These are some noteworthy labor headlines we read this week.

Weekly Labor Reads:

TOP STORY

U.S. Worker Thriving Declines as Job Market Pessimism Grows

Gallup

Despite some economic metrics holding steady, the “vibes” in the U.S., and the lived experiences of working people, are deteriorating. U.S. workers are facing the compounding crises of the high cost of living alongside a difficult job market. New data from Gallup indicate that conditions for U.S. workers were worse at the end of 2025 than at any point in the past three years. More workers reported struggling in their lives (49%) than thriving (46%) for the first time since Gallup began tracking this metric. Confidence in the job market also hit a new low, with just 28% of workers saying now is a good time to find a quality job, down from 70% in mid-2022.

TSA WORKERS

Unpaid TSA workers face 'exhausting anxiety' during shutdown

USA Today

Trevor Hughes

FARMWORKER MOVEMENT

The women leading the farmworker movement won’t let it be defined by Cesar Chavez

The 19th

Chabeli Carrazana, Shefali Luthra, Marissa Martinez

WOMEN AT WORK

It's Equal Pay Day. Women have lost ground for the second year in a row

NPR

Andrea Hsu

HIGHER EDUCATION WORKERS

Cal State’s War on Working-Class Education

Academe Magazine

Martha Lincoln and Martha Kenney

IRLE NEWS

RE:WORK PODCAST

Re:work – Autoqueen Trilogy, Part I

Re:Work Podcast

UCLA Labor Center

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

When 1 million marched for immigrant rights in Downtown L.A.

KCRW

Megan Jamerson

Ft. Victor Narro, UCLA Labor Center project director, and 
Chris Zepeda-Millán, UCLA Labor Studies professor

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 Without an Immigrant,” May Day, Los Angeles, 2001

This week, IRLE experts Victor Narro, UCLA Labor Center project director, and Chris Zepeda-Millán, UCLA Labor Studies professor, were featured on a KCRW radio story highlighting the immigrant rights uprising of 2006. This photo continues on that theme, documenting May 1, 2006, when hundreds of thousands marched in Los Angeles and other large U.S. cities in support of immigrant rights. Called by many “A Day without an Immigrant,” the May Day protests were the culmination of months of planning in response to a punitive immigration bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 4437). 

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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.