Keith Brower Brown

Canadian Construction Workers Walk Out Against Tiers

Keith Brower Brown
Five men in hats, sunglasses and hi-viz vests hold signs--including one that says IBEW 1555 On Legal Strike

In the building trades, strikes have become vanishingly rare. But since late June, strikes by major construction unions have rocked jobsites across a Canadian province.

New Brunswick has a million residents on Canada's Atlantic coast, sharing a long border with the state of Maine. Construction investment has nearly doubled there in the last decade, especially for residential and infrastructure sites. Meanwhile, the number of construction workers ticked up by just a third.

In Bus Factories, A Triple-Decker Win

Main Image: 
The skeleton of an unfinished bus, and the outer shell of another are shown in a factory
May 29, 2026

What does it take to unionize factories today, especially in the South? In the last two years, bus manufacturing workers secured first union contracts and a national master agreement across New Flyer facilities in three states.

Their strategy shows how, with pressure from transit agencies that buy the buses, union members from organized sites leading outreach to non-union workers, and fighting stewards on the line, workers can unionize plants across a whole company.

Four Union Strategies to Fight on A.I.

Main Image: 
Women workers in red scrubs rally and chant, outdoors on a sunny day. They hold printed NNU signs. The woman most visible, in big sunglasses, holds a printed sign reading "Trust nurses, not A.I."
March 05, 2026

A corporate artificial intelligence frenzy is sowing fear for workers on a massive scale. Seventy-one percent of people in the U.S., according to a Reuters poll on A.I., are concerned “too many people will lose jobs.”

One Battle After Another: The Big Contract Fights Coming in 2026

Main Image: 
People, mostly white, rally outdoors on building steps. Printed signs say "Kill the cuts, save lives" and "UAW says: Fight for our future!" Handmade signs can't all be read but one says "Science belongs to everyone."
December 16, 2025

The coming year could keep the strikes rolling through steel mills, state offices, telephone lines, axle plants, baseball diamonds, and hospitals from coast to coast. Union contracts expiring in 2026 could open up major fights by manufacturing, education, entertainment, and government workers.

New Caucus Powers Up In the Electrical Workers

Main Image: 
Electrical workers in a tunnel.
September 17, 2025

On paper, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has power like few other unions in the country. The “sparkies” have over 700,000 members. Most of them have held onto pensions, family health plans, and some of the best pay in construction.

IBEW ranks have grown steadily for nearly a decade on building sites and power lines. A longtime union staffer took the presidency of the AFL-CIO four years ago. While millions of other workers face threats of layoff by automation, Electrical Workers are booking overtime building data centers.

Confront or Cave? Federal Pressure Splits the Building Trades

Main Image: 
July 24, 2025

One of the last nationwide bastions of union jobs is getting jackhammered by the Trump administration. Members are languishing in ICE prisons without trial. Programs that protect members from racism and sexism are getting the axe.

In response, building trades officers are split: some are pleading, some are protesting, and others are surrendering without a fight.

UAW Reformers Close Caucus, Launch New Organization

Main Image: 
View from back of an auditorium at UAW convention. People in red shirts sit in rows; one red hoodie front and center has UAWD logo on the back. Onstage, Shawn Fain is at the podium, someone in a suit stands near him, and other people mostly in red shirts sit arrayed at long tables on the dais. A big blue screen behind them has UAW logo and intials repeated, and some other images not clearly visible.
April 29, 2025

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the reform caucus in the Auto Workers, voted to dissolve at its quarterly online membership meeting April 27.

“It was a heartbreaking decision to come to,” said UAWD founder and chair Scott Houldieson, a 36-year electrician at Ford. “UAWD had become a caucus that is ‘resolutionary,’ and focused more on caucus discipline than on actually organizing workers. Meetings had become dreadful. We can have differences as long as we make a decision and move on.”

Battery Workers Organize To Safeguard Their Health

Main Image: 
60 people at tables hold papers high in the air
April 20, 2025

Rural Kentucky factory workers in the heart of the Southern battery belt filed for election January 7 to join the Auto Workers. More than two-thirds of the 900 hourly workers signed the union petition at BlueOval, a joint venture of Ford and SK On.

Electric vehicle batteries are a booming sector. If these workers succeed in building a strong union, they can set the standard to make these jobs worth keeping, and potentially build a base to take a clean energy transition further.

Stewards Corner: Organizing to ‘Green’ Your Job: What Works?

Main Image: 
March 27, 2025

Stewards often build fights around small issues, and they need to. But stewards also have a special charge to stay ahead of the boss—to think big about shifting power on the job, including by driving the move to green production.

The union can fight smarter when it’s not just reacting to the boss’s plans—when members have talked over their own goals for making work different.

Pages