Folks,
Greetings from Vitoria, Brasil, where I am doing a special newsletter after a wild night of calling the election live on the internet to over 1,300 viewers. Sorry for getting this out late, but I am exhausted from doing a 6-hour-long livestream on election results for The Fucking News.
Douglass Rushkoff, Melk, & Jonathan Larsen 6-Hour Long Livestream
Last night, I did a 6-hour livestream for The Fucking News with world-famous tech and media writer Douglas Rushkoff, whom MIT Tech Review described as one of the 6th most influential thinkers in the world, and Jonathan Larsen, who I describe as one of the coolest dudes I know.
We talked about how media and politics are changing as the landscape literally changes. (Watch it here)
[Election Night 2026 with The Fucking News
Real-time analysis NOT of the bullshit that was only interesting until we learned who won](https://thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/election-night-2026-with-the-fucking)
Will Unions Strike to Overcome Trump’s Vetos?
Democrats have won a historic victory in Congress, propelled in large part by organized labor.
“Exit polls show union households voted 21 points more for Democrats than Republicans nationwide, driving victories that were decisive for control of Congress,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in a statement sent to Payday Report. “Union voters made up a historic high of 15% of the overall electorate.”
NBC projects that Democrats are expected to hold 255 seats while Republicans hold 180 seats; giving Democrats a 75 seat majority in the House of Representatives.
In the Senate, Democrats are expected to hold a margin of 55 to 45, but not enough to overcome the filibusters.
Even if both Houses pass bills, Trump could easily veto bills and has shown in the past that he is not afraid of the threat of government shutdowns. The question remains, what will labor do to overcome Trump’s veto?
CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson, who launched the call for the Minneapolis General Strike with four local union presidents, said that labor must keep the option of striking on the table.
“Labor has to start understanding that elections may change who is in office, but our ultimate power comes from our numbers and our leverage as workers,” Knutson told Payday Report. “We need to make that leverage a permanent part of our arsenal - not just during contract expiration or first Tuesday in November.”
Last year, on May Day, more than 300 May Day actions were held in cities across the United States including major strikes like in North Carolina, where teachers shut down all the major school districts in the state.
Could unions build power for strikes against Trump vetos this year? Payday hope to explore this question.
Help Cover Labor’s Fightback Against Trump
With Democrats in power, independent labor reporting is more important than ever and we need your help to do it. Donate to help us cover the fight for creative ideas in the labor movement.
PA Min Wage to Increase Due to Election
Back home in Pennsylvania yesterday, Pennsylvania Democrats won control of the PA State Senate for the first time since 1992.
For the first time in 40 years, Democrats will control the Governorship, the State House, and State Senate, giving them the votes needed to increase the minimum wage for the first time since 2009 when it was raised to comply with federal increases.
Now, Democrats are saying that they are likely to pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Pennsylvania.
“If you are working and making the minimum wage in Pennsylvania, we are going to, as first order of business, double that sucker and get you some more money in your pockets,” Senator Vincent Hughes (D-7) said during a Wednesday press conference.
Currently, approximately 500,000 Pennsylvanians make less than $15-an-hour. PA Governor Josh Shapiro said his first order of business would be to get these folks a raise.
“The first bill on my desk in January 2027 will be to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour,” Shapiro said during a rally this week in Lancaster.
For more on the dynamics with Pennsylvania’s new Democratic-controlled state legislature, check out Spotlight PA.
Militant Union Leader Wins Maine Senate Seat
Yesterday, logger union leader Greg Jackson beat Maine Senator Susan Collins, who held Maine’s Senate seat for nearly 30 years.
In 1998, Jackson helped lead a blockade of the Canadian border by loggers, designed to improve conditions for loggers in Maine. In 2019, Jackson wrote for the Bangor Daily News about why the loggers’ blockade matters for today’s movement:
Those of us who blocked the border knew the consequences. But we also knew what was at stake. We knew what would likely happen to us because we’d seen it before. Landowners had made examples of every brave worker who had stepped out of line to say what we were all thinking. But I knew that if something didn’t change, I would have to leave the industry forever. I had nothing to lose.
As a young father, I had a family to provide for, and the wages we were paid weren’t cutting it. The landowners were abusing a system designed to support an industry during workforce shortages. But there was no shortage of Mainers looking for work in the woods. The people who were supposed to represent me in Augusta and Washington weren’t doing next to nothing about it. Instead, they were accepting political donations on behalf of those corporate landowners.
By the time I was working in the woods, large landowners had already systemically stripped away workers’ rights by making loggers and haulers independent contractors instead of employees. At the time, folks had no idea how it would threaten our livelihoods.
The blockade was the product of generations’ worth of resentment among loggers and haulers, who were just trying to make a living. All we wanted was a chance to provide for our families, doing the work our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did before us. But we didn’t stand a chance in the fight against corporate landowners.
Things came to a head in October 1998, when we blocked the border to protest the illegal hiring of Canadian loggers over hardworking Mainers. Canadian loggers could work for less due to the exchange rate and their national health care system. We couldn’t compete. Landowners pitted workers against each other to grow their profits. They were getting away with breaking the law regarding hiring foreign workers — again. The Canadian government looks out for its citizens; all we wanted was our government to do the same.
For more, read Jackson’s piece in the Bangor Daily News.
Labor Wins Ballot Initiatives
Finally, Payday Report made an interactive ballot initiative map that tracked initiatives important to labor and equity movements around the country (wins are marked in green and losses are marked in red).
Here is a quick roundup of the wins:
- Tacoma unions backed a landmark rule requiring landlords to bargain with tenant unions.
- Maryland granted binding arbitration to public employees
- Missouri unions backed a fight to defeat an abortion ban
- Finally, Arizona unions defeated an anti-DEI ballot initiative
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending comments, complaints and cooking recipes to melk@paydayreport.com
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