The NLRB now has a quorum for the first time since last January, after the swearing in today of new Republican members James Murphy and Scott Mayer, the agency says. Trump fired Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox, claiming the law protecting board members from removal without cause is unconstitutional

In 2025 I wrote about workers in aerospace, AI, banking, coffee, delivery, energy, gaming, grocery, hardware, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, maintenance, recycling, retail, software, and throughout the newly-upended US government, confronting or trying to foment change. 8 favorite stories:

“In areas like this where the law is either developing, or the ground below you is shifting – in the middle of a level nine earthquake, you have to figure out where you’re going to stand,” NLRB acting GC Bill Cowen told me www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scoop: NLRB decided to withdraw a complaint about confidentiality rules at Elon Musk's SpaceX because of SpaceX's lawsuit challenging the NLRB's constitutionality, the labor board's top prosecutor says. “Is this the horse we want to ride on this issue?” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

anything happen the past couple weeks while I was away?

Honored by these awards from SF Press Club for features on Musk's war on the NLRB - bloomberg.com/news/feature... - and subminimum wage pay for workers with disabilities - bloomberg.com/news/feature... Grateful to all who make this work possible. Wherever you work, please bring me your stories!

The old joke in the National Park Service is that rangers are “paid in sunsets.” Spurred by the Trump administration’s chainsaw cuts to the federal workforce, now many workers are hoping to change that, by unionizing. My latest, with @josheidelson.bsky.social: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

I'll be off until December 29. In the meantime, check out these @BW features: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Happy Holidays!

“It was just one fire after another… And it’s still like that today.” “I don’t want to stay at a park service that looks like this. But I don’t want to give up on it, either.” “Trump’s probably the best union organizer we have” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Park service staff have long joked that they’re “paid in sunsets,” sometimes relying on food banks. Supervisor told one, “seasonals are to be seen, not heard.” Staff often have to share bedrooms with co-workers, or the mice who keep infesting the housing. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

New BW feature: While federal unions play defense elsewhere, a unionization wave is building in the National Park Service, driven by slash-and-burn Trump Admin. cuts, decades of prior bipartisan neglect, and worker-to-worker organizing www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... w/ @mslaurabliss.bsky.social

So great, immense solidarity. For a labor movement in harmony with the Earth — to borrow from the Wobblies.

Scoop: Park Service staff at 24 parks and offices are petitioning to unionize. Federal employees at a dozen including Grand Canyon filed for an election today, following staff at a dozen others including Joshua Tree who recently did same www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scoop: Park Service staff at 24 parks and offices are petitioning to unionize. Federal employees at a dozen including Grand Canyon filed for an election today, following staff at a dozen others including Joshua Tree who recently did same www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scoop: Amazon's Ring division has ordered hundreds of customer service workers to relocate if they want to keep their jobs, saying bringing them to central hubs will help push towards becoming a “proactive, AI-powered support ecosystem.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: Unionized Starbucks baristas are striking today - the company's Red Cup Day promotion - in 40+ cities, an open-ended work stoppage they say could grow to become their biggest to date www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Honored by this @SF_PressClub recognition - thanks to everyone who makes these stories possible! Wherever you work, please bring me your stories... sfpressclub.org/2025/11/12/s...

Scoop: Starbucks baristas plan to strike on Red Cup Day next week if demands aren’t met, and to mount what the union says would grow to be their biggest and longest work stoppage yet www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Washington Post editorial board weighs in on our story (www.bloomberg.com/news/article...), calling it “RFK Jr.’s offshore wind fishing expedition”: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Scoop: HHS Secretary RFK Jr. directed CDC staff to probe the harms of offshore wind farms, a clean energy source loathed by Trump. RFK personally met with NIOSH's director about the issue, and gave him a list of experts the agency should contact about it www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scoop: HHS Secretary RFK Jr. directed CDC staff to probe the harms of offshore wind farms, a clean energy source loathed by Trump. RFK personally met with NIOSH's director about the issue, and gave him a list of experts the agency should contact about it www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“Amid the mounting discontent, Amazon recently announced a 20% hike to 12 ¢ for each package the firms deliver. It was the 1st such increase… because it doesn’t take effect until January, some saw it as a carrot to keep them working through the holidays” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“A career official answered: Less humanitarian aid would mean more people would die. ‘You could say that about any of these cuts,’ Vought replied. A person familiar with the ­meeting described his reaction as ‘blasé.’” www.propublica.org/article/russ... @andykroll.bsky.social

Kinda like there’s a style of acting that screams, “I’M AN ACTOR ACTING,” there’s a style of writing that screams “I’M A WRITER WRITING”

Cali just banned bosses from requiring workers to repay them if they quit: www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/u... Staffing agencies have sued hundreds of healthcare workers for quitting or refusing work, sometimes seeking five figures, I reported in this investigation: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Thrilled to receive this @sidneyhillman.bsky.social award for my @businessweek.bsky.social investigation on the dismembering of NIOSH. Grateful to everyone who makes this reporting possible. Wherever you work, please bring me your stories! www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Scoop: Under Trump's NLRB general counsel, the agency's withdrawn a slew of allegations it had been prosecuting, including that an Apple all-staff email Tim Cook sent was illegally coercive, & that firms including Curaleaf had illegal noncompete agreements www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: NLRB attorneys tell judge Amazon wielded “overwhelming control” over drivers it claimed weren't its employees. Amazon suggests NLRB, under Trump's acting GC, is using subpoenas for a "fishing expedition" on joint employer as part of a broader agenda www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: NLRB attorneys tell judge Amazon wielded “overwhelming control” over drivers it claimed weren't its employees. Amazon suggests NLRB, under Trump's acting GC, is using subpoenas for a "fishing expedition" on joint employer as part of a broader agenda www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

PPE manufacturer whose Kansas factory helped supply essential workers with respirators in pandemic tells me it’ll have to stop making respirators if NIOSH ends PPE certification program as Trump proposes. In meantime it’s holding off on releasing new model www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Interviews with 40+ current or recent employees throughout NIOSH, and dozens of others, detail how Trump’s cuts have upended safety research on everything from fracking to opioids, along with chemical risks in nail salons, electric-vehicle fires and terror attacks www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Great article by @josheidelson.bsky.social on how Trump and RFK, Jr., have gutted NIOSH, an absolutely essential health agency. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Trump's reckless cuts to NIOSH threaten workers' lives. These cuts put vital research, PPE certification, and health programs at risk. We must fully restore this funding to protect workers.

New @businessweek.bsky.social feature: On a budget of $1 per American, NIOSH conducts or funds most US research on how to keep workers alive & well. The Trump Administration decided to blow it up. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Based on interviews with 40+ current/recent staff throughout NIOSH

Building trades unions whose members are affected by the stalled development of wind farms have reached out to the White House and others in the Trump Administration, and haven’t gotten a meaningful response back, per person familiar www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"The floor is lined with so many decomposed hogs that wooden walkways were placed over their bodies for employees to get across... One photo shows what appears to be animal waste seeping into the office." sentientmedia.org/iowa-pork-pl... @ninaelkadi.com

Looking forward to seeing folks at #NLGJA25 this week! Eager to connect with anyone who wants to talk about working at Bloomberg or about journalism in general. And would love to see you at our panel Thursday, "Getting Sources to Talk to Us," 9:45am, Ellington Salon A

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... #LaborDay

Uber, Lyft, SEIU, Gavin Newsom, legislative leaders reach deal to pass California bills creating a gig worker collective bargaining system and giving insurance relief to the companies www.latimes.com/california/s...

New: "This mission remains strong, and so does my full confidence in you," RFK tells CDC staff in internal email. “Reform does not diminish your work; it strengthens it." "President Trump and I are aligned on the commonsense vision for the CDC" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Monarez's lawyers say she hasn't gotten notice of firing as CDC director from White House, but was being “targeted” because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts” Latest: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Breaking: Three senior CDC leaders just resigned following news of ouster of recently-confirmed CDC head Susan Monarez, who had a confrontation Monday with RFK about vaccines. One of those resigning cited “the ongoing weaponizing of public health” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

In a new @poweratwork.bsky.social Labor Reporters Roundtable, @mrsethharris.bsky.social is joined by @msainato.bsky.social and @josheidelson.bsky.social to discuss the latest stories involving unions, worker power, & worker collective action! Watch the blogcast now at poweratwork.us/blogcast-98-...!

I’ll be off (and mostly offline) until July 28. In the meantime, check out this @businessweek.bsky.social feature investigation about the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities - Trump just scrapped Biden’s proposal to end it www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Trump's Labor Department is withdrawing Biden's proposal that would have ended the permission some employers get to pay workers with disabilities below minimum wage (bloomberg.com/news/feature...): news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-...

Lucky to be celebrating three years married to this guy ♥️

At #IRE25 ? We've got a FOIA session for you at 10:15. Join @josheidelson.bsky.social @suzykhimm.bsky.social and myself for tips and tricks to access records at the local and national level.

Excited to see folks at @ire.org conference- lemme know if you'll be there! Looking forward to this FOIA session @suzykhimm.bsky.social, @martajewson.bsky.social & I will be leading; we'll discuss how people can lead us to documents,& documents can lead us to people schedules.ire.org/ire-2025/ind...