Dec 18, 2025 | Politics & Legislative News
IAM Union International President Brian Bryant recently wrote a letter urging the U.S. Senate to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550, S. 2837) following its bipartisan approval by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The legislation passed the House by a vote of 231-195. It would restore collective bargaining rights to federal workers impacted by a recent executive order that stripped those rights from roughly 75 percent of the federal workforce.
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The bill was introduced in the House by Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). The Senate companion legislation, introduced by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), currently has 48 cosponsors, including two Republicans.
“The IAM is a strong advocate for workers’ rights and firmly believes this EO is blatantly illegal,” wrote Bryant in the letter. “This EO is an assault on the rights and job security for federal workers caring for our veterans, keeping our military ready, adjudicating passport applications, caring for our public lands, and performing countless other essential public services.”
The IAM strongly believes the executive order is illegal and undermines the fundamental right to collective bargaining, which has long helped ensure workplace protections and efficient delivery of public services.
The IAM represents thousands of federal workers across the country, including members of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM), an IAM affiliate representing approximately 110,000 federal workers nationwide.
The bipartisan House vote demonstrates growing momentum to reverse the unjust removal of federal workers’ collective bargaining rights. The IAM is calling on the Senate to act swiftly and pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act to ensure fairness, stability, and respect for America’s federal workforce.
Read the complete letter here.
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Dec 16, 2025 | Politics & Legislative News
IAM Union International Affairs Director Peter Greenberg testified before the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), calling for the implementation of urgent and enforceable labor standards in the upcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The IAM Union warned that current shortcomings in the agreement continue to fuel outsourcing, weaken labor protections, and undermine the economic security of working people across North America.
Greenberg outlined the union’s longstanding concerns with USMCA’s failure to meaningfully improve labor conditions in Mexico or face the loss of good-paying U.S. and Canadian manufacturing and aerospace jobs.
“Unfortunately, our concerns about USMCA have proven to have been accurate: Mexican industrial wages remain lower than those in China, and offshoring of well-paid U.S. jobs continues, including many in the aerospace sector,” said Greenberg. “Since USMCA was enacted, we have seen further erosion of good, middle-class, union jobs in the United States. In order to prevent this from continuing, we need to take vigorous action during the upcoming review.”
The IAM Union emphasized the crucial importance of strengthening rules of origin, expanding Labor Value Content, and ensuring that goods moving duty-free under the USMCA are genuinely produced in North America. IAM Union members build and maintain some of the most advanced aircraft and engines in the world, supporting both commercial aviation and U.S. national defense.
Weak USMCA provisions have allowed products with significant non-North American content – particularly from China – to enter the U.S. duty-free, undermining domestic aerospace manufacturing and the integrated U.S.-Canada supply chain.
Greenberg also pointed to the findings of the Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board (IMLEB), which documented ongoing failures by the Mexican government to enforce core labor rights and penalize employers who violate them. Without more vigorous enforcement, increased funding for labor rights monitoring through the U.S. Department of Labor, and meaningful penalties for violators, Mexican workers will continue to be denied the rights necessary to build an independent and democratic labor system.
“The IAM Union message is simple: If we strengthen labor standards, they must be enforced. And if we enforce them, companies must not be allowed to undermine them by seeking cheaper labor elsewhere,” said IAM International President Brian Bryant. “Working families deserve a trade agreement that works for them and not against them.”
As part of the USTR’s USMCA hearings series, the IAM’s Maine Lobstering Union also delivered testimony, urging the USTR to confront long-standing inequities in the Agreement that place Maine’s lobstermen at a competitive disadvantage. These imbalances – ranging from unequal conservation requirements to inconsistent enforcement across borders – continue to threaten the livelihoods of working families and the stability of coastal communities that rely on a fair and sustainable fishing industry.
The IAM Union submitted formal comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on the upcoming joint review of the USMCA. In its submission, the IAM Union urged the administration to strengthen labor enforcement, raise wage standards, and close the loopholes that continue to fuel the offshoring of aerospace, manufacturing, and other critical jobs across North America.
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Dec 1, 2025 | Politics & Legislative News
The IAM Union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) and the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM) issued the following statement in response to the end of the federal government shutdown:
“While we are extremely disappointed that the GOP did not negotiate a deal that prevents a healthcare crisis, nor does it restore draconian cuts to Medicaid, our top priority has and will always will be to protect our members who do vitally important work for the federal government — both as federal employees and federal contractors. We are encouraged by the reopening of the government and strongly urge Congress to do its jobs and provide back pay for all workers — federal employees and contractors — who were furloughed during this manufactured shutdown.
“The IAM Union represents more than 115,000 federal workers and over 30,000 Service Contract Act workers who have endured needless financial and emotional strain because of political dysfunction. These hardworking public servants perform critical duties every day: supporting our military, protecting our public lands and natural resources, caring for our veterans, and ensuring that essential government services reach every community in America. They deserve stability, respect, and timely pay for their labor.
“We believe that the contract workers who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with federal employees should receive full back pay without delay, and the IAM continues to point out that over a million federal contract workers went unpaid during prior shutdowns. The lack of back pay for federal contract workers shows a lack of respect for the work they do to help keep our nation safe.
“We urge Congress and the administration to work together to provide backpay to all federal workers and contractors while taking measures to prevent future shutdowns. The American people deserve a government that works as hard and as faithfully as they do. No family should ever again be forced to choose between paying bills and serving their country.
“The IAM and NFFE-IAM will continue to stand with our members and fight to ensure their voices are heard, their pay is protected, and their work is respected.”
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Dec 1, 2025 | Politics & Legislative News
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2025 – The IAM Union wrote a letter urging all members of Congress to support the process for successful passage of the Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550), bipartisan legislation that would restore collective bargaining rights stripped from federal workers by President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order.
A bipartisan group of 218 House members signed the discharge petition (H. Res. 432), forcing consideration of the bill introduced by U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine). The measure would nullify the executive order titled Exclusions from the Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, which removes collective bargaining rights from roughly 75% of the federal workforce.
“Federal workers matter,” wrote IAM Union International President Brian Bryant. “These are hard-working individuals who are our neighbors, our relatives and our friends, and they’ve taken the civic duty to ensure our nation keeps moving forward. Federal workers deserve the right of collective bargaining, which provides protections in the workplace and better service to the public, just to name a few benefits.”
The IAM, one of the most diverse labor unions in the country, represents thousands of federal workers, including the 110,000 federal employees of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM), the IAM’s federal sector affiliate.
The IAM strongly supports this bipartisan effort to restore collective bargaining rights to our nation’s federal workforce and is calling on all members of Congress to vote to move this critical legislation forward.
Read the complete letter here.
The IAM Union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) is one of North America’s largest and most diverse industrial trade unions, representing approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airlines, shipbuilding, railroad, transit, healthcare, automotive, and other industries across the United States and Canada.
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