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The Congressional Workers Union (CWU), which is seeking to build a "safer and more democratic workplace for congressional staff across the U.S. Congress," made an exciting announcement on Monday: they've unionized their first Senate office! Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts has voluntarily recognized his staff's desire to unionize.

CWU requested Markey voluntarily recognize their unit last year, on March 9 and it appears Markey immediately followed through. Everything since then has apparently been negotiating a formal recognition agreement and a collective bargaining agreement to go with it. Based on what CWU is saying, that process appears complete or almost complete; either way, it's very good for them to have a foothold in the Senate and hopefully staffers in other Senate offices are inspired by their win.


As an aside, congressional organizing is exceedingly difficult: even outside of demographics, when it comes to unionization the Capitol is effectively exempt from federal labor laws unless Congress decides to make itself not. And House Democrats did actually, for a time, make Congress subject to the same standards as everybody else. In 2022 they passed legislation that finally "grant[ed] congressional staff the protections to organize without threat of retaliation and to form a union and bargain collectively." Before Republicans repealed this legislation after winning the House in the 2022 midterms, at least 16 congressional offices1 that I can find took advantage of this.

But in the Senate, the filibuster has prevented any similar legislation from advancing since it'd require 60 votes and the issue has been much more quiet—although Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) did introduce a bill to try and force the issue last year. So the Markey staff team did actually take a pretty big risk in unionizing. Markey could have done effectively anything to his staff in response and they would have very little recourse.


  1. From what I can find, the following offices have unionized or have petitions to unionize: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14, 9-0); Mark Pocan (WI-02, 10-0); Mark Takano (CA-41, 6-0); Sean Casten (IL-06, 10-0); Dina Titus (NV-03, 7-1); Chuy L. García (IL-04; 11-0); Ilhan Omar (MN-05; 12-0); Ro Khanna (CA-17; 9-1); Cori Bush (MO-01); Rashida Tlaib (MI-12); Melanie Stansbury (NM-01); Ted Lieu (CA-36); Andy Levin (formerly MI-09; unanimous); Val Hoyle (OR-04); Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10); Sylvia Garcia (TX-29); and the Education and Workforce Committee.


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