This is a cross-post from Labor's Edge by Rebecca Band of the California Labor Federation.

For decades, performers have been coming together in unions to bargain for fair protections and decent working conditions. And this year, actors and performers took their collective voice to the next level by voting overwhelmingly to merge the two biggest entertainment and media industry unions—Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)—into one big union, SAG-AFTRA. Actress Gabrielle Carteris, who starred as Andrea Zuckerman on the original series Beverly Hills, 90210, has been actively involved with the merger for nearly two years, a process which she describes as “exciting, challenging, inspiring and historic.” Carteris spoke with Labor's Edge for a Q and A on the merger and her involvement in the labor movement. 

Two years ago on Aug. 5., a San José copper-gold mine located in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert, caved in, trapping 33 miners 2,257 feet underground. “The 33,” as they were quickly known around the world, survived a staggering 69 days underground before their rescue.

Check out the AFL-CIO's new Innovators website feature, "Law Students Connect with Workers, Community in Summer of Service" here.

As participants in the AFL-CIO’s Law Student Summer (LSUS) program, Mehta, Callahan and 10 others “are learning, hands-on, how they can make a difference in people’s lives,” says AFL-CIO Associate General Counsel Nancy Schiffer, who coordinates LSUS. 

LSUS’ sister initiative, the Minority Outreach Program, taps into the extensive network of some 1,900 union attorneys who belong to the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee(LCC) and encourages law students of color to apply for summer clerkship opportunities at LCC law firms and legal departments throughout the country.

The LSUS and the Minority Outreach Program internships are no fillers for vacationing office support staff. They are all about boots on the ground, with interns fanning out across the country to help workers gain a voice on the job and help unions represent members and contribute to the community.

Click here to find out more. 

Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), says the first raise New York City taxi drivers will receive in six years means: 

We'll be able to earn a decent living.

New York City taxi drivers have something to celebrate. Starting in September, they will receive a long-awaited raise, reported The New York Times.

The 34th Annual Great Labor Arts Exchange and Conference on Creative Organizing kicks off today and runs through Monday at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, Md. Sponsored by the Labor Heritage Foundation, the Great Labor Arts Exchange celebrates the rich cultural heritage of working people and brings together talented labor artists, activists, cultural workers, educators and students.

A federal judge in Texas today blocked an election by 10,000 American Airlines passenger service agents that the National Mediation Board (NMB) last week ordered to begin June 21. Last month, American filed suit against the NMB’s decision to allow the workers to vote on joining the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In a statement this afternoon CWA said:

Clearly the airline is afraid of workers having their democratic vote and has been fighting hard to stop it.

Fifty-nine pilot and flight simulator instructors at The Boeing Company voted by a 4-to-1 margin to join the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)/IFPTE Local 2001 in an election that was certified today.

Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will address scholars, labor activists and workers’ center organizers at the second annual conference of the Labor Research and Action Network (LRAN) at Georgetown University on June 12. Wilkerson is the author of The Warmth of Other Suns, a magnificent rendition of the great migration of some 6 million black Americans from the rural South to urban areas in the North and West.

Based on a technicality, a federal judge today rejected commonsense rules making National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union elections fairer.