When the Catholic Church picked Robert Francis Prevost as its next Pope, it was seen as continuing the stances that Pope Francis voiced, and maybe more significant to working people, Cardinal Prevost selected Leo XIV as his Papal name.

“Most heartening to me is [Leo’s] choice of name, which obviously contains an allusion to Leo XIII, and his famous text Rerum Novarum,” Loyola University scholar Michael Canaris told Axios. “[The 1891 Rerum Novarum encyclical] supported labor rights and unions in the church at the dawn of the contemporary world.”

Chicago Federation of President Labor Bob Reiter added, “By selecting the name Leo, the new pope signaled his solidarity with working people and gave a nod to his South Side, working-class roots.”

CWA, NABET, News Guild unions condemn attack on public media. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and two of its media sectors have condemned President Trump’s unlawful Executive Order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to end funding for NPR and PBS.

“This executive order is an unlawful attempt to circumvent Congressional support for a free press and an attack on the working people who provide independent, trusted, local news coverage,” said National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA) President Charlie Braico. “Without public television and radio stations, we will lose access to critical local news and programming.”

CPB was created through the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to ensure universal access to essential news and educational programming. Also, it’s already been fully funded by Congress through Sept. 30, 2027.

Most Americans agree with AFL-CIO: Trump trashes the Constitution. The American people and the labor federation of 63 unions representing 15 million people are on the same page about the president’s defiance of Congress and the courts and other chaotic actions from the White House — from multi-billionaire Elon Musk’s influence to an increasingly tyrannical agenda.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center reports 52% of respondents say Trump is “a dangerous dictator.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler calls him “an autocrat — and we do not fall in line for autocrats.”

Trump took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” but neither Shuler nor most of the poll respondents believe Trump obeys those limits.

“Democracy does not defend itself,” Shuler said, “nor can we expect politicians to save us from autocrats’ clutches.”

Pew’s survey shows a majority of respondents, except for Republicans and those identifying as white evangelicals, don’t fall in line for autocrats either. A majority (52%) agrees that “Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy;” 87% of Democrats agree he’s a dangerous dictator but 81% of Republicans agree he’s a strong leader who should get more power.

Unions and allies go to bat for Labor Dept.’s Women’s Bureau. The Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau has existed for more than a century, promoting working women and equality on the job, and its Women in Apprenticeship and Non-Traditional Occupations (WANTO) grants.

But President Trump is trying to kill the bureau and its programs as another Diversity-Equality-Inclusion (DEI) effort, which the administration hopes to eliminate government-wide.

The Chicago Women in Trades group anticipated the move, went into federal court with assistance from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and on April 15 won a temporary injunction against closing the bureau and cutting off its funds.

“The court issued a preliminary injunction that will allow Chicago Women in Trades to challenge the enforcement of key provisions of the anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion executive orders,” said Sabrina Talukder, the Lawyers Committee’s senior counsel.

Unite for Veterans, Unite for America on June 6. The AFL-CIO reports that thousands of workers could be laid off from the Department of Veteran Affairs under administration proposals, and in response to other such attacks on veterans, the Unite for Veterans Coalition is organizing the “Unite for Veterans, Unite for America” rally on the National Mall, between the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial on June 6.

That’s a date etched in history as D-Day — the day when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy to confront tyranny head-on.

“This was not only a turning point in World War II, it was a global stand against fascism and authoritarianism,” says Kristofer Goldsmith, an Iraq combat veteran who writes about disinformation and domestic extremism. Choosing this date signals our intent to echo that legacy.

“As the Trump-Musk administration enacts policies that undermine the well-being of veterans and the integrity of the federal workforce, it is imperative for us to rise once more in defense of our rights and the principles we swore to protect. We are part of a living tradition of citizen-soldiers who do not lay down our civic duty when we take off the uniform — we transform it. This moment demands that transformation once again.

“This June 6 is where the spirit of democracy will be reaffirmed by those of us who risked everything to defend it.”