These are some noteworthy labor headlines we read this week.

Weekend Labor Reads:

TOP STORY

Zohran Mamdani: New York's Working Class Elects a Movement Mayor

This article chronicles the ascent of New York’s newly elected Mayor Mamdani through the perspective of the city’s working class. Throughout his campaign, Mamdani engaged with New York workers and expressed his commitment addressing the high cost of living. His campaign’s messaging and key policy goals–to tax the rich, make buses free and freeze rent–resonated across the city’s diverse districts. Mamdani’s working class appeal and strategy catapulted him from a complete unknown to the mayor of the largest city in the U.S. within a year. But a single election does not guarantee change. Anticipating a long road ahead, unions and community organizations are forming coalitions to leverage the excitement and motivation generated by Mamdani’s historic win and ensure real change is set in motion. 

LaborNotes

Luis Feliz Leon

FEDERAL UPDATES

How the Shutdown Is Affecting Federal Services and Workers

The New York Times

Elena Shao, Lazaro Gamio and Ashley Wu

FEDERAL UPDATES

Top labor groups break with federal union's support of Republican measure to end shutdown

ABC News

Max Zahn

LABOR ACTIONS



Starbucks workers union vote to authorize strike amid stalled talks

Reuters

Waylon Cunningham

LABOR ACTIONS

Students, Unions to Protest Trump’s Higher Ed Agenda Friday

Inside Higher Ed

Ryan Quinn

IRLE IN THE NEWS:

IRLE NEWS

UCLA launches labor studies department exploring inequality, social problems

Daily Bruin

Diana Corona

IMMIGRANT WORKERS

New Trump Policy Could Make Thousands Of Immigrants Vulnerable To Losing Their Jobs

Huffpost

Li Zhou

Ft. Victor Narro, UCLA Labor Center project director

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Should America End Birthright Citizenship?

Open to Debate – Arizona PBS

Ft. Chris Newman, Labor Studies lecturer 

Remember This!

Memory Work Los Angeles is a project of UCLA IRLE. We bring the past to the present to highlight the diverse experiences and perspectives of working people in Southern California, the changing world of work, and the continuing struggle for equality.

Day of Conscience Against Sweatshops, 1997

A garment worker carries a “Bill For Your Dirty Laundry” at a “Day of Conscience to End Sweatshops” rally and march in Los Angeles’ garment district on October 4, 1997. Organized by UNITE and its allies as part of their campaign against Guess? Jeans, the event was part of a national day of action that aimed to pressure the Presidential Task Force on Apparel Manufacturing to enforce a strong accord that would protect garment workers’ rights in Los Angeles and around the world. 

Photograph by Linda A. Lotz, CLUE records (LSC.2441), UCLA Library Special Collections.

View more of Lotz’ photos from the CLUE collection here.

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UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) advances labor research and education for workplace justice. Through the work of its units – the UCLA Labor Center, the Human Resources Roundtable, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program (LOSH) and its academic program, UCLA Labor Studies – the Institute forms wide-ranging research and agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.