After more than 18 months of unsuccessful contract negotiations, Starbucks Workers United on Nov. 13 kicked off the “Red Cup Rebellion,” a nationwide strike that has expanded to include thousands of baristas at more than 145 coffeehouses.


The Utah Legislature voted in a Dec. 9 special session to repeal an anti-labor law adopted earlier this year after a coalition of 21 labor unions, including the Utah Education Association, collected 250,000 signatures in favor of a referendum to repeal the new legislation.

As the Trump administration continues to decimate the U.S. Department of Education, a coalition of states is challenging the shifting of many of the department’s core functions to the U.S. Department of Labor and three other federal agencies.

The Trump administration is targeting the jobs of more than 450 workers in the U.S. Department of Education as part of a reduction-in-force during the ongoing government shutdown. Among the casualties would be the office responsible for oversight of some $15 billion in special education funding for 7.5 million children with disabilities.

More than 1,200 of the roughly 3,000 South Carolina students who received school vouchers last school year later withdrew or were removed from the taxpayer-funded program due to eligibility concerns, according to state Department of Education data.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plans to lay off thousands of federal workers during the government shutdown, siding with unions, which have argued that the dismissals were illegal.