Mariana Padias, assistant director of organizing for the United Steelworkers, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the state of union organizing in America, the challenge of getting from an election win to a first contract and a remarkable victory at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss.
Workers at the 130-person majority-Black sawmill voted for USW representation on June 25 and 26 after a five-week campaign that included firings, unlawful interrogations and sustained captive audience meetings from management.
Padias also addressed the first contract problem facing newly organized workers across the country, the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which has passed the House with strong bipartisan support and is now before the Senate and the AFL-CIO's goal of organizing 2 million new workers in five years, which she called ambitious and necessary.
- Workers at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss., contacted the USW in approximately April 2026 after the Van Devender family ownership failed to follow through on promises made when the mill opened two years earlier, including pay equity issues, unfulfilled promotions and forced overtime; an organizer who visited for a first meeting was handed 40 signed authorization cards from a 130-person workforce before the campaign had formally begun, reflecting how organized and motivated workers already were when the union arrived.
- The Big River campaign featured an unusual element: Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a minority equity investor in the company, is a pro-union firm that was appalled by management's anti-union conduct including firings and unlawful interrogations, confronted Big River management at multiple levels to demand neutrality, received refusal and ultimately issued a public statement of support for the workers' right to freely choose union representation; Padias said she hopes Blue Wolf Capital Partners will play a significant role in helping secure a fair first contract.
- The Faster Labor Contracts Act passed the House with strong bipartisan co-sponsorship from both Republican and Democratic members, including Ohio Republicans Mike Rulli and Mike Carey alongside Democrats from across the country; the bill is now before the Senate and would require parties to meet within 10 days of a union bargaining request, refer unresolved disputes to mediation after 90 days and move to binding arbitration producing a two-year agreement if mediation fails, compressing a process that currently averages around 480 days to a first contract.
From the Legal Department to the Organizing Floor
Mariana Padias joined the Steelworkers in 2010 as a lawyer in the legal department, working with members in District 12 across the western United States in oil, mining, paper and healthcare. She had been an organizer before law school and, in 2019, returned to that work as the assistant director of organizing. Since then, she has worked on campaigns at the University of Pittsburgh, in Puerto Rico, in mining and across the broad range of industries the Steelworkers represent. She described the union's membership in the exact terms that appear on USW.org: smelters and miners, healthcare workers and rubber workers, security guards and telecom specialists, paper workers and pharmaceutical employees. The Steelworkers, she said, touch every corner of society.
The First Contract Problem
Before discussing the Big River win, Padias laid out the structural problem that makes every organizing victory incomplete until a contract is ratified. Under current law, good faith bargaining means meeting periodically and not walking away entirely. A company can meet once or twice a month, agree to very little and remain in technical legal compliance. After a year without a contract, workers can file for a decertification election with a 30 percent showing of interest. Companies know this. The playbook is to slow-walk negotiations, withhold raises and blame the union for the stagnation until enough workers lose patience to trigger a decertification vote.
Padias said the national average to reach a first contract is currently around 480 days. During that window, workers who voted for union representation are told they cannot receive raises because bargaining is ongoing, while management engineers use that delay to exact concessions. She cited JSW Steel in Mingo Junction, Ohio, as an example of the relentlessness some employers bring to fighting their workers. The USW has documented that fight extensively — more information is available at usw.org/we-work-they-play-games.
The Faster Labor Contracts Act
The Faster Labor Contracts Act passed the House with strong bipartisan support, drawing co-sponsors from both parties across a wide range of states and districts. Republican co-sponsors included members from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota, Nebraska and Michigan, alongside Democratic members from across the country. The breadth of support reflects what Padias said workers across the political spectrum understand: that the current timeline from organizing win to first contract is broken and is being deliberately exploited by employers.
The legislation would significantly compress that timeline. Within 10 days of a union's request for bargaining, the parties must meet. After 90 days without a contract, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) must be brought in for mediation. If 30 days of mediation do not produce an agreement, the FMCS refers the matter to a three-arbitrator panel that produces a binding two-year agreement based on the offers on the table. Padias noted that the FMCS is currently underfunded and understaffed, which creates questions about implementation, but said the legislation would still represent a meaningful improvement over the current environment. The bill is now before the Senate.
Big River Sawmill: An Organizing Win Against the Odds
The centerpiece of the conversation was the USW's organizing victory at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss., a town of about 900 people in the southwestern part of the state, approximately an hour north of Baton Rouge and an hour from Natchez. The mill opened two years ago under the Van Devender family, a wealthy Mississippi family with deep roots in the state. The workforce is majority Black.
Workers reached out to the USW in approximately April 2026. The mill had been open for two years, and the company had not followed through on promises made at the start. New hires were being brought in off the street at higher pay than workers who had been there from day one. Promised promotions were not delivered. Scheduling was unpredictable, and forced overtime was common. One story that stayed with Padias: a worker wanted to leave at his scheduled time to watch his child play football. A supervisor made him stay. That same supervisor had a child on the same team and had been there for the whole game by the time the worker arrived.
When a USW organizer arrived for what he thought would be an initial meeting with interested workers, he was handed 40 signed authorization cards from a 130-person workforce before the meeting had formally begun. Workers had already organized themselves.
The campaign became public sooner than planned when the mayor of Gloster, who had been receiving worker complaints about discrimination and conditions, called a meeting with 20 workers and Big River management on May 14 without knowing the union campaign had started. When the union was mentioned at that meeting, the campaign was out in the open. Management's anti-union response began immediately. Four workers were fired before the election petition was filed. Unlawful interrogations took place. Workers sat through captive audience meetings. The mayor, who had initially seemed sympathetic, met with Big River management and then appeared at an anti-union captive-audience meeting the next day.
The election took place on June 25 and 26, approximately five weeks after the petition was filed. Workers won.
An Unusual Ally: A Pro-Union Private Equity Firm
What made the Big River campaign genuinely unusual was the role of Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a minority investor in the company. Blue Wolf Capital Partners, which Padias said the USW's legislative team identified through a database search, has a labor liaison and a track record of supporting workers' rights. The USW contacted Blue Wolf Capital Partners and described what was happening on the ground, including the firings and unlawful conduct. The firm said it was shocked, though Padias noted it was not surprising to anyone who has been through an anti-union campaign before. Blue Wolf Capital Partners confronted Big River management at multiple levels, requested neutrality, was refused and ultimately issued a public statement supporting the workers' right to freely choose union representation. Workers received that statement as a message of support during the campaign. Padias said she hopes Blue Wolf Capital Partners will use its position as an investor to help secure a fair first contract.
Why 2 Million Members Is the Right Goal
Padias closed by addressing the AFL-CIO's goal of organizing 2 million new members in five years. She called it ambitious and said it is exactly the right target. Polling shows approximately 50 million American workers want a union. The gap between that number and actual union membership is not a lack of interest but a combination of misinformation, union busting and a legal framework that makes the path from organizing interest to a ratified contract unnecessarily long and difficult. Union contracts, she said, are the only sustainable vehicle for qualitative and quantitative improvements in workers' lives that workers themselves have direct input on. They produce gains that voting for politicians alone does not deliver. Getting more workers into unions, she said, is how the country gets back to where it used to be.
More information on the United Steelworkers is available at usw.org.
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