News & Media

About three years ago, Key’asia Hollis’s boyfriend, now her fiancé, helped her get a job as a boxer at Amazon, which paid $23 an hour. The new job enabled her to move out of the motel where she’d been living with her sister and her sister’s family. Hollis worked 12-hour overnight shifts packing and moving ... Read more

Community organizers Alice Pawlowski and Angelita Soriano recently traveled to the Big Apple to share their No Data Centers Hobart message. The Hobart women were invited to New York City to take part in an alternative event to the 2026 Met Gala, both happening May 4. Organizers included the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the ... Read more

The annual Met Gala, which takes place this year on Monday, May 4, is always a lightning rod for controversy. On the morning of the gala, a group of organizations including the Service Employees International Union, the Strategic Organizing Center and the Amazon Labor Union will stage a Ball Without Billionaires, a fashion show in downtown ... Read more

Hours before Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos take their places as sponsors and honorary chairs of the Met Gala—fashion’s glittery annual fundraiser in support of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute—a different kind of fashion event was unfolding across town. Organized by a coalition of labor groups including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Strategic Organizing ... Read more

The 2026 Met Gala raised a record $42 million — and a lot of questions. With Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos as honorary co-chairs, a labor organizer tackled outside, and a rival ball in the Meatpacking District, fashion’s biggest night forced a long-overdue reckoning. While the Met carpet unspooled uptown, hundreds gathered in the Meatpacking ... Read more

Amazon, one of the world’s largest employers, has for years faced scrutiny over its safety record. In 2024, Amazon employed 39% of US warehouse workers but accounted for 56% of all serious injuries in the industry, according to the Strategic Organizing Center. Read the full article here.

A worker collapsed and died on the floor of an Amazon warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon, on April 6 — and for more than an hour, employees say they were told to keep loading trucks as the body lay nearby. A May 2025 analysis by the Strategic Organizing Center, using newly released OSHA data, found that ... Read more

A group of U.S. senators has opened an investigation into deteriorating customer service at the Social Security Administration (SSA), warning that staffing cuts and internal workforce changes are causing a “customer service crisis” at the agency. A recent survey of SSA staff conducted by the Strategic Organizing Center found that 84 percent of workers reported heavier workloads ... Read more

South Carolinians may want to expect longer wait times and delayed benefits for Social Security. The Trump Administration made deep cuts to the SSA, driven by the desire to reduce the federal workforce. This could lead to 50% fewer Americans getting help in 2026, according to internal SSA documents found by the Strategic Organizing Center, ... Read more

Last week, members of Congress met with representatives of AFGE Council 220, the union representing more than 25,000 front‑line Social Security employees nationwide, to discuss the growing crisis inside the Social Security Administration (SSA). Over the past year, the SSA has lost approximately 6,500 employees, reducing the agency to its lowest staffing level in 59 ... Read more