The FTC is suing the biggest alcohol distributor in the country, and it matters a whole lot more than you think.

It could even change the price of your groceries.

Here’s why you should know about the Robinson-Patman Act. Thread. The Robinson-Patman Act requires suppliers to offer the same prices and terms to all buyers. Passed in 1936 to protect small businesses, the law meant that big chains and corporations couldn’t get discounts that weren’t available to mom and pop shops.
ilsr.org/articles/the-c…

The Lambeau Field vendors who provide endless beer for Green Bay Packers fans have approved a new union contract with huge raises — doubling pay for some workers. 🧵 More than 90 drink vendors work at Lambeau Field, employed by the corporation Delaware North. They unionized last year with the independent union @MASHworkers, which also represents workers at the home arena of the Milwaukee Bucks.

greenbaypressgazette.com/story/sports/n…

Thread: Lina Khan is the chair of the FTC. For the past three years she’s set a new standard when it comes to fighting for working people.

She’s taken on Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, corporate landlords, and more.

Here's what fighting corporate power looks like 🧵 The FTC finalized a rule just days ago banning fake reviews and testimonials for products and services from being published.

This is the sort of work the commission has been up to under chair Lina Khan. /2
substack.perfectunion.us/p/the-ftc-says…

As Hurricane Milton nears landfall in Florida and over a million people have been ordered to evacuate, corporate price gouging has begun.

There are numerous reports of airlines and hotels suddenly jacking up prices as people need to flee.

Thread. Accusations are being leveled against United Airlines for dramatically increasing prices:

https://x.com/iowaradioguy/status/1843362951593660813

BREAKING: 45,000 port workers from Maine to Texas are on strike for the first time since 1977.

The members of the International Longshoremen’s Association walked off the job after their contract expired.

They're pushing for higher wages and to prevent job-killing automation. The ILA represents workers at 16 ports that handle half of the US's imports.

Wages have stagnated and sit as low as $20/hour for backbreaking, indispensable work. The union wants a yearly $5/hour raise for six years.

Port owners' refusal could cost the US $5 billion a week.

THREAD: Amazon, Tesla, and Meta are among the biggest threats to democracy, a new report by the International Trade Union Confederation shows.

These companies and the billionaires behind them are trying to subvert laws, attack unions, and challenge the foundation of democracy 🧵 The ITUC determined that Amazon, Tesla, and Meta are among the worst offenders by looking at the ways each company opposes unionization efforts among their employees, as well as violations of union and human rights law and their contributions to the climate crisis.

Thread: Private equity is involved in everything now, including housing.

Alden Global Capital has spent over $275 million on buying up more than 10,000 manufactured housing units to hike rent, enact junk fees, and evict people when they can’t pay.

Here’s how it went down 🧵 Alden Global Capital, already well known for buying and then shuttering physical newsrooms and leaving journalists without a place to do their work, have in recent years upped the ante by buying up housing units across 17 states.
aljazeera.com/economy/2024/3…

THREAD: Terry Belk quit his job to help his wife fight cancer.

She passed away, and now he's saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt. Even after selling his home, Belk couldn't pay it all off.

Then a nonprofit hospital sued for the $6,000 he still owed. Despite having insurance, Belk found that the $23,000 for his wife’s treatment, as well as $6,000 for his own treatment costs, was too much to pay due to high interest rates and a predatory debt collection system.

Today, he’s still paying $100 a month.
nbcnews.com/news/investiga…

Thread: One of America’s largest psychiatric hospital chains is holding people against their will to maximize insurance payouts and reap huge profits.

Here's how Acadia Healthcare traps patients physically and financially. Acadia charges up to $2,200 each day that a patient stays in one of their facilities, and uses a variety of tactics to keep them there.

They:
-Exaggerate symptoms
-Arbitrarily adjust the dosage of medications
-Misrepresent the circumstances of their stay
nytimes.com/2024/09/01/bus…

Today is Labor Day, and the working class has a lot to be excited about.

Unions are more popular than they’ve been in decades, and they’re winning victories too.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important developments over the last year.🧵 Last November, the United Auto Workers stood up in a historic strike against Stellantis, General Motors, and Ford and won contracts that will raise wages by at least 25% over the next four years. npr.org/2023/11/16/121…

A whole lot of people don't know what the government is up to.

71% of respondents to a recent poll think the government should sue monopolies like Ticketmaster, Google, and Amazon to reduce market power.

Only 35% know that's already happening. 🧵

substack.perfectunion.us/p/new-poll-gov… 75% of respondents to our poll supported making banks reduce overdraft and late fees, but only 31% knew that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau already began taking action on this in March.

Thread: A whole lot of people don't know what the government is up to.

71% of people in swing states think the government should sue monopolies like Ticketmaster, Google, and Amazon to reduce market power.

Only 35% know that's already happening.

substack.perfectunion.us/p/new-poll-gov… 75% of respondents to our recent poll supported making banks reduce overdraft and late fees, but only 31% knew that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau already began taking action on this in March.

California had a bill that would have made a real investment in bringing local journalism back.

Now that bill is dead — and it’s been replaced with a much worse deal for journalists, one that inexplicably includes AI funding.

🧵 2. Between 2008 and 2018, local journalism ad revenue in the US plummeted nearly 70%. And the number of newsroom positions in California has dropped 68% over the past 20 years.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google’s ad businesses get bigger and bigger — in the hundreds of billions — partially thanks to clicks on news stories.

BREAKING: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be the Democratic VP candidate, alongside Kamala Harris.

Walz forged a reputation as a Governor who makes good policy happen.

Last year he signed a law guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for all Minnesota students. And that's not all 🧵 Last year, Walz signed a law enacting paid family and medical leave, giving workers up to 20 weeks off.

“Paid family and medical leave seemed like a pipe dream for 10 years,” he said. “It seemed like—why can other people have this and we can’t?”
apnews.com/article/minnes…

A business reporter for Financial Times revealed how Wall Street is thinking about Kamala Harris’s candidacy.

It’s an illuminating look into how Big Business is trying to pull the strings behind the scenes and what Harris must do to show she is not influenced by corporate power. FT reporter @JFK_America said that Wall Street titans view Harris as a “clean slate” — and a potential departure from some of the stronger antitrust and pro-labor policies (and staffing decisions) of President Biden, especially on tech and crypto.

BREAKING: Apple Store workers in Maryland have made history, securing the first-ever tentative union contract at the world's most valuable company. Under the agreement, the workers will win 10% raises, scheduling improvements, limits on contracted workers, and more. These workers launched their organizing drive well over two years ago with @MachinistsUnion and were met with relentless union-busting by Apple, which publicly claims to maintain the "highest standards of labor conduct."

https://x.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1525135752857886720

NEW: Uber Eats, Grubhub, and Seamless want you to blame higher prices on minimum wage laws.

It’s a lie.

The truth is they gobbled up the entire food delivery industry, and now they’re charging you higher prices because you have no other choice. We found receipts for an identical delivery order made at a Chinese restaurant in 2019 and 2024.

In 2019, the order cost $19.47 — or $26 adjusted for inflation.

Today that order costs $36.

Donald Trump and JD Vance just raised $2 million at a fundraiser hosted by coal executive Joe Craft and fracking billionaire Harold Hamm.

It was the single largest political fundraiser in Oklahoma history.

This is Trump's strategy, fundraisers by and for the super rich. 🧵 2) Joe Craft is the CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal executive who has overseen hundreds of labor violations at his company and has an intimate relationship with Trump, with his wife being appointed U.N. Ambassador during Trump’s presidency. eenews.net/articles/coal-…

Multiple large unions have now endorsed Kamala Harris, while also expressing concern that her campaign is eying Senator Mark Kelly for VP.

His refusal to support the PRO act, a core goal of the labor movement that would make union organizing easier, is raising alarm.

/1 2) As John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union and an ally of President Joe Biden, told ABC News, “Why would the Democrats even consider a senator for the vice presidency if the senator doesn't support the PRO Act?”
abcnews.go.com/Politics/labor…

An Olympics’ opening ceremony rehearsal "did not go as planned" after dancers raised their fists to protest unequal treatment instead of dancing.

The dancers have now filed a strike notice, and they’re not the only Paris workers on the verge of striking.

Thread. A union representing workers at Paris’ two major airports has filed a strike motion for July 26, the date of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.

The Force Ouvrière (FO) union represents 11.5% of workers at the Orly and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airports. /2

It’s time to be clear on what Trump, Vance, and the GOP really think about working class people.

A thread. 2) When Trump was president, he oversaw a viciously anti-labor administration which stacked the NLRB with corporate lawyers, damaged collective bargaining rights for federal employees, and defended right-to-work laws.
thehill.com/regulation/lab…