The Local: May 22, 2025 news roundup
Welcome back to The Local, a publication of NYC-DSA Labor Working Group reporting every two weeks (although, our apologies, we are one week late this time). Send any tips, corrections, and other feedback to thenyclocal@substack.com. In this issue, engineers on the New Jersey Transit go on a historic three-day strike, School of Visual Arts faculty win their union election to join the UAW, and a reform slate takes over at 1199SEIU.
Photo by Alexandra Chan at May Day rally on 05/01.
Organizing (asterisks indicate employer-filed petitions for union election)
Building service workers at 77 Charlton Condominium voted 8-0 to join SEIU 32BJ.
Workers at the Starbucks location at 33 Vesey Street voted 9-3 to join Workers United.
Workers at the South Bronx Community Management Company voted 5-0 to joinTeamsters Local 808.
Workers at the New York Blood Center voted 21-1 to join 1199SEIU.
Workers at the Sesame Workshop voted 55-19 to join OPEIU Local 153.
Faculty at the School of Visual Arts voted 568-167 to join the UAW.
Workers at MetroRock Bushwick are organizing with Workers United.
Workers at The Center for Fiction are organizing with RWDSU.
Workers at The Kitchen at Westbeth are organizing with UAW Local 2110.
Workers at Skipp to My Lilly/Lisa Management are organizing with Teamsters Local 810, in what might be a raid on a unit currently repped by the United Workers of America Local 621.
And decertification petitions have been filed at Atlantis Wash Lube in Brooklyn (currently repped by RWDSU) and The Door, A Center of Alternatives (currently repped by AFSCME Local 215 - DC37).
Bargaining & Action
05/07: WGAEast members at NowThis unanimously ratify their new contract.
05/08: Cinema Village workers with UAW Local 2179 voted unanimously to authorize a strike.
05/09: Con Edison building cleaning workers represented by 32BJ SEIU have reached a first contract.
05/11: 2,000 Starbucks Workers United members at 120 U.S. stores went on strike to protest a new dress code.
05/18: For the first time in 40 years, New Jersey Transit workers went out on strike, halting commuter rail service for hundreds of thousands of daily passengers. The workers, represented by the Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), had been working without a contract for six years. NJT resumed service early Tuesday after the union and management reached a tentative agreement. [Associated Press; Jacobin]
05/21: 1,200 National Grid members of IBEW Local 1049 in Long Island’s natural gas and power plants voted 590–90 to ratify a new contract.
Photo by Alexandra Chan at May Day rally on 05/01.
Albany
Gov. Hochul negotiated the reopening of an offshore wind project that had been put on ice by the Trump administration. The project is estimated to create 1,500 union jobs. However, New York disputes the federal government’s statement that the wind project was saved in exchange for a potential natural gas pipeline through the state. [Gothamist]
Albany passed a $254 billion final budget. [New York Focus]
City Hall
The New York Court of Appeals (the highest state court) heard final arguments on whether the city’s Medicare privatization for retirees can go through. [The City]
Miscellaneous
The longtime president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, George Gresham, has been ousted by a reform slate called Members First Unity led by union officer Yvonne Armstrong. Of the 38,000 members who voted in the first contested officer elections in a while, 69 percent voted for Armstrong over Gresham. Veronica Turner-Briggs of the same reform slate also ousted Secretary-Treasurer Milly Silva. Gresham had been recently hit with allegations regarding misuse of union funds. [The Chief Leader]
The contested election for top leadership at the United Federation of Teachers also goes to a vote this month, as two reform slates challenge five-term incumbent president Michael Mulgrew. [The City]
And yet another insurgent slate, this time at DC37’s Local 3005 (which represents workers at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene), is also looking to oust union leadership. Members of the Rank and File Voices slate had previously succeeded in passing a motion to divest union pension funds from Israeli stocks and bonds. [The Chief Leader]
After a federal judge in D.C. blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end collective bargaining for a broad swath of the federal workforce, an appeals court has temporarily reversed the order while they are reviewing the case, thus again suspending collective bargaining and dues collection for the affected federal unions. [Politico]
Harry Nespoli, the longtime president of Teamsters Local 831 (representing city sanitation workers) has retired after a 55-year career. [Labor Press]
The National Labor Relations Board has filed a petition in a federal court alleging that the nonprofit Covenant House New York has refused to bargain in good faith with 190 employees who unionized with SEIU 1199 in 2022. [The Chief]
Job Listings
Organizing Director - Jobs to Move America (Salary: $108,000 - $125,000)
Local Representative - The NewsGuild of New York, CWA Local 31003 (Salary: $107,000 - $136,000)
Organizer - ACT-UAW Local 7902 (Salary: $75,616.00)
Union Representative - United Public Service Employees Union (Salary: $75,000.00 - $100,000.00)
A complete list of local union jobs can be found at unionjobs.com, alongside here is the complete list of New York City’s civil service exams. Additionally if you’re interested in taking a job in a strategic industry and want to be connected through the Labor Working Group, check out this form here.