For two years, management at IKEA’s Danville, Va., subsidiary Swedwood fought the workers’ choice to join the Machinists (IAM). But after yesterday’s overwhelming 221-69 vote, the workers who assemble furniture for IKEA stores have that voice at work.

BREAKING: In a 221-69 vote, workers at the IKEA [Swedwood] plant in Danville, Va., voted to join the Machinists (IAM) today. The 318 employees assemble products for IKEA.

Machinists (IAM) member Patrick Bertucci is a shop steward at Boeing’s Renton, Wash., plant where he works on wing assembly for the Boeing 737. Today he spoke to a packed Capitol Hill press conference about a House Republican bill designed to cripple the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) ability to protect workers:

When I go to work every day, I am held accountable to build the best and safest aircraft in the world. The Boeing Co. needs to be held accountable for their actions as well…I want the Boeing to be successful. But no company can succeed when they break the law.

Teresa Casertano in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department’s Global Campaigns section reports on upcoming contract negotiations at Bayer.

With a contract that expires on Aug. 24, more than 420 workers at the Berkeley facility of the giant Bayer pharmaceutical and health care conglomerate have been preparing for bargaining for several months with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6.  Union leaders have held trainings for rank-and-file leaders, collected suggestions for bargaining proposals and held house meetings to prepare members for action to back up the bargaining team.

This is a cross-post from the Machinists.

A Seattle-area veteran who served his country in Vietnam was the recipient of another kind of service recently when volunteers from the Machinists (IAM) union built a wheelchair ramp to help him get in and out of his Tukwila home.

The next episode of “Brotherhood Outdoors,” the  unique hunting and fishing series of the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA), features Machinists (IAM) Local 839 member Brett Graham, who takes show host Tom Ackerman on a two-day goose hunt near the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas.

The Paris Air Show—the largest and most prestigious in the world—draws thousands of aviation and aerospace companies looking for new products and technology and, in many cases, new manufacturing locations.

Standing over the production line in Renton, Wash., where members of  the Machinists (IAM) District 751 build Boeing Co.’s 737s, Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) yesterday announced that the state is investing $3 million to train hundreds of Washington workers to get the skills and certificates they need to work in the aerospace industry.

The Machinists (IAM) approved a new contract with Army Fleet Support, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,300 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

There was a time when Republicans claimed the “law and order” mantle was theirs and theirs alone.

But Republican senators’ recent cries of outrage against the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) issuance of a complaint against the Boeing Co. for trying to skirt federal labor law show they’re all for law and order as long as it’s not labor law.