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NEW YORK (AP) — There will be no Emmy Awards tonight and there are thousands of auto workers on picket lines in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio in a seemingly rapid reemergence of organized labor this year.

Unions have nowhere near the pull, or members, that they did decades ago, yet something has changed. There’s no single explanation, but the boiling point we’re seeing today comes amid soaring costs of living and a widening gap between what workers and top executives are paid. Thousands of workers who were asked to make sacrifices during the pandemic even as corporate profits soared are now asking for a bigger piece of the pie.

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Those demands have sparked grassroots organizing efforts across the country in the last year. And some of the nation’s largest unions have simultaneously been at the center of heated contract negotiations — with writers and actors hitting Hollywood picket lines, unionized auto workers striking at Detroit’s Big Three and UPS reaching a new deal to avert a work stoppage that could have significantly disrupted the nation’s supply chain.

Leading those efforts are new union leaders voted into power by workers that have seemingly run out of patience as they have a more difficult time making ends meet.

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SHAWN FAIN, UNITED AUTO WORKERS

Fain won a tight election to lead the UAW promising a more confrontational stance with big automakers. He vowed to clean up the union and unite members following a wide-ranging scandal that landed two former presidents in prison.

Fain has engaged aggressively with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler). Months of contentious contract talks erupted into targeted strikes last week against all three Detroit automakers for the first time in the union’s history.

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SEAN O’BRIEN, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS

Much of what you need to know about Teamsters president Sean O’Brien is right there in his handle for X/Twitter: @TeamstersSOB. Yes, those are O’Brien’s initials, sort of, but the underlying message is clear.

No one understands that better than UPS and perhaps James Hoffa, (son of the notorious Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared in 1975), who was unseated by union members seeking a major leadership change.

O’Brien, a Boston-area native who grew up in a Teamsters family, worked with then-president Hoffa as the chief negotiator in the Teamsters’ 2017 contract talks with UPS, but Hoffa abruptly fired him.

The contract agreement was widely criticized by members and passed only through a procedural technicality, with a majority of votes cast in opposition.

O’Brien announced a union presidential campaign in 2021 against Hoffa, who soon bowed out. The network of reform-minded union leaders O’Brien assembled helped to elect him easily.

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FRAN DRESCHER, SAG-AFTRA

Fran Drescher rose to fame as the co-creator and star of “The Nanny” in the ’90s. She’s become the first president of Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to preside over a strike since 1980.

Actors have been on picket lines since July and along with screenwriters who struck earlier this year, they’re seeking better pay in an industry vastly changed due to streaming and the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Since becoming president of SAG-AFTRA in 2021, Drescher has become a firebrand voice for the top creative minds in Hollywood.

Drescher told The Associated Press that this moment in Hollywood is about the entire world of work, and a larger stand against corporate leaders who value shareholders over the people who create their product.