in reality, only serves to spread far right conspiracy theories and propaganda.
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In one of the most aggressive antitrust moves taken against Big Tech in recent history, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Thursday that it is moving to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video games company Activision Blizzard. The agency is suing over concerns that the acquisition would give Microsoft, which makes game console Xbox, too much power over the gaming industry…
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As President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan is held up in court, new polling finds that student debt relief was a major driver of votes in this year’s midterm election — especially among young voters, who were crucial to delivering wins for Democrats in November. Among 1,500 midterm voters polled by the Student Borrower Protection Center and Seven Letter Insight after the general…
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Workers for The New York Times are staging the outlet’s largest work stoppage in over 40 years, with over 1,100 employees walking out on Thursday for a 24-hour strike, demanding a fairer share of the outlets’ financial success as months of contract negotiations come to a head. After a marathon negotiation session on Tuesday and Wednesday, members of the New York Times Guild decided to walk out…
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A group of 20 Democrats and progressives in the Senate are urging President Joe Biden to crack down on federal contractors’ political donations to help reduce “quid pro quo corruption” among federal lawmakers and lobbyists and shine a much-needed light on dark money spending. In a letter spearheaded by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and signed by 20 senators…
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A last ditch push from conservative coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Democratic leaders to force a giveaway package for the fossil fuel industry through Congress has failed after climate activists and progressives united against it. The text of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was released Tuesday night without the text of the side deal that Democratic leaders struck…
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