tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/labor-unions-29367/articlesLabor unions – The Conversation2024-03-08T13:37:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231622024-03-08T13:37:46Z2024-03-08T13:37:46ZUAW’s Southern strategy: Union revs up drive to get workers employed by foreign automakers to join its ranks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580189/original/file-20240306-16-zhfgjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=135%2C63%2C5068%2C2506&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A UAW supporter in 2017 outside a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., ahead of a vote the union lost.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Nissan-Union/90212afb1edb40979e133f3d7931592a/photo?Query=mississippi%20uaw&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=18">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Persuading Southern autoworkers to join a union remains one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the United Auto Workers union to organize this workforce.</p>
<p>To be sure, the UAW does have members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-strike-united-auto-workers-uaw-f16005a7b20a6f1772947957854d1017">Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi</a>.</p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-uaw-idUSKBN0TN2DE20151205/">UAW has tried and largely failed</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/economy/volkswagen-chattanooga-uaw-union.html">organize workers</a> at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan in Southern states, where about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/uaw-jobs-south-auto/index.html">30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located</a>.</p>
<p>But after the UAW pulled off its <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">most successful strike in a generation</a> against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023, the union is trying again to win over Southern autoworkers.</p>
<p>The UAW has <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-announces-40-million-commitment-to-organizing-auto-and-battery-workers-over-next-two-years/">pledged to spend US$40 million through 2026</a> to expand its ranks to include more auto and electric battery workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/business/economy/uaw-auto-workers-union.html">including many employed in the South</a>, where the industry is <a href="https://uaw.org/we-are-the-majority-workers-at-mercedes-benzs-largest-us-plant-announce-majority-support-for-movement-to-join-uaw/">quickly gaining ground</a>.</p>
<p>Based on my five decades of experience as a <a href="https://scua.uoregon.edu/agents/people/33456">union organizer and labor historian</a>, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face stiff resistance from Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and the other big foreign automakers that operate in the South. The <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-chattanooga-union-drive/">pushback is also coming from Southern politicians</a>, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The back of a worker wearing a UAW t-shirt indicating employment in Brandon, Mississippi." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign of things to come?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrikeMississippi/f5cb369d2cd245a99b3081ff2af50396/photo?Query=uaw%20alabama&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’</h2>
<p>After the region’s formerly robust <a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813037950.003.0010">textile industry imploded</a> in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers. </p>
<p>The strategy of those leaders reflects what the <a href="https://www.bcatoday.org/the-united-auto-workers-labor-union-must-not-do-to-alabama/">Business Council of Alabama</a> has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”</p>
<p>The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/14/automakers-investing-in-the-south-as-evs-change-the-auto-industry.html">lured the likes of Nissan, BMW</a>, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.</p>
<p>Although many of those companies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-ig-metall-agree-wage-deal-2021-04-13/">negotiate constructively</a> with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.</p>
<p>As journalist <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-may-15-la-oe-meyerson-europeans-20110515-story.html">Harold Meyerson has noted</a>, these foreign automakers embraced the opportunity to “slum” in America and “do things they would never think of doing at home.”</p>
<p>The absence of union representation is a major reason why.</p>
<p>Less than 5% of workers in six Southern states are union members, and only Alabama and Mississippi approach union membership levels above 7%, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. </p>
<p>That’s below the national average, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">slid to 10% in 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Blaming unions for bad job prospects</h2>
<p>One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59212/">portraying them as outdated institutions</a> whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.</p>
<p>Automotive leaders in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that <a href="https://www.automotivedive.com/news/is-unionizing-foreign-automakers-next-uaw-strike/698260/">provides management with flexibility</a>, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives. </p>
<p>Southern automakers also draw on another powerful resource in resisting the UAW: public intervention by top elected officials.</p>
<p>In 2014, when the UAW attempted to organize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Bob Corker, Tennessee’s junior U.S. senator and a former mayor of Chattanooga, weighed in as voting commenced.</p>
<p>Corker claimed he had received a pledge from Volkswagen’s management to expand production in Chattanooga <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/116653/bob-corkers-uaw-intervention-chattanooga-vw-vote-speaks-volume">if workers voted against the union</a>. </p>
<p>Three years later, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant similarly urged Nissan workers to reject the UAW. </p>
<p>“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” <a href="https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">Bryant said in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>A majority of the autoworkers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/business/nissan-united-auto-workers-union.html">heeded their conservative leaders’ advice</a> in both cases and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/02/14/united-auto-workers-lose-historic-election-at-chattanooga-volkswagen-plant/">voted against joining the UAW</a>.</p>
<h2>Making dire warnings</h2>
<p>With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.</p>
<p>“The Alabama model for economic success is under attack,” <a href="https://www.madeinalabama.com/2024/01/gov-ivey-unions-want-to-target-one-of-alabamas-crown-jewel-industries-but-im-standing-up-for-alabamians-and-protecting-our-jobs/">warned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey</a>. </p>
<p>She then asked workers: “Do you want continued opportunity and success the Alabama way? Or do you want out-of-state special interests telling Alabama how to do business?”</p>
<p>Unions “have crippled and distorted the progress and prosperity of industries and cities in other states,” <a href="https://governor.sc.gov/news/2024-01/2024-state-state-address-governor-henry-mcmaster">South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster</a> declared in his Jan. 24, 2024, State of the State address. He then issued an ominous call: “We will fight” the UAW’s labor organizers “all the way to the gates of hell. And we will win.” </p>
<p>The UAW counters that union membership means workers will get predictable raises, <a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-14">better benefits and improved workplace policies</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing context</h2>
<p>Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1211602392/uaw-auto-strike-deals-ratified-big-three-shawn-fain">UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits</a> resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility. </p>
<p>Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW – including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants – responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/cars/uaw-labor-toyota-honda-hyundai/index.html">UAW bump</a>.”</p>
<p>The UAW will presumably cite these pay hikes in its outreach to <a href="https://theconversation.com/next-on-the-united-auto-workers-to-do-list-adding-more-members-who-currently-work-at-nonunion-factories-to-its-ranks-217064">workers at Tesla</a> and other nonunion companies involved in electric vehicle and battery production in which the industry is investing heavily. </p>
<p>“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,” <a href="https://uaw.org/join/">the UAW’s recruiting website</a> warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”</p>
<p>The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”</p>
<p>Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMPROVING-WORK-LIFE-BALANCE-AT-VOLKSWAGEN.pdf">expressing concerns over scheduling</a>, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.</p>
<p>It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXMNbGS2Hy0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Southern autoworkers applaud the union-organizing drive underway at a VW factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revving up</h2>
<p>The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up.</p>
<p>In accordance with its “<a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-6">30-50-70</a>” strategy, the union is announcing the share of workers who have signed union cards in stages. Once it hits 30% at a factory, the UAW will announce publicly that an organizing campaign is underway. At the 50% mark, it will hold a public rally for workers that includes their neighbors and families, as well as <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-motortrend-person-of-year-shawn-fain-uaw-president/">UAW President Shawn Fain</a>.</p>
<p>Once it gains support from 70% of a plant’s workers, the UAW says it will seek voluntary recognition by management.</p>
<p>A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to recognize the union’s request, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.</p>
<p>To win, unions need a majority of those voting. Under the new rule, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation">required to bargain with the union</a>.</p>
<p>So far, the UAW has announced that it has obtained the support of more than half the workers at factories belonging to two of the 13 nonunion automakers it’s targeting: a <a href="https://uaw.org/were-taking-the-lead-over-half-of-volkswagen-workers-in-chattanooga-tennessee-sign-cards-to-join-the-uaw-in-less-than-60-days/">Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga</a>, Tennessee, and a
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/uaw-union-mercedes-benz-alabama">Mercedes-Benz factory near Tuscaloosa</a>, Alabama. It has also obtained 30% support at a <a href="https://thehill.com/business/4440930-hyundai-workers-alabama-uaw/">Hyundai plant in Alabama</a> and a <a href="https://labornotes.org/2024/03/toyota-workers-critical-engine-plant-launch-uaw-union-drive">Toyota engine factory in Missouri</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/unions-south-labor-organizing-ussw-seiu-00114085">D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here</a>, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was briefly a UAW local union member in the 1970s.</span></em></p>Despite intermittent efforts over the past three decades, the UAW union has been unable to organize employees of foreign-based automakers in states such as Alabama and Tennessee.Bob Bussel, Professor Emeritus of History and Labor Education, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233072024-03-01T13:36:06Z2024-03-01T13:36:06ZRemembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit park honors labor and environmental history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579009/original/file-20240229-25-snzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Dearborn policeman knocked unconscious was the first casualty of the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/35955/rec/1">Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University/Detroit News Burckhardt.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The intersection of Fort Street and Oakwood Boulevard in southwest Detroit today functions mostly as a thoroughfare for trucks and commuters. </p>
<p>However, as you sit idling at the stoplight waiting to cross the bridge over the Rouge River, you might glance to the side and see something unexpected in this heavily industrialized area: A sculpture of weathered steel reaches toward the sky alongside a spray of flowers and waves of grasses and people fishing. </p>
<p>This inconspicuous corner, now the home of the <a href="https://www.motorcities.org/fortstreet">Fort Street Bridge Park</a>, has several stories to tell: of a river, a region, a historic conflict and an ongoing struggle. </p>
<p>If you pull over, you’ll enter a place that attempts to pull together threads of history, environment and sustainable redevelopment.</p>
<p>Signs explain why this sculpture and park are here: to honor the memory of <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hunger-march-ford/">protesters who met on this very spot on March 7, 1932</a>, before marching up Miller Road to the massive Ford Rouge River Complex located in the adjacent city of Dearborn. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=K9xPsDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociology professor</a>, I have a strong interest in how the history of labor and industrial pollution have influenced Detroit. </p>
<p>I’m also interested in the potential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0765-7">environmental restoration</a> or “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">green reparations</a>” to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">offer a new way forward</a>.</p>
<p>To understand this potential future, we must first recognize and honor the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An iron sculpture commemorates industry and sits as the centerpiece of the Ford Street Bridge Park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fort Street Bridge Park is located along the banks of the Rouge River in southwest Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Draus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>14 demands</h2>
<p>In their book “<a href="https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story#:%7E:text=Extensively%20researched%2C%20yet%20highly%20readable,conflict%20from%20the%20workers'%20perspective.">Labor’s Untold Story</a>,” published in 1955, journalist Richard Boyer and historian Herbert Morais quote a contemporary account of the Hunger March: </p>
<p><em>It was early, it was cold when the first of the unemployed Ford workers (many of whom had been laid off the day before) arrived at Baby Creek Bridge. They were a small gray group and they stood slapping their sides, warding off the cold, and wondering if they alone would come.</em></p>
<p>Others soon joined them: Black and white, men and women, immigrants and American-born. They united to deliver a list of 14 demands to the auto tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, whose US$5 daily wage for his workers was once considered revolutionary. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Police with bats follow Hunger March marchers on March 7, 1932." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunger March protesters demanded better pay and working conditions at the Ford Rouge plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/37798/rec/1">Detroit News Staff via Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the marchers’ demands: jobs for laid-off workers, a seven-hour workday without a pay reduction, two 15-minute rest periods a day, an end to discrimination against Black workers and the right to organize. </p>
<p>This crowd of several thousand marched up the road on one of the coldest days of winter. They were greeted at the Dearborn border with clouds of tear gas, jets of cold water and a shower of bullets. </p>
<p>It was then that the Ford Hunger March became the Ford Massacre. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HFEskpjPbfE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Detroit Workers News Special 1932: Ford Massacre via Workers Film & Photo League International.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The seeds of a labor movement</h2>
<p>Beth Tompkins Bates, in her book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469613857/the-making-of-black-detroit-in-the-age-of-henry-ford/">The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford</a>,” wrote that “The response of the Ford Motor Company on that day shot holes in the myth that Ford cared about his workers, that he was different from other businessmen.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of a young man with wavy hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Joe Bussell, killed by Ford Servicemen during the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit. Bussell’s relatives contributed to the Fort Street Bridge Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7269">Walter P. Reuther Library</a></span>
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<p>At the end of the day, four marchers lay dead, while many others were injured and hospitalized. A fifth would die months later of his wounds. </p>
<p>More than 30,000 people showed up for the dead marchers’ funerals. The violent reactions of Ford security and Dearborn police during the march were widely condemned. </p>
<p>In an effort to address the stain on its public image, the Ford family first commissioned then expanded a major work by <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/detroit-industry-murals-detroit-institute-of-arts.htm">Mexican muralist Diego Rivera</a> that was to become the centerpiece of the Detroit Institute of Arts, known as the Detroit Industry Mural. Rivera, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X0800678X">a known communist</a>, depicted both ruthless efficiency and the racialized inequality of the industrial process. </p>
<p>Ford’s battle against unions was ultimately a failure. Five years after the Hunger March, the so-called “<a href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/ex/exhibits/battle.html">Battle of the Overpass</a>” led to the organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers. </p>
<p>The Ford Hunger March, long forgotten by many, is now <a href="https://www.workers.org/2022/03/62190/">acknowledged as an important catalyst</a> in the growth of the union movement. </p>
<h2>Struggle for sustainability and justice</h2>
<p>The fight for sustainability and environmental justice is another major theme of the park, which chronicles the history of the Rouge River, including the day in 1969 when the <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2019/10/rouge-river-fire-anniversary-great-lakes-moment/">oily water infamously caught fire</a>. </p>
<p>The hellish image of burning rivers helped motivate the signing of the <a href="https://www.boem.gov/air-quality-act-1967-or-clean-air-act-caa">Clean Air</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act">Clean Water acts</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/history">the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency</a>. </p>
<p>The air and water in and around Detroit are <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/05/once-beset-industrial-pollution-rouge-river-slow-path-recovery/">much cleaner today</a> than they were 1969. But this doesn’t change the fact that the area where the park sits bears a disproportionate burden of the pollution generated by the region’s industrial production, which includes cement plants, gypsum and aggregates processors, salt mining and asphalt storage, as well as a steel mill and petroleum refinery.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.marathonpetroleum.com/content/documents/Citizenship/2018/Sustainability_Report_10_21.pdf">donor to the park</a> is Marathon Petroleum Corporation whose Detroit Refinery occupies the adjoining neighborhood. Though Marathon has invested in the development of green spaces on its own property, the refinery has also expanded in recent years, <a href="https://wdi-publishing.com/product/marathon-petroleum-and-southwest-detroit-the-intersection-of-community-and-environment/">further degrading the local environment</a>.</p>
<p>Research shows that workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101502">benefit from unionization</a> in myriad ways, not only directly but indirectly. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/2023s-historic-hollywood-and-uaw-strikes-arent-labors-whole-story-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remained-relatively-low-219903">recent labor victories</a> by the UAW, Hollywood writers and other organizers stand in stark contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">long-term erosion of union membership</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit serves to remind us of the complexities of history and how apparent progress in one area may be followed by a setback somewhere else. It also represents how the spirit of community, unbroken, keeps pushing for something better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Draus is affiliated with Friends of the Rouge and Downriver Delta CDC, two nonprofit organizations involved with the Fort Street Bridge Park. He is also the facilitator of the Fort-Rouge Gateway (FRoG) Partnership, a coalition of representatives from nonprofit, community-based, academic and industry that is focused on the sustainable redevelopment of the industrial Rouge region. </span></em></p>On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions, sparking America’s labor movement. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.Paul Draus, Professor of Sociology; Director, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215712024-01-23T22:23:54Z2024-01-23T22:23:54Z1 in 10 US workers belong to unions − a share that’s stabilized after a steep decline<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570925/original/file-20240123-27-ah1i7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C301%2C4591%2C2428&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the faculty union of the California State University system walk a picket line in December 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-faculty-union-of-the-california-state-news-photo/1827960132?adppopup=true">Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570941/original/file-20240123-19-h9lyme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">fell slightly to 10% in 2023</a>, from 10.1% a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.jakerosenfeld.net/">scholar of organized labor</a>, I’m not shocked by this slight decline, although if there was ever a year to expect the unionization rate to increase, it was 2023.</p>
<p>Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation that unites 60 unions, has proclaimed 2023 “<a href="https://aflcio.org/2024/1/12/year-labor-2023-was-just-beginning">the year of labor</a>.” She wasn’t exaggerating. </p>
<p>Successful walkouts by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sag-aftra-contract-deal-agreement-actors-ai/">Hollywood actors</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/25/1201498353/three-takeaways-about-the-hollywood-writers-tentative-agreement">screenwriters</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">autoworkers</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-workers-gain-21-wage-increase-in-pending-agreement-with-kaiser-permanente-after-historic-strike-215864">health care professionals</a> demonstrated how effective strikes can be in achieving union gains.</p>
<p>And a serious threat of a strike produced a historic contract for <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">hundreds of thousands of UPS workers</a>. Combined with the continuation of union-organizing victories at <a href="https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2023/11/14/starbucks-new-benefits-wages">companies such as Starbucks</a> and <a href="https://oaklandside.org/2023/04/24/trader-joes-unionization-oakland-rockridge-labor-violations/">Trader Joe’s</a>, it certainly seemed like 2023 was, as a New York Times headline proclaimed, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/briefing/labors-very-good-year.html">Labor’s very good year</a>.” </p>
<p>Why would all that successful labor organizing fail to boost growth in the percentage of workers who belong to a union?</p>
<p>Research points to a number of factors, including the difficulties of organizing at a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315499093-3/accounting-decline-unions-private-sector-1973%E2%80%931998-henry-farber-bruce-western">large scale</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/31/louisville-kentucky-trader-joes-workers-union-drive">pushback by companies</a> facing organizing drives.</p>
<h2>Workforce growth</h2>
<p>The economy has been growing at a healthy clip, <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-produc">expanding by 4.9%</a> in the third quarter of 2023. The <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf">U.S. gained 3 million jobs</a> over the course of 2023.</p>
<p>When the overall labor force grows, unions must recruit new members just to maintain the prior unionization rate. With the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">size of the labor force today</a>, simply maintaining the status quo requires adding roughly 300,000 new union members annually to keep the level of unionization in the workforce stable. </p>
<p>In 2023, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">14.4 million U.S. workers belonged to a union</a>, edging up from 14.2 million the previous year, the government determined. That’s impressive, but not quite enough of a gain for unions to maintain their prior organization rate.</p>
<p>The nation’s unionization rate is the lowest it has been in <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy">over a century</a>. While many nations with similar economies have also experienced this kind of decline, the low American rate is both historically and internationally unique.</p>
<p>Sweden’s unionization rate is <a href="https://www.oecd.org/employment/collective-bargaining-database-sweden.pdf">6.5 times</a> higher. Canada’s is nearly <a href="https://www.oecd.org/employment/collective-bargaining-database-canada.pdf">three times as high</a>.</p>
<p>The decline of union ranks in the U.S. has been <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm">sharpest in the private sector</a>, where only 6% of workers belong to a union. Among government workers, nearly 1 in 3 do.</p>
<h2>Stalled momentum</h2>
<p>Given the difficulties in organizing in the private sector in the U.S., periods of substantial union growth occur in rare spurts. A <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/230408">successful union drive can prove contagious</a>, leading to a rapid wave of union wins in an industry. This is what labor leaders and supporters were hoping for from a string of high-profile victories at Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and other big employers. </p>
<p>But for unionization to spread, nonunion workers must be <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3874221">convinced that the very real</a> <a href="https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/fa0ae2b6-3dc1-42c4-8b49-bc880bdd70fd">risks of a unionization drive</a> are worth it.</p>
<p>A union contract can provide evidence that the benefits of organizing outweigh the costs. Without such a contract, many nonunion workers won’t take the risk. Companies know this and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/177557/trader-joes-union-busting-bargaining-table-first-contract">employ a number of delay tactics</a> to drag out the process and dampen the early enthusiasm for union recognition. </p>
<p>For example, in the spring of 2022, <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-starbucks-and-the-sparking-of-a-new-american-union-movement-180293">workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island</a>, New York, voted to unionize – the first union footprint in Amazon’s vast and expanding U.S. workforce. Nearly two years later, that warehouse remains the lone unionized facility among the <a href="https://tinuiti.com/blog/amazon/amazon-fulfillment-centers-map">more than 100 fulfillment centers Amazon operates</a> in the U.S.</p>
<p>The company’s refusal to bargain to a first contract is a big factor stymieing momentum.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1748110765129937257"}"></div></p>
<h2>Better faith required</h2>
<p>Labor actions continue to crop up, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/us/california-state-faculty-strike-deal.html">strikes by educators</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/19/la-times-union-walkout-00136655">journalists</a> underway in January 2024. United Auto Workers leader Shawn Fain boldly vows to expand his union’s ranks by organizing employees of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/27/success/shawn-fain-labor-leader-of-year/index.html">electric and foreign-owned vehicle companies</a>.</p>
<p>But without changes to the nation’s labor laws that get more employers to bargain in good faith – and to do so speedily – it’s reasonable to expect to see companies continue to delay and disrupt attempts to negotiate a first contract. </p>
<p>As a result, even another “very good year” for labor won’t translate into substantial gains in the ranks of union members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Along with Patrick Denice and Jennifer Laird, Jake Rosenfeld recently received a grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth to study labor union dynamics in the public sector.</span></em></p>Because the economy gained 3 million jobs in 2023, unions had to draw hundreds of thousands of new members just to hold their ground.Jake Rosenfeld, Professor of Sociology, Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170642023-11-27T19:34:04Z2023-11-27T19:34:04ZNext on the United Auto Workers’ to-do list: Adding more members who currently work at nonunion factories to its ranks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560571/original/file-20231121-24-oer4wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C152%2C4872%2C3109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Tesla's workers be the next to approve a UAW contract?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/EarnsTesla/8d2415b3d23949aca5513ecd9c47f8ec/photo?Query=tesla&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3150&currentItemNo=65">AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Having negotiated “<a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">record contracts</a>” with the Big Three – and seen the bulk of its <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-uaw-says-64-workers-150358604.html">rank-and-file members approve them</a> – the United Auto Workers says its work isn’t done.</p>
<p>The union intends to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/20/uaw-strike-organizing-automakers">try once more</a> to persuade the rest of the U.S. auto industry’s workers to <a href="https://labornotes.org/2019/06/why-uaw-lost-again-chattanooga">join the union</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re going to organize like we’ve never organized before,” <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/03/tesla-toyota-in-uaws-sights-for-organizing-after-big-3-wins.html">said UAW President Shawn Fain</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">labor scholars</a> who have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EQEoODAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">studied union finances</a>, we believe this is a formidable objective. On top of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-buffalo-new-york-business-826b91456748c7167fe977d458aaba2d">intense corporate resistance</a> from the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/03/tesla-toyota-in-uaws-sights-for-organizing-after-big-3-wins.html">likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk</a>, there’s the high cost of waging expensive campaigns in states like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1200875078/south-non-union-uaw-strike-foreign-automakers">Tennessee and Alabama</a>, which have “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2021.1919183">right-to-work</a>” laws designed <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">to discourage labor organizing</a>. </p>
<p>But the United Auto Workers appears to have the money, know-how and institutional infrastructure to launch these organizing campaigns.</p>
<h2>The other 57%</h2>
<p>About 146,000 UAW members are employed by General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the global company that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America. That’s down from <a href="https://money.cnn.com/1999/06/14/companies/uaw/">407,000 in 1999</a>.</p>
<p>So far, none of the autoworkers employed by the Big Three’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/business/uaw-ford-contract.html">foreign-based competitors</a> or the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/business/economy/ev-battery-union.html">U.S.-based electric vehicle manufacturers</a> belong to a union. Each of the Big Three has joint ventures with various foreign-based companies to produce batteries. The workers at <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/09/gm-lg-ev-battery-plant-uaw-union-vote.html">only one of these joint venture plants</a> have voted to join the UAW.</p>
<p>Today, the UAW represents <a href="https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm">43% of the U.S. automotive workforce</a> in vehicle manufacturing. The other 57%, roughly 190,000 workers, are employed by Toyota, Honda and other foreign companies, and Tesla or another <a href="https://evmagazine.com/top10/top-10-pure-play-ev-companies">domestic electric vehicle manufacturer</a>. Nonetheless, in comparison to other industries, the degree of unionization in the automotive industry remains about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">four times as high as for the workforce as a whole</a>.</p>
<p>Intermittent campaigns to persuade autoworkers at nonunion factories in places like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/10/tesla-workers-union-elon-musk">Fremont, California</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15/733074989/tennessee-workers-reject-union-at-volkswagen-plant-again">Chattanooga, Tennessee</a>, have <a href="https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/if-uaw-doesn-t-change-it-s-toast">failed over the past four decades</a>.</p>
<h2>Employer obstacles</h2>
<p>Many U.S. employers have a long <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315499093-11/human-resource-management-practices-worker-desires-union-representation-jack-fiorito">history of attempting to avoid unionization</a>.</p>
<p>One such tactic is providing nonunion employees with some of the benefits of belonging to a union, such as raises or better benefits, without the payment of union dues. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-honda-toyota-wage-increase-united-auto-workers-1349059944c75d7372f53d1ee6cf5cb2">Toyota, Honda, Hyundai</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/subaru-raise-us-plant-worker-wages-light-uaw-deals-with-detroit-automakers-ceo-2023-11-16/">Subaru</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/nissan-motor-hiking-wages-us-auto-plants-after-uaw-deal-2023-11-20/">Nissan all announced plans to increase</a> pay for their U.S. employees soon after the 2023 UAW strike concluded.</p>
<p>Fain calls this wave of raises for nonunion automotive workers the “<a href="https://youtu.be/V3bengdSGjY'">UAW bump</a>,” joking that UAW stands for “you are welcome.” His joke has two meanings: It’s a response to the thanks owed for the increased pay and it’s an invitation for workers employed by those companies to join the union he leads.</p>
<p>The UAW leader also quips that when the union’s new contracts expire in April 2028, it will be negotiating with “<a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/30/uaw-ford-shawn-fain-contract-deal">the Big Five or Big Six</a>” instead of just GM, Ford and Stellantis. In other words, he is predicting that the UAW will have won organizing campaigns by then with two or three more of the <a href="https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/top-10-largest-car-manufacturers-in-the-us/">automakers producing the most vehicles in the U.S.</a> – such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This UAW video features media coverage of union president Shawn Fain testifying in Congress and a string of raises for nonunion U.S. autoworkers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>UAW’s financial status</h2>
<p>In our book, “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003335474/trade-union-finance-marick-masters-raymond-gibney">Trade Union Finance: How Labor Organizations Raise and Spend Money</a>,” we explain that unions remained in relatively strong financial shape from 2006 through 2019 – a period that included the economic upheaval of the Great Recession.</p>
<p>For example, among the sample of 53 national unions whose finances we studied, 49 saw their member-based income from dues and other sources grow by more than 33% during this period.</p>
<p>The UAW’s shrinking ranks led it to raise its dues by 25% in 2014 to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/united-auto-workers-union-raises-dues-first-time-47-years-n121586">offset declining member-based income</a>.</p>
<p>The UAW has yet to disclose what it spent on the 2023 strike against the Detroit Three. Based on reported striker numbers and dates, we estimate that it cost the union approximately US$86 million just in payments to workers eligible for <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-strike-funds-a-labor-management-relations-expert-explains-213212">$500 weekly payments from its strike fund</a>.</p>
<p>That most likely left the union with nearly $750 million in its strike fund, which held roughly <a href="https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/uaw-strike-will-have-no-near-term-credit-effect-on-us-states-locals-21-09-2023">$825 million before the strike began</a>.</p>
<h2>Financing union organizing</h2>
<p>Organizing workers employed by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/business/tesla-union-uaw-strike/index.html">automakers that resist unions, such as Tesla</a>, can be expensive. </p>
<p>The union has to pay organizers and cover the organizers’ expenses, and it is responsible for the costs of complying with labor law requirements associated with holding union elections. We do not know the exact costs of organizing campaigns or how much unions spend on them. </p>
<p>We do know that the United Auto Workers spent $4.4 million in 2022 to pay its organizers, or 5.6% of the union’s <a href="https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=865078&rptForm=LM2Form">total payroll</a>. This level of expenditure pales in comparison to the more than $45 million the union <a href="https://uaw.org/tag/strike/">spent on strike benefits</a> for its members who went on strike that year – none of whom were employed in the automotive industry.</p>
<p>How can the UAW finance a massive organizing campaign to win over the workers at the likes of Tesla, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Hyundai? We have identified three means of supplementing traditional sources of revenue from dues.</p>
<p><strong>1: Get donations from other labor groups</strong></p>
<p>Unions are free to help out each other through donations made to one another.</p>
<p>One important precedent for this is from the UAW’s earliest days. In 1936, one year after the union got its start, John Lewis, at the time the head of the Committee for Industrial Organization, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/417956">gave the nascent United Auto Workers $100,000</a> – over $2.23 million adjusted for inflation – for its organizing efforts.</p>
<p>Labor unions can easily accept donations because they are <a href="https://blog.candid.org/post/unions-and-their-role-in-the-social-sector/">501(c)(5) nonprofits</a>. This designation means they <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/501(c)(5)">don’t have to pay any federal income tax</a>, although that exemption does not apply to the money they spend on electioneering and lobbying. Unlike charities, which in the U.S. are designated as 501(c)(3) organizations, <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/tax-treatment-of-donations-to-section-501c5-organizations">donations to unions are not tax deductible</a> for donors.</p>
<p><strong>2: Team up with other unions</strong></p>
<p>A second approach is for unions to pool their money for organizing another industrial sector. </p>
<p>We’ve found that the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers and the International Association of Machinists had a combined $513 million in working capital – money available for them to use as they see fit – in 2022. Some of those funds could help foot the bill for a concerted effort to persuade employees of nonunion automakers to join the union.</p>
<p>And the UAW could tap into these funds to supplement their spending on organizing personnel. </p>
<p><strong>3: Experiment with crowdfunding</strong></p>
<p>Third, rank-and-file members of the United Auto Workers, along with other manufacturing unions, could chip in to cover organizing costs through a <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-new-findings-shed-light-on-crowdfunding-for-charity-161491">crowdfunding campaign</a> by raising money online from donors.</p>
<p>Such a crowdfunding campaign might also draw donations from nonunion autoworkers who favor unionization, or anyone else who wants to see more autoworkers belonging to a union.</p>
<h2>Innovative tactics</h2>
<p>Spending more money on labor organizing will not suffice. The UAW will also need to rely on creativity and innovative thinking.</p>
<p>The challenges involved with winning over nonunion autoworkers will be far more formidable than its task in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-pull-out-all-stops-organizing-nonunion-automakers-2023-11-08/">negotiating the 2023 contracts with the Big Three</a>. </p>
<p>We believe that the UAW would be wise to again use the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/20/1207367334/the-uaw-strike-is-not-the-first-time-a-union-weaponized-the-element-of-surprise">element of surprise</a> as it did with its 2023 strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis. One key to its success was how it threw the companies off balance by unpredictably ratcheting up the number of facilities where workers had gone on strike.</p>
<p>Fain and his allies are bound to fare better if they again, as they did with the 2023 strike against the Big Three, <a href="https://www.wilx.com/2023/10/11/how-social-media-influences-uaw-strike/">shape the narrative</a> through the deft use of social media. That tactic helped the UAW garner grassroots support and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/labor-unions-auto-workers-poll-b6f0efba4892d1f5d2a829effd514f7d">keep public opinion on its side</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While Marick Masters was serving as the director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly within the purview of the university.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wooing those workers will be expensive and require a lot of creativity, since many of them are employed in ‘right-to-work’ states.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityRay Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164322023-10-29T15:04:03Z2023-10-29T15:04:03ZUnited Auto Workers union hails strike-ending deals with automakers that would raise top assembly-plant hourly pay to more than $40 as ‘record contracts’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556147/original/file-20231026-29-8u6y4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C2838%2C1684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 46,000 autoworkers gradually went on strike starting in mid-September.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-vehicle-sits-on-a-ford-dealerships-lot-on-october-03-news-photo/1715478064?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers union agreed on a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-reaches-tentative-deal-uaw-131907642.html">tentative new contract with General Motors on Oct. 30, 2023</a>, days after landing similar deals <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-strikes-ford-general-motors-stellantis-08a81503d72e44d4efa40549f684d5a2">with Ford Motor Co.</a> on Oct. 25 and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">Stellantis, the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America</a>, on Oct. 28. The pending agreements have halted the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">industry’s longest strike in 25 years</a>. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">began on Sept. 15</a>, when the UAW’s prior contracts with all three automakers expired, and lasted more than six weeks. After gradually ramping up, the strike eventually included about 46,000 workers – roughly one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the three companies.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/25/ford-confirms-tentative-agreement-with-uaw.html">Ford released a statement in which it said it was “pleased</a>” to have reached a deal and “focused on restarting Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.” <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2023/10/28/stellantis-strike-uaw-deal/71360452007/">Stellantis</a>, likewise, looks forward to “resuming operations,” as one of its executives said in a statement. General Motors initially made no public statements.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of labor and business issues</a>, to explain what’s in these contracts and their significance.</em></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1717337144572662025"}"></div></p>
<h2>What are the terms of the contract?</h2>
<p>According to several media reports and the union’s own announcements, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5">Ford’s tentative labor agreement</a> includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4½ years, as well as the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance the UAW lost in 2009.</p>
<p>In addition, the tentative agreements also will convert many temporary workers to full-time status, higher pay for temps, the right to go on strike over plant closures and significant increases in contributions to retirement plans.</p>
<p>By the end of the period covered by the Ford, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/business/economy/gm-uaw-contract-deal.html">GM</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">and Stellantis contracts</a>, the top worker wage at assembly plants will be <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/auto-workers-stellantis-reach-tentative-deal/7331209.html">more than US$40 an hour</a>. All three contracts will <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">expire on April 30, 2028</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">The Stellantis deal</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">according to UAW officials</a>, is similar to the one reached with Ford in other ways – as, reportedly, is the one that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/27/gm-uaw-labor-talks.html">UAW agreed upon with GM</a>. </p>
<p>The Stellantis agreement also has provisions regarding specific North American plants, including the plant Stellantis had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-outline-tentative-deal-reopen-stellantis-illinois-plant-sources-2023-10-28/">idled earlier in 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois</a>, the UAW said. Stellantis has promised to add 5,000 new jobs at Belvidere and other factories over the next four years, in stark contrast to its previous intention to cut that many jobs during the same period, UAW President <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Shawn Fain said on Oct. 28</a>.</p>
<p>The Ford contract, likewise, calls for <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2023/10/29/uaw-ford-tentative-agreement-details-highlighter/71368266007/">more than $8 billion in investments in factories</a> and other facilities, according to the UAW.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="UAW members, some holding their children aloft, attend a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW members attended a rally in support of the labor union’s strike on Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-attend-a-rally-in-support-of-the-labor-union-strike-news-photo/1712273041?adppopup=true">Jim Vondruska/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why did workers feel the strike was necessary, and did they achieve their aims?</h2>
<p>The workers knew that the companies had enjoyed <a href="https://www.cbs58.com/news/auto-sales-are-falling-but-profits-are-surging-welcome-to-the-new-normal">big profits</a> over the past several years. GM, for example, earned <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/14/automakers-production-levels-decrease-profits">$10 billion in profits in 2021</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-co-auto-industry-detroit-business-97a5db2a4e15c45915aae123e0b3d9cb">$14.5 billion in 2022</a>.</p>
<p>After having made <a href="https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/uaw-workers-set-to-strike-seek-to-regain-concessions-lost-after-2008-recession">major economic concessions</a> to help the companies survive the Great Recession, stiff international competition and the <a href="https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/its-official-gm-files-for-bankruptcy-a-1508">2009 bankruptcies of GM</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/apr/30/chrysler-verge-bankruptcy-talks-collapse">and Chrysler</a> – before the latter became a division of Stellantis – UAW members believed they deserved what they’re calling a “record contract” for having contributed to “record profits.”</p>
<p>“The days of low-wage, unstable jobs at the Big Three are coming to an end,” <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Fain said on Oct. 28</a>. “The days of the Big Three walking away from the American working class, destroying our communities, are coming to an end.”</p>
<p>To forge its militant strategy, the union tore a page from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-strike-if-it-happens-should-channel-the-legacy-of-walter-reuther-who-led-the-union-at-the-peak-of-its-power-212324">playbook of labor leader Walter Reuther</a>, who led the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970. Reuther believed that workers deserved a fair share of corporate abundance – just like shareholders and customers.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The UAW released the full details of the Ford contract to all of its members who are Ford workers on Oct. 29, after its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/26/23933553/ford-uaw-tentative-agreement-2023-contract-highlights-gm-stellantis">leaders had signed off</a> on it. Rank-and-file members now have to ratify the deal for it to go into effect.</p>
<p>The same process will happen with Stellantis on Nov. 2. The separate deal the UAW negotiated with GM will also require ratification.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the autoworkers who went on strike will be returning to their jobs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1718394875253514341"}"></div></p>
<h2>How will this affect the automakers’ bottom line?</h2>
<p>Some analysts have estimated that Ford’s contract, if ratified, would add <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-uaw-reach-tentative-deal-235436345.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">$1.5 billion to the company’s annual labor costs</a>. Ford itself estimated that this could add up to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5?mod=business_lead_story">$900 in labor costs to each vehicle</a> rolling off its assembly lines. Ford has also estimated that the strike cost it about $1.3 billion in pretax profits.</p>
<p>To put these numbers into perspective, <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/26/third-quarter-2023-financial-results.html">Ford generated slightly more than $130 billion in revenue</a> in the first three quarters of 2023, and <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-motor-co-f-q3-221158213.html">almost $5 billion in profits</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">Stellantis</a> has not yet made public what it believes the strike has cost the company.</p>
<p>General Motors has said that the strike is costing the company more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/gm-uaw-tentative-agreement-labor-strike.html">$800 million</a>.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Oct. 30, after GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly with the purview of the university.</span></em></p>Rank-and-file union members employed by the automakers have to ratify the new contracts before they become official.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115912023-10-20T12:27:13Z2023-10-20T12:27:13ZA memorial in Yiddish, Italian and English tells the stories of Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims − testament not only to tragedy but to immigrant women’s fight to remake labor laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554421/original/file-20231017-27-ejzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5582%2C3710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Victims' names engraved in a metal overhang, part of the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, are reflected in mirroring panels along the sidewalk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Triangle%20Shirtwaist%20Memorial/d4e18df9d4384eab9925fac331f75255?Query=triangle%20shirtwaist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=42&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 10-story Brown Building, site of one of the deadliest workplace disasters in United States history, stands one block east of Washington Square Park in New York City. Despite three bronze plaques noting its significance, it has long been easy to pass by without further thought.</p>
<p>On March 25, 1911, however, thousands of New Yorkers gathered outside what was then known as the Asch Building, home of <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/150.html#screen">the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory</a>. Drawn by <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/newspapersMagazines/nyt_032611.html">a brief but raging inferno</a>, they bore horrified witness to dozens of factory workers with no way to escape gathering on the ninth-floor window sills, desperately jumping, and smashing onto the sidewalks far below.</p>
<p>Horse-drawn fire crews <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/146.html#screen">responded within minutes</a> to reports of the fire, which broke out on a Saturday afternoon at closing time, and it took only a half-hour to douse the flames. But the fire had had its way.</p>
<p>One hundred and forty-six people lost their lives. Most of those who died worked on the ninth floor, where safety measures consisted of little more than pails of water, despite the potential fire bomb around them: overflowing bins of discarded cloth and lint, combined with tissue-paper patterns hung across the ceiling. Locked doors, an inadequate fire escape and other fire code violations meant many workers could find no way out except the windows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man looking from a few feet away at dead bodies crumpled on a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trapped behind locked doors, some workers saw no escape but the windows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/policeman-stands-in-the-street-observing-charred-rubble-and-news-photo/3112343?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Firemen were left to stack the lifeless bodies <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/151.html#screen">on the sidewalk</a>. The vast majority were girls or young women: meagerly paid laborers, and most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants.</p>
<p>On Oct. 11, 2023, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition <a href="https://apnews.com/article/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-memorial-6696231893baecf72da373ebd3a94680">dedicated a striking memorial</a> at the site of this tragedy. The initial installation features a stainless steel ribbon extending in two parallel strands along the ground floor, displaying victims’ names and survivors’ testimony, written in their native languages: English, Yiddish and Italian. Over the next few months, another gently twisting ribbon traveling from the window sill of the ninth floor to the ground level and back up again will be added.</p>
<p>The memorial offers a bold and graceful reminder not only of the fire but of its imprint on the world we inhabit today.</p>
<p>When I asked the students in my history class at the University of Michigan if they had heard of the Triangle fire, I was shocked to see almost all raise their hands. Many were familiar with how the disaster inspired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033177379/labor-day-history-triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-patco-strike">the growth of labor activism</a> and worker protections. Few of them, however, had thought about the central role of American Jewish women, <a href="https://ssw.umich.edu/faculty/profiles/tenure-track/kargold">the focus of my research</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of a crowd of women in long coats, holding banners that say 'We mourn our loss.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators from Local 25 and the United Hebrew Trades of New York mourn fire victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-mourn-for-the-deaths-of-victims-of-the-news-photo/642536674?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tense 2 years</h2>
<p>Only two years before the fire, a walkout over working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had sparked a series of labor actions that culminated in the <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">Uprising of the 20,000</a>, the largest <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/275.html#screen">American women’s strike</a> ever. </p>
<p>That disciplined activism was led by a small cadre of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography-clara-lemlich">young Jewish immigrant working-class women</a>. Years earlier, they had essentially created a branch of their own – Local 25 – within the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Their example led to a surge of strikes nationwide and forced the labor movement to finally take the needs of unskilled workers and women workers seriously.</p>
<p><a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/142.html#screen">The Triangle bosses</a> and other owners hired thugs to assault strike leaders and picketers. The police likewise felt free <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635910/common-sense-and-a-little-fire-second-edition/">to beat the picketers</a>, which only abated when upper-class partners in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/286.html#screen">Women’s Trade Union League joined the picket lines</a> – raising fear among the police that they might be striking society matrons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of formally dressed women around a dining table decorated with plants and candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suffragettes and socialites attend a dinner held by Mrs. Martin Littleton in support of the striking workers, circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-physician-anna-howard-shaw-leader-of-the-womens-news-photo/1393779912?adppopup=true">Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Triangle Factory was among the 339 shops that “<a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">settled” with the union</a> in February 1910, with concessions that included higher wages, a 52-hour week, four paid holidays per year and a promise to no longer discriminate against union members. </p>
<p>The strikers’ <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">call for better safety standards</a>, however, <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">had been ignored</a> by the male union representatives and owners who had worked out the settlement. </p>
<h2>Moral force</h2>
<p>Local 25 grew from a few hundred to 10,000 members over the course <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909#pid-18206">of the 1909-10 strike</a>. That organizing prowess would be seen again in the wave of protest and indignation that followed the 1911 fire.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">unions’ strength</a> could be seen in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/184.html#screen">funeral march</a> that accompanied the fire’s seven unidentified victims to a municipal burying ground, as a crowd of 400,000 assembled to march or <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/187.html#screen">watch the procession</a>.</p>
<p>The power of the <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">activists’ moral indignation</a> emerged in full force
at a memorial meeting held a few days later. Workers grew restive as wealthy philanthropists, city officials and liberal reformers promised investigatory commissions – which they feared would mean little real change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up formal portrait of a woman with dark hair in a black and white photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminist and union labor activist Rose Schneiderman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-feminist-and-labor-union-leader-rose-news-photo/461192915?adppopup=true">Interim Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">Rose Schneiderman</a>, one of the working-class <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/221.html">immigrant labor activists</a> who had helped organize the 1909 strike, was also on the platform. <a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">Reformer Frances Perkins</a>, who would soon become a close ally, noted Schneiderman trembling over <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">the loss of comrades, friends and co-workers</a>.</p>
<p>Schneiderman took the podium, excoriating the industry’s brutality and focusing on the unrealized power of the workers themselves. “I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies,” <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/115844?lang=bi">she declared</a>, “if I were to come here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public – and we have found you wanting.”</p>
<p>“I know from experience it is up to the working class to save themselves,” Schneiderman told the audience.</p>
<h2>Birth of the New Deal</h2>
<p>Yet the working class ended up needing allies like Perkins, who was instrumental in establishing a citizens’ Committee on Safety, and then <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart07">a legislative Factory Investigating Commission</a> as well.</p>
<p>On the day of the fire, Perkins had been enjoying tea at a friend’s house on Washington Square and rushed toward the commotion across the park, arriving on the scene to see bodies falling from the sky. That scene and Schneiderman’s speech <a href="https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/FrancesPerkinsLecture.html">left an indelible impression on her</a> – as they did on many New Yorkers. </p>
<p>For several reasons, including public outcry about the fire, this was the moment when New York City’s political machine began to shift its focus and <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">address workers’ needs</a>. Schneiderman and other activists worked with Perkins on investigations that led to the overhaul of <a href="https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/exhibits/industrialization">New York’s safety and labor laws</a>, such as <a href="https://bklyn.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-hearing-about-t/91238764/?locale=en-US">a 54-hour maximum work week</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men hold posters printed with black and white photographs of women as they stand on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">New York City commemorated the 108th anniversary of the fire in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/holding-flowers-pictures-and-traditional-dresses-people-news-photo/1138302794?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The young women whose pain had galvanized public response continued their union work, traveling around the country to help organize many of the strikes their activism inspired. Some also made an impact at the governmental level. Schneiderman became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">influenced her views on workers’ needs</a>, as well as those of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Perkins became President Roosevelt’s secretary of labor in 1933 and was the first woman to serve in a U.S. cabinet position. She brought the New York reforms born in the wake of the fire into <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/">the New Deal</a>, the slew of social programs the Roosevelt administration introduced to help Americans struggling through the Great Depression. </p>
<p>Schneiderman, too, had a role: the only woman to serve on the New Deal’s Labor Advisory Board. As Perkins later recalled, the day of the Triangle fire was “<a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">the day the New Deal was born</a>.”</p>
<p>For 112 years, the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have called out silently from the sidewalks and window frames of the Brown Building, which is now part of New York University’s campus. The new memorial calls on the passersby to stop, note and honor that one horrific half-hour, etched indelibly into the story of the city and the nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karla Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A memorial at the site of the 1911 fire remembers those who died; a cadre of young Jewish women helped push for change in the wake of the tragedy.Karla Goldman, Professor of Social Work and Judaic Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2158642023-10-19T18:39:11Z2023-10-19T18:39:11ZHealth care workers gain 21% wage increase in pending agreement with Kaiser Permanente after historic strike<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554397/original/file-20231017-19-xxi7c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C99%2C3234%2C2019&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking Kaiser Permanente workers hold signs as they march on Oct. 6, 2023, in Vallejo, Calif. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/striking-kaiser-permanente-workers-hold-signs-as-they-march-news-photo/1720876420?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/business/kaiser-permanente-strike-deal-reached/index.html">reached a tentative agreement</a> with its employer on a new four-year contract on Oct. 13, 2023. They agreed following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-thousands-of-kaiser-health-care-workers-on-strike-5-questions-answered-214926">largest documented strike of U.S. health care workers on record</a>, which involved more than 75,000 workers in several states and the District of Columbia. A majority of the <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/kaiser-permanente-unions-tentative-agreement-bargaining-sessions/696611/">unions’ 85,000 members will need to approve the deal</a> for it to become final. The <a href="https://go.seiu-uhw.org/l/45502/2023-10-13/9517nl">voting began on Oct. 18</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The contract’s terms will make Kaiser “able to deliver on our mission of providing high quality, affordable and accessible health care to our members,” <a href="https://calmatters.org/health/2023/10/kaiser-permanente-union-strikes-california-contract/">Kaiser Vice President and Chief of Human Resources Greg Holmes said</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZuwzOscAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Michael McQuarrie</a>, an Arizona State University sociologist who directs its Center for Work and Democracy, to explain what’s in the settlement and why it matters.</em> </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1712787147978321951"}"></div></p>
<h2>What are the terms of the settlement?</h2>
<p>Kaiser workers will get a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/13/1205788228/kaiser-permanente-strike-contract-deal-reached">21% raise over the life of the contract</a>, with a 6% salary increase in October 2023, and 5% in October 2024, 2025 and 2026.</p>
<p>The contract notably also includes a new hourly minimum wage for Kaiser workers in California, which will increase to US$25 by 2026. That pay level will be required of all California health care employers by that time, however, because <a href="https://calmatters.org/health/2023/10/california-minimum-wage-health-care-law/">California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a new law</a> to that effect.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/new-agreement-with-the-coalition-of-kaiser-permanente-unions">other states, the contractual minimum hourly wage will be $23</a> once all of the raises called for in this new contract are phased in.</p>
<p>The contract also calls for some improvements to benefits, such as <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/new-agreement-with-the-coalition-of-kaiser-permanente-unions">larger performance-related bonuses</a>. The final settlement reportedly includes a <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/largest-healthcare-worker-strike-us-history-scheduled-begin-wednesday-across-kaiser">guaranteed performance bonus of at least $1,500</a> if Kaiser meets financial benchmarks and patient health benchmarks.</p>
<p>Bonuses for working shifts that include hours after 5:30 p.m. would rise to $3.25 an hour, I’ve learned from workers involved in the negotiations. That means if this contract is ratified, these evening and night shifts would see an increase from <a href="https://www.seiu1199nw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/KPWA-SWEA-2019-2023.pdf">$2 in the 2019-2023 contract</a>. Without that monetary incentive, workers usually try to get more desirable daytime shifts, increasing turnover and exacerbating staffing gaps at night.</p>
<p>The new contract would also leave in place restrictions on Kaiser’s ability to outsource or subcontract union jobs, which were <a href="https://www.unioncoalition.org/80000-workers-kaiser-permanente-reach-tentative-contract-settlement/">included in the prior contract</a> that Kaiser and the unions agreed upon in 2019.</p>
<p>And the coalition of unions has agreed to streamline the process for internal bidding on open positions to help Kaiser resolve staffing shortfalls. In addition, the contract includes provisions for training new health care workers that the union had sought. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-ApUoR15JM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The deal will set a minimum hourly wage of $25 in California, where many of Kaiser Permanente’s facilities are located, and $23 in other states.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why did workers feel the strike was necessary, and did it achieve their aims?</h2>
<p>My contacts within the union told me that they had the impression that Kaiser had essentially withdrawn from negotiations in the weeks leading up to the strike – although its management team did return to the table at the eleventh hour before the strike began. The bargaining <a href="https://www.unioncoalition.org/2022-psp/">officially began in April 2023</a>.</p>
<p>The unions in the coalition had rejected the terms Kaiser was offering at that point, which included lower wages and plans to expand its reliance <a href="https://www.unioncoalition.org/2023-agreement-expires/">on subcontracted workers</a>. Kaiser also never responded to the coalition’s last economic proposal until the <a href="https://www.unioncoalition.org/2023-economic-proposal/">last-minute negotiations</a> that failed to avert a strike.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-thousands-of-kaiser-health-care-workers-on-strike-5-questions-answered-214926">strained relations between Kaiser’s managers and workers</a> to unprecedented levels. United Healthcare Workers West/SEIU, the coalition’s largest union, <a href="https://seiuuhw.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/2022-04_Report_Staffing-Survey-10.1_DIGITAL.pdf">surveyed its members in 2022</a> and found a heavily stressed workforce who felt that management was unresponsive to their concerns. <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/nursing-facility-staffing-shortages-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/">Numerous academic studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jradnu.2022.02.007">support these findings</a>. </p>
<p>Kaiser has been seeking for months to <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/kaiser-permanente-hiring-10000-new-staff-members-for-coalition-jobs">hire 10,000 new workers by the end of 2023</a> to fill vacancies that have led to understaffing and put stress on its workforce.</p>
<p>That Kaiser’s engagement in talks with the unions increased after the strike suggests that the unions’ actions made a big difference. So does the fact that Kaiser ultimately agreed to terms that were closer to the unions’ original demands on wages, benefits and subcontracting once workers went on strike than it had previously said it would accept.</p>
<h2>How have workers responded to the proposed settlement?</h2>
<p>Union members have to vote in favor of ratification for this contract to go into effect. Leaders of the strike and workers who were involved in the negotiations have told me they’re optimistic that this will happen. Voting <a href="https://www.seiu-uhw.org/press/more-than-85000-kaiser-permanente-healthcare-workers-win-landmark-new-contract/">began on Oct. 18</a> and should <a href="https://go.seiu-uhw.org/l/45502/2023-10-13/9517nl">conclude by Nov. 3</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael McQuarrie works with and does research on unions and other organizations. The Center for Work and Democracy has received funding from United Healthcare Workers West/SEIU, which is part of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.</span></em></p>Beyond higher wages and improved benefits, the terms of the Kaiser settlement would ensure better staffing, which the unions have argued is critical for providing quality patient care.Michael McQuarrie, Director of the Center for Work and Democracy, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149262023-10-05T14:20:03Z2023-10-05T14:20:03ZWhy are thousands of Kaiser health care workers on strike? 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552128/original/file-20231004-27-7dutzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C38%2C8640%2C5703&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kaiser Permanente health care workers in five states and Washington, D.C., are rallying against low wages and understaffing that they say is undermining patient care.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Hospitals-Strike/9baec78d997e408b9436e7ed91a62597/photo?Query=kaiser%20permanente&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=now-24h&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>More than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kaiser-health-care-workers-strike-b8b40ce8c082c0b8c4f1c0fb7ec38741">75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/kaiser-strike-100423/index.html">began a three-day strike</a> in Virginia, California, Colorado, Washington state, Oregon and Washington, D.C., on Oct. 4, 2023, after company executives and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/04/business/thousands-of-kaiser-permanente-workers-go-on-strike/index.html">eight unions representing aides, techs, support staff</a> and other employees failed to agree on the terms of new contracts. This is the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/02/kaiser-strike-workers-healthcare">largest U.S. health care strike</a> on record. In a statement it released when the walkout started, <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/we-remain-committed-to-reaching-an-agreement-with-the-coalition">Kaiser asserted that it wanted to reach a deal</a> soon with the striking workers.</em></p>
<p><em>Although hospitals and emergency rooms are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0F5vgl2_XU">still open during the strike</a>, and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kaiser-health-care-workers-strike-b8b40ce8c082c0b8c4f1c0fb7ec38741">Kaiser is making use of temporary workers</a>, many of its noncritical services are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0F5vgl2_XU">temporarily closed or operating under reduced hours</a>. The strike does not include any nurses unions or doctors.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZuwzOscAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Michael McQuarrie</a>, an Arizona State University sociologist who directs its Center for Work and Democracy, to explain why this strike is happening now and how labor actions like this can affect patient care.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kaiser health care workers on the picket line outside of a Kaiser Permanente facility in Sacramento, Calif. It is the largest medical care worker strike in U.S. history.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Why is this historic strike happening now?</h2>
<p>The two main reasons are concerns over staffing levels and practices and dissatisfaction with pay that hasn’t kept up with inflation and was too low to begin with.</p>
<p>Kaiser says its options are limited due to a national <a href="https://onlinenursing.duq.edu/post-master-certificates/shortage-of-healthcare-workers/">shortfall in all sorts of health care workers</a>, including home health aides and nurse practitioners. Workers counter that higher pay and better working conditions would attract more applicants. </p>
<p>Health care workers have long worried that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fmedicina55090553">inadequate staffing is undercutting the quality of care</a> for patients – this has been a central issue in contract negotiations and strikes for years. But the <a href="https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2021-11-01-data-brief-health-care-workforce-challenges-threaten-hospitals-ability-care">COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated</a> the problem.</p>
<p>At the same time, inflation has outstripped negotiated wage increases for Kaiser workers. Kaiser is currently offering some workers in Northern California and Washington state <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/our-latest-offer">4% annual raises</a> for the four years covered by the new contract and lower raises for everyone else. The <a href="https://www.unioncoalition.org/kp-two-tier-proposal/">unions have rejected</a> this offer, which they say would not make up for past inflation and would unnecessarily create different wage scales based on the region where workers are located.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">“Why are we here? Patient care! How do we get it? Higher staffing. Why are we here? Patient care! How do we get it? Living wages.” Video by Amanda Mascarelli.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Has Kaiser’s financial management played a role too?</h2>
<p>Kaiser, which provides health care for 12.7 million Americans, took in <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/news/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-2022-financial-results">US$95.4 billion in revenue</a> in 2022 but ran a <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/news/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-2022-financial-results">$1.2 billion operating loss</a> that it attributed to “strong economic headwinds in the financial markets” – suggesting that its investments were to blame rather than its health care operations. </p>
<p>For 2021, Kaiser reported that it had about <a href="https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/fitch-affirms-kaiser-permanente-ca-idr-at-aa-outlook-stable-16-05-2022">$56 billion in unrestricted cash</a> <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_audit/11867620211">and investments</a>, excluding assets tied to employee and retiree pensions. </p>
<p>Kaiser’s <a href="https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/news/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2023-financials">profits in the first half of 2023 totaled about $3.4 billion</a>, however. And with the exception of its losses in 2022, Kaiser has been <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/kaiser-record-net-income-covid-nonprofit/618783/">consistently profitable for years</a>.</p>
<p>Concerns over low worker pay are growing while <a href="https://paddockpost.com/2023/07/17/executive-compensation-at-kaiser-health-2021/">Kaiser’s executive compensation</a> is increasing. As of 2021, its <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941340523">CEO Gregory Adams was making more than $15.5 million</a> a year in pay and “other” compensation.</p>
<h2>3. But isn’t Kaiser a nonprofit – and does that mean it has any special obligations?</h2>
<p>Like many health care systems, <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/kaiser-cleveland-clinic-and-more-6-nonprofit-systems-back-in-the-black.html">Kaiser is a nonprofit</a>. This means it pays very little in taxes. In exchange for their special tax status, nonprofits are supposed to provide <a href="https://www.upcounsel.com/nonprofit-public-benefit-corporation">public benefits</a>.</p>
<p>Nonprofits may make more money than they spend, but they <a href="https://boardsource.org/resources/nonprofit-laws-and-regulations-faqs/">can’t distribute profits to its shareholders</a>. Nonprofit executive compensation must be <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organization-annual-reporting-requirements-meaning-of-reasonable-compensation">“reasonable,” according to the Internal Revenue Service</a> – although it can be hard to determine how much is too much.</p>
<h2>4. Are there any precedents for this strike?</h2>
<p>Health care strikes are not unusual, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/04/business/thousands-of-kaiser-permanente-workers-go-on-strike/index.html">with more than 40 occurring</a> in the past two years. However, the industry and the workforce are heavily fragmented, which means that these strikes tend to be relatively small.</p>
<p>In September 2022, the <a href="https://www.usnursing.com/blog/unveiling-the-largest-nursing-strike-in-u-s-history">Minnesota Nurses Association took 15,000 members</a> on strike over many of the same issues, such as staffing and inflation. That strike, which lasted three days, was the largest health care strike in U.S. history by that point in terms of the number of workers involved.</p>
<p>Prior to that, the largest was probably another <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/06/11/nurses-nextsteps">Minnesota strike in 2010</a>, in which about 12,000 nurses walked off the job for 24 hours. </p>
<p>Kaiser has experienced much smaller strikes in the past, such as a <a href="https://www.kpbs.org/news/health/2015/01/12/kaiser-therapists-strike-over-staffing-issues">walkout in 2015</a> of about 75 mental health clinicians.</p>
<h2>5. How much are patients harmed during health care strikes?</h2>
<p>It depends on the strike, but usually not much. </p>
<p>Critical care Kaiser facilities will remain open, though the strike will likely cause some delays in care due to short staffing and long lines.</p>
<p>Some appointments and elective procedures at the affected hospitals are being postponed, and nonessential functions like labs and radiology departments are temporarily closed or their hours are being reduced.</p>
<p>Registered nurses, who are very important bedside caregivers, are part of a different coalition of Kaiser unions. While they won’t be on strike, they <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11963308/kaiser-strike-if-youre-a-patient-what-medical-services-would-be-affected">may have to help cover work</a> not being done by aides and other support staff who are on the picket lines.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214926/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael McQuarrie works with and does research on unions and other organizations. The Center for Work and Democracy has received funding from United Healthcare Workers West/SEIU, which is part of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.</span></em></p>Workers are objecting to staffing levels they say endanger patient care and are refusing their employer’s offer that includes raises that they say are too low due to inflation.Michael McQuarrie, Director of the Center for Work and Democracy, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145192023-10-05T12:35:23Z2023-10-05T12:35:23ZWhat today’s labor leaders can learn from the explosive rise and quick fall of the typesetters union<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551502/original/file-20231002-29-eiap6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C5%2C3489%2C2349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Formerly cutting-edge technology.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/metal-printing-press-letters-royalty-free-image/464946342">iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can a seemingly robust labor union simply collapse? The news is full of stories about growing union power – but just because a union is strong now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. Important unions have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398403700201">put themselves out of business</a> before. The <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CIO_ITU_locals.shtml">International Typographical Union</a>, or ITU, is one such example. Once it was among the nation’s most significant unions, but it disappeared in just a few decades.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bu.edu/questrom/profile/jay-zagorsky/">I am a business school professor</a> who is fascinated by the lessons of the ITU – first, because <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com">I teach courses</a> about unions, and second, because I inadvertently participated in the ITU’s demise. But more on that later.</p>
<h2>More than just a ‘hot labor summer’</h2>
<p>Right now, union leaders are feeling powerful. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/25/cnbc-daily-open-summer-of-discontent.html">More than 360,000</a> workers have <a href="https://theconversation.com/waves-of-strikes-rippling-across-the-us-seem-big-but-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remains-historically-low-210673">gone on strike in 2023</a> – nearly <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.nr0.htm">three times as many</a> as in all of 2022. The United Auto Workers union is currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">striking against</a> Detroit’s Big Three and demanding a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-strike-ford-gm-stellantis-contract-offers-5dd4dee2056b7efe06d2a55433d8d13a">36% pay hike</a>. UPS recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/business/economy/ups-contract-vote-teamsters.html">agreed to union demands</a> for a generous new contract, under which the most senior drivers will eventually earn about $170,000 a year. Hollywood was shut down by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/actors-are-demanding-that-hollywood-catch-up-with-technological-changes-in-a-sequel-to-a-1960-strike-209829">screenwriters’ and actors’ strikes</a>.</p>
<p>However, union leaders would be wise not to overplay their hands. The typesetters guild boasted more than <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1970/compendia/statab/91ed/1970-03.pdf">100,000 members at its peak</a>. Today it serves as a cautionary example of how quickly union power can erode.</p>
<h2>A brief digression: What is typesetting, anyway?</h2>
<p>Our story begins <a href="https://www.asme.org/getmedia/4e9d6576-020f-4e74-a00c-27e11a250f09/gutenberg-and-mass-production.pdf">in the 1500s</a> with the invention of the movable-type printing press. Workers called typesetters would take individual blocks of letters and <a href="https://letterpresscommons.com/setting-type-by-hand/">arrange them into lines of text</a>. They would store unused letters in two cases: capital letters in an upper case and smaller letters in the easier-to-access lower case. That practice – which is why English speakers still describe letters as <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know-history/why-it-called-upper-and-lower-case">“uppercase” and “lowercase”</a> – would be ripe for disruption a few centuries later.</p>
<p>A typesetter’s biggest concern was letters falling out when put on the printing press. To prevent this, all lines were made justified, or the same width, so <a href="https://www.oldtreasurybuilding.org.au/lost-jobs/in-print/hand-setting/">text could be locked into a rectangular frame</a>. Being a good typesetter demanded physical skills to move blocks of type quickly. It also took intellect, since typesetters acted as de facto proofreaders and layout designers. </p>
<h2>An early American union</h2>
<p>Fast-forward a few hundred years. <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0113/the-history-of-unions-in-the-united-states.aspx">U.S. labor unions started picking up steam</a> after the Civil War, and typographers were <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CIO_ITU_locals.shtml">quick to unionize</a>, since their high literacy levels helped with organizing. They formed the International Typographical Union <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1821011">in 1852</a> with more than 1,000 members.</p>
<p>Thirty years after its founding, the ITU faced a major technological shock. In 1886, the inventor <a href="https://www.typeroom.eu/ottmar-mergenthaler-10-things-to-know-about-linotype-inventor">Ottmar Mergenthaler</a> was granted a patent for the Linotype machine. This machine allowed operators to select characters by typing them on a keyboard instead of picking them from a type case. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/06/the-linotype-the-machine-that-revolutionized-movable-type/">Linotype’s advantages were quickly evident</a>. A skilled <a href="https://www.prepressure.com/printing/history/1850-1899">operator could set 6,000 characters per hour</a>, many times faster than a hand compositor. The Linotype also didn’t require blocks of letters to be re-sorted into type cases after material was printed. Instead, lines of <a href="https://www.history.uwo.ca/public_history/docs/i2i%20big%20labels.pdf">type could be melted down and reused</a>.</p>
<p>The Linotype and competing machines didn’t hurt the union because it made publishing cheaper, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1998/02/11/a-history-of-newspaper-gutenbergs-press-started-a-revolution/2e95875c-313e-4b5c-9807-8bcb031257ad/">which resulted in a burst of printing</a>. In fact, ITU membership increased as new newspapers, magazines and book publishers sprang up, all of whom needed skilled workers who could take handwritten copy and transform it into printed text. </p>
<p>By the start of World War I, ITU membership was over 60,000.</p>
<p>The union’s membership peaked in the 1960s, with newspapers being the biggest employers of ITU members. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1950/07/22/archives/publishers-reopen-battle-with-itu-union-is-accused-of-coercion-on.html">Newspaper publishers didn’t like</a> the ITU because it meant they had to pay for two different expensive workforces: the reporters who created the content and the typesetters who made that content readable. While only <a href="https://newsguild.org/history/">some of the reporters were unionized</a>, almost all of the typesetters were.</p>
<h2>The decline of the ITU</h2>
<p>Starting in the 1960s, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/03/archives/paper-using-cold-type-2-main-innovations-how-new-method-works-the.html">other new developments</a> like <a href="https://www.dsource.in/course/digital-typography-1/phototypesetting">phototypesetting</a> and then <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/%7Ebkunde/fb-press/articles/wdprhist.html">word processing</a> threatened typesetters’ jobs. </p>
<p>The ITU fought against technological changes with a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/11/1963-newspaper-strike-bertram-powers">massive strike in New York City</a>. When the strike started, New York City had seven daily newspapers. After a 114-day shutdown, only three remained: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>, the <a href="https://nypost.com/">New York Post</a> and the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/">Daily News</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dozens of protesters with the ITU stand densely packed together on a New York City street, waving signs and placards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551499/original/file-20231002-24-94rdfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the International Typographical Union demonstrate outside the offices of The New York Times on Jan. 15, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-ny-bertram-powers-president-of-local-six-of-the-news-photo/514907050">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The relatively high pay of typesetters, combined with their ability to shut down production for long periods of time, made newspapers, magazines and other publishers <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/108858/02996029-MIT.pdf">eager customers</a> for high-tech companies that built computers that automatically determined line breaks, hyphenation and text justification. These computers also saved time by eliminating the need for typing copy twice: first by the author and then by a typesetter.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt15jvw33.14">second technological revolution devastated</a> ITU membership. From 1984 to 1987, its membership halved. In 1986, it <a href="https://cwa-union.org/about/cwa-history">merged with the Communications Workers of America</a>, which today <a href="https://cwa-union.org/about">doesn’t even mention typographers</a> on its list of sectors.</p>
<h2>Walking the negotiating tightrope</h2>
<p>Similarly today, unions are pushing for large wage increases at a time when new technologies pose a threat to those workers’ livelihoods. <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/teamsters-tech-firms-tangle-over-self-driving-trucks-bill">Autonomous vehicles threaten</a> Teamsters truckers; robots and simpler-to-build <a href="https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2023-09-20/why-the-uaw-is-fighting-so-hard-for-these-4-key-demands-in-the-auto-strike">electric vehicles threaten</a> United Auto Workers; ChatGPT threatens screenwriters.</p>
<p>Labor leaders walk a fine line: Their job is to advocate for workers, but making aggressive demands can backfire if they prompt employers to more quickly embrace automation. In other words, there’s a risk that militancy today can destroy union jobs tomorrow.</p>
<p>Oh, yes – how did I inadvertently help the ITU’s demise? </p>
<p>After newspapers computerized their news operations, typographers were still needed to create display ads. I joined a <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2015/10/01/george-white-founded-companies-that-helped-change-newspaper-production/r8oA8ERHMy6siV17BTvOkO/story.html">small high-tech company</a> that built some of the first software and hardware that automated creating display ads. Our systems cost millions of dollars but were eagerly purchased by large newspapers.</p>
<p>The irony was that shortly after my company helped put the final nail in the ITU’s coffin, a new wave of computer companies such as Apple, Adobe and Hewlett-Packard created the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/business/businesshistory/April/apple_testimage.html">desktop publishing revolution</a>. That technological change put the company I worked for out of business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History suggests that there’s risk of overplaying one’s hand when new technology is lurking.Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2137252023-09-22T23:09:02Z2023-09-22T23:09:02ZUnion and execs need to shift gears fast once UAW strike is over – transition to EV manufacturing requires their teamwork<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549612/original/file-20230921-22-h1rcv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=183%2C16%2C5369%2C3521&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW members and leaders march in Detroit on Sept. 15, 2023 – the first day of the union's strike.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrike/32bf9ce4bc70471a9008efa76adaf5b4/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=441&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union is ramping up its <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">strike against General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the global company that makes Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles – and getting closer to a deal with Ford.</p>
<p>About 5,600 UAW members at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-ford-stellantis-general-motors-strike-labor-4132aa222c9a4456415af480d6fafa98">38 General Motors and Stellantis</a> distribution centers for auto parts in 20 states walked off the job on Sept. 22, 2023, after an announcement by UAW President Shawn Fain.</p>
<p>Workers at the only Ford plant affected by the strike since it <a href="https://apnews.com/article/strike-auto-workers-ford-gm-stellantis-f948704cce3d6dc9ca484142c5d0d98e">began on Sept. 15</a> will remain off the job. The total number of UAW members involved in the strike stands at about 18,300. </p>
<p>Under <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/22/uaw-strike-shawn-fain-00117091">Fain’s leadership</a>, the union is <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uaw-shawn-fain-leadership-who-is-shawn-fain/">taking an adversarial approach</a>: It’s railing against what it describes as the “poverty wages” UAW members earn while denouncing the automakers’ CEOs as “greedy” and vowing to “<a href="https://www.wane.com/top-stories/with-no-deal-uaw-vows-to-expand-strike-will-fort-wayne-workers-hit-the-picket-line/">wreck their economy</a>.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=a1wi_lQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">scholar of employment relations</a>, I think this strike is too narrowly focused on making up for the wages and benefits autoworkers have lost in recent years. But another big objective is ensuring that autoworkers will have good jobs once <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/business/electric-vehicles-uaw-gm-ford-stellantis.html">most U.S.-made vehicles are electric-powered</a>. </p>
<p>This dispute alone will not resolve this larger objective. Rather, I believe management and labor will need to swiftly move on following the strike and work together constructively to meet that goal.</p>
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<h2>UAW’s demands</h2>
<p>The union is demanding an end to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/20/this-fight-is-for-everybody-us-autoworkers-strike-to-restore-the-middle-class">concessions it made to the three companies</a> during the financial crisis that began in 2007. Its members employed by Ford, GM and Stellantis have experienced a <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/uaw-automakers-negotiations/">19% decline in their wages</a>, after accounting for inflation, since 2008. </p>
<p>The union also wants the automakers – sometimes called the Detroit Three – to abolish <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200357955/uaw-big-3-strike-auto-shawn-fain">the tiered wage system</a>, which pays new employees far less than more experienced workers, even for the same work. The UAW initially said it was seeking a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/what-know-uaw-strike-auto-companies-ford-general-motors-rcna103725">wage increase of 40%</a> over four years and the restoration of a <a href="https://uawd.org/cola/">cost-of-living allowance</a> that would link wages to inflation.</p>
<p>In addition to these demands, the UAW wants <a href="https://www.plansponsor.com/is-the-uaws-demand-for-return-of-pensions-a-realistic-ask/">defined-benefit pensions</a> for all workers restored, company-paid health benefits for retirees reestablished and the right to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/day-workweek-46-raise-uaw-makes-audacious-demands/story?id=102926195">strike over plant closures</a> guaranteed. Other demands include more paid time off and seeing all temporary workers made permanent. It has also called for a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/19/why-uaw-auto-workers-want-a-32-hour-workweek.html">32-hour work week</a> without a pay cut.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man in a blue jacket and white t-shirt surrounded by journalists holding microphones and recording devices" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks to reporters about the UAW contract talks on Sept. 13, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersCEOPay/1fbaeedd4edf4812aab98b67db0617ec/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=441&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span>
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<h2>Precedents for working together</h2>
<p>Although the strike has emphasized the goal of boosting future autoworker pay and benefits, I believe that workers and management can look to the past for ideas that might help them move forward. </p>
<p>GM’s Saturn partnership offers one potential model. </p>
<p>The company’s approach to its <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/features/saturn-cars-history-general-motors-feature/">Saturn brand of compact vehicles</a>, launched in 1985, was unique in many respects. Its governance structure was characterized by shared decision-making at different levels throughout the plant. The local union was a <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801438738/learning-from-saturn/">full partner in virtually all business decisions</a>. </p>
<p>GM invested billions of dollars in this venture, through which it tried to compete with Japanese imports and transplants that were quickly eroding GM’s market share. Saturns were designed differently than other U.S. vehicles, but what made those vehicles special was <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA276889.pdf">the extent to which labor</a> <a href="https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/2bc7da28-acc6-4a3d-af21-1c583b784136/content">shared the responsibility</a> for running Saturn’s main factory. </p>
<p>The Saturn partnership was hard to maintain, especially following the <a href="http://www.saturnfans.com/Company/2007/rogersmithdies.shtml">departure of Roger B. Smith</a>, the General Motors CEO who had pushed hard for it. The company <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123500373416017943">stopped making Saturns in 2009</a>, but the former subsidiary’s overall approach of involving workers in decisions about their jobs and the manufacturing process remains as critical today as it was in its heyday.</p>
<p>I would encourage the auto industry to again invoke the spirit of the Saturn venture, which emphasized the collaboration and partnership of labor and management in the production of high-quality, world-class vehicles. Only this time, the vehicles will be EVs.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sporty silver two-door sedan" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Two Saturn salesmen look at a Saturn Sky Roadster in San Jose, Calif., weeks before all Saturn dealerships closed in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Saturn/e85314d7d19d40ab9bf4f45683fd5c50/photo?Query=saturn%20sky&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Paul Sakuma</a></span>
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<p>GM offers another model for positive union-management relations.</p>
<p>About 20 years ago, its Lansing-Grand River assembly plant in Michigan began to engage in a similar example of what I call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979390906300104">joint responsibility unionism</a>. Management and the local UAW union established a contractual commitment to work together to continually improve production by systematically solving problems and increasing productivity.</p>
<p>Management and the local UAW union established a contractual commitment to work together to continually improve production by systematically solving problems and increasing productivity.</p>
<p>The local union and management hold each other accountable for keeping costs down and quality high. The plant, which assembles <a href="https://www.gm.com/company/facilities/lansing-grand-river">Cadillacs and Chevy Camaros</a>, continues this approach successfully today.</p>
<h2>Shift the focus to the future</h2>
<p>The UAW is pointing to the billions of dollars in <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/26/swec-j26.html">profits auto companies are currently getting</a> when it demands a bigger piece of the pie. The companies counter that rapidly increasing EV production is costly.</p>
<p>GM, Ford and Stellantis already plan to invest more than <a href="https://www.atlasevhub.com/data_story/210-billion-of-announced-investments-in-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-headed-for-the-u-s/">US$100 billion in electric vehicle manufacturing</a>. As production shifts away from vehicles with internal combustion engines that burn gasoline or diesel fuel, the number of autoworkers needed to build them will decline. <a href="https://energyright.com/ev-draft/how-do-an-evs-components-compare">EVs have fewer parts</a>.</p>
<p>Ford and Volkswagen, for example, have estimated that they’ll eventually need <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-electric-car-auto-industry-jobs-layoffs-employment-ford-2022-8">30% less labor due to the EV transition</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">Undergoing this transformation</a> with labor and management at loggerheads can’t possibly benefit the UAW or the auto companies. </p>
<p>Instead, they’ll need to focus on finding solutions together that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-electric-car-auto-industry-jobs-layoffs-employment-ford-2022-8">increase productivity</a>, build a skilled workforce and efficiently convert plants that make conventional vehicles today to EV factories tomorrow. In so doing, the UAW is more likely to meet its goal of seeing those EV factories employ its members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Berg receives funding from Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p>Building an auto industry for the future that serves the needs of workers, companies and consumers alike will require innovative partnerships between the union and management.Peter Berg, Professor of Employment Relations; Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132122023-09-12T12:29:16Z2023-09-12T12:29:16ZWhat are strike funds? A labor-management relations expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548479/original/file-20230915-31-ys5ifx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C25%2C5626%2C3521&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking United Auto Workers picket at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., shortly after midnight Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrike/bfb295348888431e9f0df76f97963033/photo?Query=uaw&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1960&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When people go on strike, their employers don’t pay them. That makes it <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-survive-a-strike">hard for workers who have walked off the job to keep paying their bills</a>. Union members have an advantage during strikes because they can get help with housing, food and other <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/strike-fund/">essential expenses through payments from strike funds</a>.</p>
<p>These payments only cover basic expenses and generally don’t fully replace lost income.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Trade-Union-Finance-How-Labor-Organizations-Raise-and-Spend-Money/Masters-Gibney/p/book/9781003335474">Members pay dues and fees</a> to finance their unions. Every month, members of the United Auto Workers, for example, pay the <a href="https://uaw.org/dues-faq/">equivalent of what they earn in two hours</a> to their union. New members can also be required to pay a one-time initiation fee that’s much higher. The <a href="https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/membership-costs">Screen Actors Guild’s initiation fee is US$3,000</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond covering day-to-day operations, union dues accumulate for future uses, including strike funds. Once a strike is authorized, members in good standing are eligible to receive either a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of their earnings as outlined in the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-UAW-Constitution.pdf">constitution and bylaws</a>. </p>
<p>Union members have traditionally reported to a local union’s office on a specific day and time to pick up their strike benefits. Some unions are seeing if they can rely instead on <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2023/09/11/uaw-strike-pay-signup-detroit-three-bargaining/70822926007/">electronic distribution systems</a>.</p>
<h2>Why strike funds matter</h2>
<p>When unions have amassed large strike funds, it can force employers to take the threat of a strike seriously because it signals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12374">workers can stay off the job</a> longer. That, in turn, can help unions win more of their demands during contract negotiations.</p>
<p>Other sources of financial support during strikes are limited. </p>
<p>Two states, New York and New Jersey, allow workers to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/where-workers-on-strike-can-qualify-for-unemployment-benefits.html">collect unemployment benefits while they’re on strike</a>. <a href="https://voiceofoc.org/2023/09/a-bill-allowing-striking-workers-to-collect-unemployment-heads-to-gov-newsom/">California’s legislature approved a similar measure on Sept. 14, 2023</a>. But for the most part, U.S. workers can’t get jobless benefits during strikes.</p>
<p>Charity can play a role as well, depending on the industry. Some of the screenwriters and actors who went on strike in mid-2023 have been getting support from nonprofits like the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-strikes-donations-actors-writers-0a8df24c6d73f4075df32f5143592cce">Entertainment Community Fund</a> and the <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/sag-aftra-strike-celebrity-donations">SAG-AFTRA Foundation</a> – to which celebrities like George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey have each given at least $1 million to help Hollywood workers get by while they’re not getting paychecks.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C82%2C4118%2C2526&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women on a picket line holding signs saying that the Writer's Guild and SAG AFTRA unions are on strike." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C82%2C4118%2C2526&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor and writer Marissa Carpio pickets with SAG-AFTRA members in front of Netflix offices in August 2023 in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marissa-carpio-joins-sag-aftra-members-as-they-maintain-news-photo/1636100727?adppopup=true">John Nacion/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>United Auto Workers on strike</h2>
<p>The UAW went on strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – the company that makes Chrysler vehicles – after its negotiations with the three Detroit-based automakers didn’t <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-general-motors-stellantis-ford-strike-0c41761e174236151a29cc698f5dc7d5">result in a contract by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023</a>.</p>
<p>The union has committed to <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-delegates-vote-increase-strike-pay-500-per-week-available-first-day-strike/">making weekly payments from its strike fund of $500 per week</a>, <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">plus some benefits</a>, to all striking workers. Its members’ pay varies, but the highest earners at unionized U.S. automotive assembly factories can make up to <a href="https://fox59.com/news/national-world/why-the-united-auto-workers-union-is-poised-to-go-on-strike-this-week/">$32 an hour</a> – $1,280 per week – plus benefits.</p>
<p>The UAW has about <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/25/uaw-strike-fund-gm-stellantis-ford">$825 million in its strike fund</a>. That money could probably last for 12 weeks if all of its <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">nearly 150,000 members</a> working for automakers were to go on strike at one time. But the union is initially targeting <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/14/uaw-strikes-ford-gm-stellantis.html">only three factories</a>, with 13,000 workers walking off the job. This tactic will help ensure that its workers can stay on strike longer.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Sept. 15, 2023, to indicate that the UAW strike had begun and that the California legislature had passed a bill allowing workers on strike to get unemployment benefits.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When unions amass large sums of money to parcel out to workers, it can give them more leverage in negotiations with employers.Ray Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100372023-08-07T12:41:03Z2023-08-07T12:41:03ZUS autoworkers may wage a historic strike against Detroit’s 3 biggest automakers − with wages at EV battery plants a key roadblock to agreement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538558/original/file-20230720-19-obsn7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C139%2C2236%2C1850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain speaks with General Motors workers on July 12, 2023, in Detroit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain-speaks-with-and-news-photo/1528218013?adppopup=true">Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union, which represents nearly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/stellantis-samsung-battery-plant-uaw/index.html">150,000 employees of companies that manufacture U.S.-made vehicles</a>, has been engaged since July 2023 in the labor negotiations it undergoes every four years with the three main unionized automakers.</p>
<p>By late August, it still wasn’t clear that the UAW would agree to a new contract with <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigthree.asp">Ford, General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the automaker that manufactures Chrysler and 13 other vehicle brands – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-will-open-contract-talks-with-detroit-three-automakers-2023-07-10/">by their impending deadline</a>. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-union-wage-increase-jobs-bank-b8370b11bd692191d9ee3080001ef358">contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14</a>.</p>
<p>The union’s leaders skipped the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/07/13/uaw-detroit-three-handshake-tradition-shawn-fain/70407842007/">traditional handshake ceremonies</a> it usually holds with these automakers, which are often called the Big Three or Detroit Three. The union instead held grassroots photo-ops: UAW leaders greeted rank-and-file members at one Ford, one GM and one Stellantis factory. On Aug. 25, the UAW announced that <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of its members had authorized a strike</a> “if the Big Three refuse to reach a fair deal.” It’s a major milestone.</p>
<p>I’m a labor scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>. Given that the UAW is <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">making major demands</a> at a time of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/strikes-2023-summer-unions/">rising union assertiveness and ambition</a>, I believe it’s reasonable to wonder whether U.S. automakers will be the next industry to face a strike.</p>
<p>In 2023, there have been <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/emmys-postponed-due-writer-actor-strikes-rcna96803">strikes by screenwriters, actors</a>, <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/us-healthcare-workers-walk-off-the-job-7-strikes-in-2023.html">health care workers</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-los-angeles-hotel-strike-ff26bbef8cbf37c82469a446ff29f919">hotel staff</a>, as well as vigorous organizing by workers for <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/reform-caucus-rises-sues-elections-amazon-labor-union">warehouse and delivery services</a> at <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/amazon-teamsters-rolling-pickets-hit-facilities-nationwide">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">UPS</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/fedex-pilots-union-vote/index.html">FedEx</a>.</p>
<h2>Strike could stall Detroit GM, Ford and Stellantis</h2>
<p>All three automakers with expiring contracts have amassed nearly <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">US$250 billion in reported profits</a> in their North American operations over the past decade.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">UAW leaders have pledged</a> to garner what they see as their members’ fair share of those profits through higher wages and stronger job security.</p>
<p>The UAW’s newly elected president, Shawn Fain, frequently denounces corporate greed and has proclaimed the union’s willingness to go on strike. In the past, the union has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/automobiles/auto-strikes-history.html">held strikes against one automaker at a time</a>, most recently in <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/25/20930350/gm-workers-vote-end-strike">2019 against GM</a>. </p>
<p>That could change this time.</p>
<p>“The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-president-says-union-prepared-strike-detroit-three-2023-07-11/">Big Three is our strike target</a>,” Fain has said. “And whether or not there’s a strike, it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.” </p>
<p>The UAW has said it has <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/06/21/bank-of-america-analysts-expect-uaw-strike-during-auto-talks-this-year/70343417007/">more than $825 million</a> in its strike fund to <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">help workers make do</a> without pay should they walk off the job. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man carries a 'UAW on strike' picket sign, enveloped in an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Autoworker Ray Dota picketed outside the shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Sept. 23, 2019, during the most recent UAW strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ray-dota-of-austintown-oh-pickets-outside-the-shuttered-news-photo/1178903811?adppopup=true">Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Fain’s leadership</h2>
<p>Fain has declared that the union will no longer maintain the somewhat cozy relationship with the Big Three that <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">led to major concessions</a> in the past.</p>
<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">union’s other new leaders also</a> are affiliated with the UAW’s <a href="https://uawd.org/about/">Unite All Workers for Democracy</a> caucus, which launched a successful campaign to require the direct election of the union’s top officials in 2022, with runoff elections held in 2023. They want to prevent a recurrence of a massive scandal that resulted in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">federal prosecution</a> of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">UAW leaders from 2017 to 2022</a>.</p>
<p>Two former UAW international presidents were sentenced to time in prison after being convicted of embezzling union funds. The new slate of leaders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">assumed control of the UAW under court supervision</a> in March 2023.</p>
<h2>Seeking equal pay for EV workers</h2>
<p>As part of their bolder strategy, the <a href="https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-samsung-sdi-build-3b-ev-battery-plant-us">UAW’s new leaders have criticized the joint ventures</a> between the three automakers and foreign-based electric battery producers.</p>
<p>They want to see Ford, GM and Stellantis paying UAW-level wages and benefits at all joint-venture operated plants in the U.S. making batteries for their EVs. Today, workers at the joint-venture factories earn far less than their <a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">counterparts who produce vehicles that run on fossil fuels</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electrek.co/2022/12/09/gms-ultium-battery-plant-votes-overwhelmingly-to-unionize-with-uaw/">UAW has succeeded in organizing one of these joint ventures</a>, Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio. But pay for workers at the former General Motors plant, which is now a joint EV battery venture between GM and LG Energy, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/auto-union-harshly-criticizes-us-ford-joint-venture-battery-loan-2023-06-23/">starts at just $16.50 per hour</a>. In 2019, the year that GM ended car assembly at that factory, workers <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/28/auto-workers-union-and-sanders-blast-gm-for-wages-at-us-battery-plant.html">earned $32 per hour</a>. </p>
<p>The UAW has several other objectives, which <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">Fain first announced in a Facebook live meeting</a> on Aug. 1, 2023.</p>
<p>They include greater job security <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-seeks-double-digit-pay-hikes-detroit-three-contract-talks-2023-08-01/">and steep wage increases</a> for UAW-represented workers covered by the union’s contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis.</p>
<p>Among other things, it also seeks to end the two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007, under which new hires make much less than veteran workers, and the restoration of cost-of-living allowances, which the UAW also conceded in 2007 to help the companies stay afloat during the Great Recession.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc12.com/news/business/uaw-president-lays-out-list-of-demands-for-big-three-automakers/article_3e76b288-3130-11ee-861e-2365c42aa592.html">Other UAW goals include</a> resuming company-paid retiree health care benefits, adding more paid time off and limiting the use of temporary employees. Fain also says he wants <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_4x-seTCvc&ab_channel=CBSNews">workweeks scaled down to 32 hours, from its current 40</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1686494700331728906"}"></div></p>
<h2>Smaller ranks</h2>
<p>Union membership in the auto manufacturing industry has <a href="https://www.unionstats.com">shrunk from nearly 60% in 1983 to under 16% in 2022</a>. Nonunion competitors with U.S. locations include foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, as well as domestic-based EV rivals Tesla and Rivian.</p>
<p>In 1970, GM employed more than 400,000 workers. In 2001, the Big Three combined employed 408,000. Today, a total of only 146,000 people work for those companies – <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/uaw-show-list-economic-demands-automakers-week-seek-101925455">57,000 at Ford, 46,000 at GM and 43,OOO at Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>The Big Three’s share of the U.S. automotive market has <a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20090601/OEM/306019739/detroit-3-domestic-brands-u-s-market-share-history">declined to about 40% from more than 90%</a> in <a href="https://datacenter.autonews.com/data-center/market-reports">the mid-1960s</a>.</p>
<p>But the UAW’s negotiations also directly affect the economic livelihood of the millions who work for the Big Three’s suppliers and in communities dependent on the <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/posts/press-release/new-data-on-economic-impact">$1 trillion the auto industry contributes to the U.S. economy</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, many union and nonunion employers monitor the wages and benefits of UAW-represented workforces as they set compensation for their own employees. When union members get raises and better benefits, many employers of nonunion autoworkers mirror those changes – <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-and-well-being/">raising pay too</a>. </p>
<p>The shift to electric vehicles poses several related challenges to the UAW.</p>
<p>First, it requires less labor than producing vehicles that burn fossil fuels, which means <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2658797703">EV manufacturing generates fewer jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Second, autoworkers employed at joint-venture EV-battery factories have to be organized by the UAW on a case-by-case basis. That can prove especially difficult at plants located in such states as Kentucky, Tennessee or Georgia – where unions have <a href="https://www.unionstats.com/">lower membership rates</a>.</p>
<p>Third, <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-median-earnings-81-percent-us-average">nonunion electric vehicle companies like Tesla</a> and <a href="https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2022-12-16/why-the-uaw-is-so-hungry-for-a-unionization-win-at-rivian">Rivian generally pay their production workers less</a> than the Detroit Three.</p>
<h2>What the automakers say</h2>
<p>Ford, GM and Stellantis have noted that they have invested heavily in U.S.-based factories to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007">preserve UAW-represented jobs</a>. Also, the Big Three point out that they have shared their North American profits in sizable annual payments to their workers.</p>
<p>In 2022, for example, the Detroit Three combined made profit-sharing payments that averaged <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/02/ford-uaw-hourly-workers-2022-profit-sharing/69865970007/">$36,686 per worker</a>. In addition, the companies pay higher wages and provide more benefits to U.S. autoworkers than foreign automakers, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/business/uaw-contract-talks.html">Toyota and Honda, or domestic EV producers</a>.</p>
<p>Ford CEO Jim Farley and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/07/12/gm-reuss-uaw-contract-talks-detroit-automakers/70401953007/">GM President Mark Ruess have published op-eds</a> in the Detroit Free Press praising their workers and expressing their commitments to do right by them.</p>
<p>“We share common goals” with the UAW, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007/">Farley wrote in late June</a>. Both sides want to reach “a new deal that allows us to stay ahead of the changing industry landscape, protecting good-paying jobs in the U.S.”</p>
<p>But both executives have emphasized their need to be competitive.</p>
<p>After seeing the UAW’s demands, GM criticized their “breadth and scope” and said they “would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team.” The <a href="https://www.gmnegotiations2023.com/public/us/en/negotiations/home/negotiation-updates.html">automaker also reiterated</a> its openness to what it called a “fair agreement” and to raise wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very modern-looking concept-car truck beneath the Ram automotive brand name." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stellantis’ Ram 1500 Revolution battery-electric concept pickup truck was on display in January 2023 at a trade show in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stellantis-ram-1500-revolution-battery-electric-concept-news-photo/1454496551?adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What may happen during a UAW strike</h2>
<p>Halting production for even one big automaker during a strike would directly harm thousands of workers and cost the company money in terms of lost sales and production. Strikers would lose out on wages that would only be partially offset by the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">striker benefits of $500 per week</a>. </p>
<p>And any strike could further disrupt supply chains that have not fully recovered from the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters that have sharply <a href="https://www.cargroup.org/auto-supply-chain-update/">curtailed vehicle production</a> since 2020.</p>
<p>Financial losses can be immense for automotive companies when their workers walk off the job. The 40-day <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">strike in 2019 cost GM a reported $3.6 billion</a>. </p>
<p>A weekslong strike would also jeopardize the UAW’s struggle to rebuild its image <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">following a string of corruption scandals</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that it’s up to both the corporate and labor leaders involved to avoid what could turn out to be a costly miscalculation.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Aug. 25, 2023, to report the strike vote.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As Director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University, Marick Masters received funding from the joint training centers operated by the UAW with Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler. Representatives of these organizations served on the external advisory board of <a href="mailto:Labor@Wayne">Labor@Wayne</a>. All money was channeled through Wayne State University for educational purposes.</span></em></p>A strike would shake up the auto industry, even though both the union’s ranks and the share of the US automotive market controlled by GM, Ford and Stellantis have been shrinking for decades.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003352023-02-24T13:12:31Z2023-02-24T13:12:31ZHistoric UAW election is bringing profound union leadership changes – and chances of more strikes and higher car prices<p>Ballot counting is underway in a runoff election to decide who will lead the powerful United Auto Workers union as its president. But the <a href="https://uaw.org/2022iebelections/">historic election</a> is already transforming the union’s leadership in ways that could bring an end to decades of declining blue-collar compensation in this key sector of the economy.</p>
<p>This was the first direct leadership election in the UAW’s 88-year history, following a series of corruption scandals that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/business/uaw-gary-jones-investigation.html">sent two former presidents to prison</a>. With most of the other leadership races already determined, it’s clear that <a href="https://uaw.org/newly-elected-uaw-international-executive-board-members/">the union’s leadership</a> will be closely divided between the old guard and the challengers.</p>
<p>This transformation of how the UAW is governed sets up what is widely expected to be a more adversarial relationship between the union and <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigthree.asp">the Big Three</a> domestic car producers. Regardless of who wins the presidency, a more combative stance with automakers is likely to result in <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-increasing-strike-pay-500-per-week/">more strikes</a>, higher car prices and also greater competitive pressure on domestic companies to outsource or challenge unionization at new plants opening to make electric vehicles and their components.</p>
<p>I have written about trade unions in the United States and Europe for over three decades. My latest book is “<a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501769702/the-uaws-southern-gamble/#bookTabs=1">The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-owned Vehicle Plants</a>.” The direct elections, while making the UAW better reflect the interests of workers, will challenge companies at the same time the Biden administration is trying to revive manufacturing and <a href="https://joebiden.com/empowerworkers/">boost union influence</a>. The results could reverberate through the nation’s fragile economy.</p>
<h2>How a scandal gave workers more power</h2>
<p>The UAW held a first round of direct elections for the union’s president and leadership board in late 2022, with ballots mailed to working members and retirees. </p>
<p>This new election format is a product of a 2021 <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CONSENT-DECREE-updated-9-17-21.pdf">consent decree</a> between the UAW and the Justice Department to settle a sprawling <a href="https://www.autonews.com/static/section/report05.html">corruption scandal</a> in which several top union officials were convicted of taking bribes from the auto companies and spending millions of dollars of union funds intended for worker training on luxuries for themselves, including trips and a Ferrari.</p>
<p>During the campaign, the incumbents, led by current UAW president Ray Curry, <a href="https://www.currysolidarityteam.org/">have depicted their slate</a> as a safer and more experienced set of hands, which would be particularly valuable in troubled economic times. <a href="https://uawd.org/">The challengers</a>, led by <a href="https://uawmembers.org/">Shawn Fain</a>, have accused incumbents of conceding too readily to management, tolerating a culture of patronage and scandal and failing to practice democracy. Curry was never implicated in the scandal.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three officials answer questions from reporters holding up microphones. A truck is in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512095/original/file-20230223-5743-d72pev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW President Ray Curry, center, flanked by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Ford Motor Co. President and CEO Jim Farley, spoke on Feb. 13, 2023, after Ford announced plans for a new electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FordBatteryPlant/98a55e53e73c406396d1457a55a90b60/photo">AP Photo/Carlos Osorio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For decades, UAW leaders were chosen through an indirect process common to many unions. Delegates to the UAW convention chose top officers, and regional conventions picked regional directors.</p>
<p>This system was raucous in the union’s early days. <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/american-vanguard">Ferocious struggles</a> among communist, socialist and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41831041">voluntarist</a> factions at UAW conventions rocked the union in the 1930s and 1940s until the socialists under the leadership of Walter Reuther prevailed. Reuther consolidated power through an internal group, which eventually became known as the Reuther Administrative Caucus, or RAC, and came to dominate UAW conventions. Joining and adhering to the positions of the RAC was a prerequisite to advancement within the union.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.intpubnyc.com/browse/the-communist-party-and-the-auto-workers-union/">Critics compared</a> the RAC to a one-party state. <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=shotwell&commit=%C2%A0">Union dissidents</a> accused the RAC’s leaders of being too quick to crush dissent and to make concessions to the auto companies. Ultimately, the dominance of the RAC <a href="https://labornotes.org/2018/02/interview-corruption-and-collaboration-uaw">left the UAW vulnerable to scandal</a>, which is why the consent decree mandated a referendum to decide whether to have direct elections of top union officers. Union members voted in favor.</p>
<p>Two sides quickly formed in the lead-up to direct elections for the UAW’s top governing body, the International Executive Board: the <a href="https://www.currysolidarityteam.org/">Curry Solidarity Team</a>, which was the informal successor to the Reuther Administrative Caucus, and challengers who called themselves <a href="https://uawmembers.org/">UAW Members United</a>. The challengers blame the incumbent leadership for a much-hated two-tier wage structure that compensates new hires at a lower rate and say the incumbents haven’t done enough to secure jobs in the transition to electric vehicles. The incumbents say the challengers are <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/01/13/uaw-president-candidates-debate-offer-competing-visions-as-runoff-starts/69803789007/">armchair critics</a> without answers to tough problems.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2022/12/01/challengers-gain-edge-over-incumbents-in-uaw-election-of-top-leaders/69691769007/">UAW Members United group exceeded expectations</a> in the December 2022 elections, winning five of the 14 International Executive Board seats, including two of three vice-president posts and the secretary-treasurer, the second-highest position in the union. The Curry Solidarity Team won six seats, an independent won a seat, and the runoff will decide the winner of the presidency and one district head.</p>
<h2>Expect internal conflict</h2>
<p>Bringing together an International Executive Board that is evenly divided between the two slates will be a challenge regardless of who wins the presidency.</p>
<p>Direct elections will make it far more difficult for the UAW leadership to agree to difficult trade-offs between decent compensation and job security on the one hand and preserving the competitiveness of the domestic auto producers on the other, because dissatisfied members can now challenge leaders through direct elections. </p>
<p>Being elected to a top position in the UAW is now much more like running for Congress. Candidates need to appeal to base voters and take positions that can feed polarization. Top union officers will have less room to deviate from campaign promises because direct elections make it far easier to challenge them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of autoworkers hold picket signs reading UAW on strike" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512096/original/file-20230223-22-x5sss2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The UAW in February 2023 increased strike pay from $400 to $500 a week. A more aggressive union could mean more strikes like this one, at a plant in Indiana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-from-united-auto-workers-local-440-picket-outside-news-photo/1169393987">Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Having a sharply divided leadership board could also make union policies less coherent and lead to internal paralysis, which would be disastrous for not only the union but also for companies with union contracts. Union members vote to ratify all contracts, and a dispute could make ratification less likely. It would also be harder for a union with a leadership riven with strife to organize new workplaces.</p>
<p>Both camps within the UAW recognize the grave risks of internal division and have been careful so far to remain civil. It is an open question, however, whether mutual accommodation is durable given the intense views of many rank-and-file members.</p>
<h2>What will the election mean for negotiations?</h2>
<p>The first major test of the new UAW will be this fall’s collective bargaining negotiations with the Big Three: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which includes Chrysler.</p>
<p>Both factions agree on opening demands: the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments to the new contract and the elimination of the two-tier wage system. It is too soon to tell whether they will turn on each other in the heat of negotiations. </p>
<p>One thing is certain, however: The UAW’s experiment with more direct democracy will shake both the auto industry and the economy, as it permits a much less mediated expression of worker concerns – replete with contradictions and disagreements – to come to the fore. As newly elected <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2022/12/01/challengers-gain-edge-over-incumbents-in-uaw-election-of-top-leaders/69691769007/">UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock put it</a>, “the companies should prepare for a new, more aggressive UAW.”</p>
<p><em>This article was updated March 1, 2023, with the runoff vote count beginning.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen J. Silvia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Results already in from the first direct leadership election in the UAW’s 88-year history present a sharply divided leadership.Stephen J. Silvia, Professor of International Relations, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959952023-01-05T13:25:49Z2023-01-05T13:25:49ZWorker strikes and union elections surged in 2022 – could it mark a turning point for organized labor?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502684/original/file-20221227-105766-jpnmtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=131%2C74%2C5351%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers such as these Starbucks employees in St. Anthony, Minn., increasingly went on strike in 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/st-anthony-minnesota-starbucks-workers-across-the-country-news-photo/1450371794?phrase=union%20strike">Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Workers organized and took to the picket line in increased numbers in 2022 to demand better pay and working conditions, leading to <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/09/05/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment/">optimism</a> among <a href="https://www.afscme.org/blog/cause-for-optimism-on-labor-day">labor leaders</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-30/labor-strikes-in-uk-us-workers-unite-against-inflation-cost-of-living-crisis">advocates</a> that they’re <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-starbucks-and-the-sparking-of-a-new-american-union-movement-180293">witnessing a turnaround</a> in labor’s sagging fortunes. </p>
<p><a href="https://gothamist.com/news/new-school-teachers-strike-ends-as-nyc-university-agrees-to-first-pay-raises-in-4-years">Teachers</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/business/media/new-york-times-union-walkout.html">journalists</a> and <a href="https://www.arlnow.com/2022/11/17/newly-unionized-starbucks-baristas-are-on-strike-in-courthouse/">baristas</a> were among the tens of thousands of workers who went on strike – and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/01/1140123647/rail-strike-bill-senate">it took an act of Congress</a> to prevent 115,000 railroad employees from walking out as well. In total, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/wsp/publications/monthly-details/XLSX/work-stoppages-2022.xlsx">there have been at least 20 major work stoppages</a> involving at least 1,000 workers each in 2022, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/16-major-work-stoppages-in-2021.htm">up from 16 in 2021</a>, and <a href="https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/">hundreds more that were smaller</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, workers at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and dozens of other companies <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/reports/nlrb-case-activity-reports/representation-cases/intake/representation-petitions-rc/">filed over 2,000 petitions</a> to form unions during the year – the most since 2015. Workers won 76% of the 1,363 elections that were held.</p>
<p>Historically, however, these figures are pretty tepid. The number of major work stoppages <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/16-major-work-stoppages-in-2021.htm">has been plunging for decades</a>, from nearly 200 as recently as 1980, while union elections typically exceeded 5,000 a year before the 1980s. As of 2021, union membership was at about the lowest level on record, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">at 10.3%</a>. In the 1950s, over 1 in 3 workers belonged to a union. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://ilitchbusiness.wayne.edu/profile/eb9543">labor scholar</a>, I agree that the evidence shows a surge in union activism. The obvious question is: Do these developments manifest a tipping point? </p>
<h2>Signs of increased union activism</h2>
<p>First, let’s take a closer look at 2022.</p>
<p>The most noteworthy sign of labor’s revival has been the rise in the number of petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board. In fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/reports/nlrb-case-activity-reports/representation-cases/intake/representation-petitions-rc">workers filed 2,072 petitions</a>, up 63% from the previous year. Starbucks workers alone <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/reports/agency-performance-report/election-reports/election-reports-fy-2022">filed 354 of these petitions</a>, winning the vast majority of the elections held. In addition, employees at companies <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/labors-john-l-lewis-moment/https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-can-labor-do-to-build-on-this-unusually-promising-moment-tickets-380700223617">historically deemed untouchable</a> by unions, including Apple, Microsoft and Wells Fargo, also scored wins.</p>
<p>The increase in strike activity is also important. And while the major strikes that involve 1,000 or more employees and are tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics arouse the greatest attention, they represent only the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>The bureau recorded <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/16-major-work-stoppages-in-2021.htm">20 major strikes in 2022</a>, which is about 25% more than the average of 16 a year over the past two decades. Examples of these major strikes include the recent one-day New York Times walkout, two strikes in California involving more than <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/19/frontier-communications-workers-strike-over-subcontracting/">3,000 workers at health care company Kaiser Permanente</a>, <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/19/frontier-communications-workers-strike-over-subcontracting/">2,100 workers at Frontier Communications</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/27/university-of-california-strike-settlement">48,000 workers at the University of California</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="RdENa" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/RdENa/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Since 2021, <a href="https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu">Cornell University has been keeping track</a> of any labor action, however small, and found that there were a total of 385 strikes in calendar year 2022, up from 270 in the previous year. In total, these reported strikes have occurred in nearly 600 locations in 19 states., signifying the geographic breadth of activism. </p>
<h2>Historical parallels</h2>
<p>Of course, these figures are still quite low by historical standards.</p>
<p>I believe two previous spikes in the early 20th century offer some clues as to whether recent events could lead to sustained gains in union membership. </p>
<p>From 1934 to 1939, <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL32553.pdf">union membership soared</a> from 7.6% to 19.2%. A few years later, from 1941 to 1945, membership climbed from 20% to 27%.</p>
<p>Both spikes occurred during periods of national and global upheaval. The first spike came in the latter half of the Great Depression, when unemployment in the U.S. <a href="https://www.fdrlibrary.org/great-depression-facts">reached as high as a quarter</a> of the workforce. Economic deprivation and a lack of workplace protections led to widespread political and social activism and sweeping efforts to organize workers in response. It also <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1935-passage-of-the-wagner-act">contributed to the enactment</a> of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, which stimulated organizing in the industrial sector. </p>
<p>The second jump came as the U.S. mobilized the economy to fight a two-front war in Europe and Asia. National economic mobilization to support the war led to growth in manufacturing employment, where unions had been making substantial gains. Government wartime policy encouraged unionization as part of a bargain for industrial peace during the war. </p>
<h2>Inequality and pandemic heroes</h2>
<p>Today’s situation is a far cry from the economic misery of the Great Depression or the social upheaval of a global war, but there are some parallels worth exploring. </p>
<p>Overall unemployment may be near record lows, but economic inequality is higher than it was during the Depression. The <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:129;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:shares;">top 10% of households hold over 68%</a> of the wealth in the U.S. In 1936, <a href="https://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Esaez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf">this was about 47%</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, the top 0.1% of wage earners <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation">experienced a nearly 390% increase</a> in real wages from 1979 to 2020, versus a meager 28.2% pay hike for the bottom 90%. And employment in manufacturing, where unions had gained a stronghold in the 1940s and 1950s, slipped over 33% from 1979 to 2022.</p>
<p>Another parallel to the two historical precedents concerns national mobilization. The pandemic required a massive response in early 2020, as workers in industries deemed essential, such as health care, public safety and food and agriculture, <a href="https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/essential-workers-are-bearing-the-brunt-of-covid-19/19731074/">bore the brunt of its impact</a>, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/meet-the-covid-19-frontline-heroes/">earning them the label “heroes”</a> for their efforts. In such an environment, workers began to appreciate more the <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-workers-especially-in-a-crisis-like-covid-19-12-policies-that-would-boost-worker-rights-safety-and-wages/">protections they derived from unions</a> for occupational safety and health, eventually helping birth much-hyped recent labor trends like the “great resignation” and “quiet quitting.” </p>
<h2>A stacked deck</h2>
<p>Ultimately, however, the deck is still heavily stacked against unions, with <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/labors-john-l-lewis-moment">unsupportive labor laws</a> and <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-can-labor-do-to-build-on-this-unusually-promising-moment-tickets-380700223617">very few employers showing</a> real receptivity to having a unionized workforce. </p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725119">unions are limited</a> in how much they can change public policy or the structure of the U.S. economy that makes unionization difficult. Reforming labor law through legislation has remained elusive, and the results of the 2022 midterms are not likely to make it any easier. </p>
<p>This makes me unconvinced that recent signs of progress represent a turning point. </p>
<p>An ace up labor’s sleeve may be public sentiment. Support for labor <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">is at its highest since 1965</a>, with 71% saying they approve of unions, according to a Gallup poll in August. And workers themselves are increasingly showing an interest in joining them. In 2017, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/working-people-want-a-voice/">48% of workers polled</a> said they would vote for union representation, up from 32% in 1995, the last time this question was asked. </p>
<p>Future success may depend on unions’ ability to tap into their growing popularity and emulate the recent wins at Starbucks and Amazon, as well as the successful “Fight for $15” campaign, which since 2012 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/23/fight-for-15-movement-10-years-old">has helped pass $15 minimum wage laws</a> in a dozen states and Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>The odds may be steep, but the seeds of opportunity are there if labor is able to exploit them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marick Masters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Workers have filed the most union petitions since 2015 and the number of strikes have surged, but whether this turns into a sustained increase in membership rates is still unclear.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936852022-11-22T13:26:09Z2022-11-22T13:26:09ZRailroad unions and their employers at an impasse: Freight-halting strikes are rare, and this would be the first in 3 decades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496539/original/file-20221121-22-gy90w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=127%2C84%2C3410%2C2376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The federal government sent troops to crush an 1877 rail strike.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/riot-by-railroad-workers-at-martinsburg-on-the-baltimore-news-photo/815623238?adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The prospect of a potentially devastating rail workers strike <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/21/largest-freight-rail-unions-split-on-contract-vote-00069458">is looming again</a>, prompting the Biden administration on Nov. 28, 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-congress-government-and-politics-44c88740ed57ba96a20c4fc6fffb230b">to call on Congress to intervene</a> by passing legislation that would force them to agree to a new contract.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/railroads-and-unions-reach-deal-to-avert-devastating-strike-keeping-americas-trains-and-the-economy-on-track-for-now-190600">Fears of a strike in September 2022</a> saw the White House pull out all the stops to broker a deal between railroads and the largest unions representing their employees.</p>
<p>That deal hinged on ratification by a majority of members at all 12 of those unions. So far, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/">eight have voted in favor</a>, but four have rejected the terms. If even one continues to reject the deal after further negotiations, it could mean a full-scale freight strike could start as soon as the deadline passes on <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-congress-government-and-politics-44c88740ed57ba96a20c4fc6fffb230b">Dec. 9, 2022</a>. </p>
<p>“Let me be clear: a rail shutdown would devastate our economy,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Nov. 18. “Without freight rail, many U.S. industries would shut down.” </p>
<p>Any work stoppage by conductors and engineers would surely interfere with the delivery of gifts and other items Americans will want to receive in time for the holiday season, along with coal, lumber and other key commodities. </p>
<p>Strikes that obstruct transportation rarely occur in the United States, and the last one involving rail workers <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/04/18/031991.html?pageNumber=34">happened three decades ago</a>. But when these <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-strike-has-commuters-angry-and-frustrated-4908379.php">workers do walk off the job</a>, it can thrash the economy, inconveniencing millions of people and creating a large-scale crisis. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FfRboNQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">labor historian who has studied</a> the history of American strikes. I believe that with the U.S. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/08/us-likely-headed-for-mild-recession-in-2023-eric-rosengren.html">teetering toward at least a mild recession</a> and some of the <a href="https://www.scmr.com/article/supply_chain_issues_not_over_yet">supply chain disruptions</a> that arose at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic still wreaking havoc, I don’t think the administration would accept a rail strike for long.</p>
<h2>19th century rail strikes</h2>
<p>Few, if any, workers have more power over the economy than transportation workers. Their ability to shut down the entire economy has often led to heavy retaliation from the government when they have tried to exercise that power.</p>
<p>In 1877, a small strike against a West Virginia railroad that had cut wages spread. It grew into what became known as the <a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877">Great Railroad Strike</a>, a general rebellion against railroads that brought thousands of unemployed workers into the streets. </p>
<p>Seventeen years later, in 1894, the American Railway Union went on strike in solidarity with the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/pull/learn/historyculture/the-strike-of-1894.htm">Pullman Sleeping Car company workers</a> who had gone on strike due to their boss lowering wages while maintaining rents on their company housing. </p>
<p>In both cases, the threat of a railroad strike led the federal government to call out the military to crush the labor actions. <a href="https://www.history.com/news/labor-day-pullman-railway-strike-origins">Dozens of workers died</a>.</p>
<p>Once those dramatic clashes ended, for more than a century rail unions have played a <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/history_of_labor_unions.html">generally quiet role</a>, preferring to focus on the needs of their members and avoiding most broader social and political questions. Fearful of more rail strikes, the government passed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/">Railway Labor Act of 1926</a>, which gives Congress the power to intervene before a rail strike starts.</p>
<h2>Breaking the air traffic controllers union</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/freight.cfm">travel by road and air</a> growing in importance in the 20th century, other transportation workers also engaged in actions that could shut down the economy.</p>
<p>The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association walked off the job in 1981 after a decade of increased militancy over the stress and conditions of their job. The union had engaged in a series of <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1970/03/26/76723294.html?pageNumber=53">slowdowns through the 1970s</a>, delaying airplanes and frustrating passengers.</p>
<p>When it went on strike in 1981, the union broke the law, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20873867/worker-strike-walkout-stoppage-firing-job">federal workers do not have the right</a> to strike. That’s when President Ronald Reagan became the <a href="https://lawyersgunsmon.wpengine.com/2012/08/this-day-in-labor-history-august-3-1981">first modern U.S. leader to retaliate</a> against striking transportation workers. Two days after warning the striking workers that they would lose their jobs unless they returned to work, <a href="https://millercenter.org/reagan-vs-air-traffic-controllers">Reagan fired more than 11,000 of them</a>. He also <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/2011/02/22/in-showdown-with-air-traffic-controllers-the-public-sided-with-reagan/">banned them from ever being rehired</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of Reagan’s actions, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/web/wkstp/annual-listing.htm">number of strikes by U.S. workers plummeted</a>. Rail unions engaged in brief strikes in both 1991 and 1992, but Congress used the Railway Labor Act to halt them, ordering workers back on the job and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-railroad-unions-count-votes-as-threat-of-strike-looms-11668918310">imposing a contract upon the workers</a>.</p>
<p>In 1992, Congress passed another measure that <a href="https://www.bmwe.org/journal/2001/05may/C2.htm">forced a system of arbitration upon railroad workers</a> before a strike – that took power away from workers to strike.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A freight train rolls past an oil refinery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A major U.S. rail strike could further snarl supply chains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/freight-train-rolls-past-an-oil-refinery-in-the-port-of-los-news-photo/1243241832?phrase=rail%20freight%20workers&adppopup=true">Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New era of labor militancy</h2>
<p>Following <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">decades of decline in the late 20th century</a>, U.S labor organizing has surged in recent years.</p>
<p>Most notably, unionization attempts at <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">Starbucks and Amazon</a> have led to surprising successes against some of the biggest corporations in the country. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/politics/teacher-strikes-politics/index.html">Teachers unions around the nation</a> have also held a series of successful strikes everywhere from Los Angeles to West Virginia. </p>
<p><a href="https://magazine.promomarketing.com/article/the-possibility-of-a-ups-strike-looms-over-2023/">United Parcel Service workers</a>, who held the nation’s last major transportation strike, in 1997, may head back to the picket lines after their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/ups-workers-teamsters-union-contract">contract expires in June 2023</a>. UPS workers, <a href="https://teamster.org/divisions/package-division/">members of the Teamsters union</a>, are angry over a two-tiered system that pays newer workers lower wages, and they are also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/ups-workers-teamsters-union-contract">demanding greater overtime protections</a>. </p>
<p>But rail workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/business/railroad-workers-strike-threat.html">angered by their employers’ refusal to offer sick leave</a> and other concerns, may go on strike first.</p>
<p>Rail companies have <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/employment-in-rail-transportation-heads-downhill-between-november-2018-and-december-2020.htm">greatly reduced the number of people they employ</a> on freight trains as part of their efforts to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/business/freight-rail.html">maximize profits</a> and take advantage of technological progress. They generally keep the size of crews limited to only <a href="https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations">two per train</a>.</p>
<p>Many companies want to pare back their workforce further, saying that it can be safe to have <a href="https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations/">crews consisting of a single crew member on freight trains</a>. The <a href="https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/norfolk-southern-executive-says-one-person-crew-is-a-misnomer/">unions reject this arrangement</a>, saying that lacking a second set of eyes would be a recipe for mistakes, accidents and disasters. </p>
<p>The deal the Biden administration brokered in September 2022 would <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1137640529/railroads-freight-rail-unions-vote-contract-strike">raise annual pay by 24%</a> over several years, raising the average pay for rail workers to $110,000 by 2024. But strikes are often about much more than wages. The companies have also long refused to provide paid sick leave or to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/rail-worker-railroad-strike-freight-joe-biden/">stop demanding</a> that their workers have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122918098/railroads-freight-rail-union-strike-train-workers">inflexible and unpredictable schedules</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden administration had to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/business/railroad-workers-strike-threat.html">cajole the rail companies</a> into offering a single personal day, while workers demanded 15 days of sick leave. Companies had offered zero. The agreement did remove penalties from workers who took unpaid sick or family leave, but this would still leave a group of well-paid workers whose daily lives are <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-economy-congress-government-and-politics-6b60d53fefc7b85f301b0a3e7011715b">filled with stress and fear</a>.</p>
<h2>What lies ahead</h2>
<p>Seeing highly paid workers threaten to take action that would surely compound strains on supply chains at a time when <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-october-2022-in-one-chart.html">inflation is at a four-decade high</a> may not win rail unions much public support. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-economy-congress-government-and-politics-6b60d53fefc7b85f301b0a3e7011715b">coalition representing hundreds of business groups</a> has called for government intervention to make sure freight trains keep moving, and it’s highly likely that Congress will again impose a decision on workers under the Railway Labor Act – as the president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/28/rail-strike-biden-congress/">is requesting</a>. Lawmakers are expected to take up legislation to do so soon. The Biden administration, which has shown significant sympathy to unions, had previously <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/18/biden-steps-into-rail-labor-dispute-00046285">resisted supporting such a step</a>.</p>
<p>No one should expect the military to intervene like it did in the 19th century. But labor law remains tilted toward companies, and I believe that if the government were to compel striking rail workers back on the job, the move might find a receptive audience.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to include Biden’s calls on Congress to intervene.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Loomis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Joe Biden called on Congress to intervene to avoid a strike that he said would ‘devastate our economy.’Erik Loomis, Professor of History, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893412022-08-30T12:17:59Z2022-08-30T12:17:59ZAmazon, Starbucks worker wins recall earlier period of union success – when Central American migrants also expanded US labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480911/original/file-20220824-10117-pwpqn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=214%2C223%2C6281%2C4041&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of a union representing workers who clean New York City offices march in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UnionRally/aa4c7fffe7b54fffa5b90f35134d6013/photo?Query=justice%20for%20janitors&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tech workers, warehouse employees and baristas <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/recent-us-union-wins-amazon-starbucks-more-2022-04-01/">have notched many victories in recent months</a> at major U.S. companies long deemed long shots for unions, including Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. </p>
<p>To me, these recent union wins recall another pivotal period in the U.S. labor movement several decades ago. But that one was led by migrants from Central America.</p>
<p>I’ve been researching human rights and immigration from Central America since the 1980s. In today’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/26/president-trump-migrant-caravan-criminals/2112846002/">polarized debates</a> over immigration, the substantial contributions that Central American immigrants have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years rarely come up. One contribution in particular is how Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped expand the U.S. labor movement in the 1980s, organizing far-reaching workers’ rights campaigns in immigrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.</p>
<h2>Migrants and unions</h2>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-americans-and-asylum-policy-reagan-era">1 million</a> Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the United States from 1981 to 1990, fleeing army massacres, political persecution and civil war. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, I have <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-professor-s-trial-testimony-highlights-importance-of-public-scholarship">researched, taught and written about</a> this wave of migrants. Back then, President Ronald Reagan warned apocryphally that Central America was a threat to the United States, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/world/president-reagan-s-address-on-central-america-to-joint-session-of-congress.html">telling Congress</a> in 1983 that “El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts.”</p>
<p>Just 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who applied <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-20/news/mn-9376_1_asylum-cases">received asylum in the 1980s</a> – so few that a 1990 class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination compelled the U.S. government to reopen tens of thousands of cases. In recent years, about <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/fact-sheet-us-immigration-and-central-american-asylum-seekers">10% to 25%</a> of their asylum petitions were granted.</p>
<p>Then, as now, many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. worked in agriculture or service industries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-care-about-undocumented-immigrants-for-one-thing-theyve-become-vital-to-key-sectors-of-the-us-economy-98790">often under exploitative conditions</a>. Unionization barely touched these sectors in the 1980s.</p>
<p>More broadly, the bargaining power of labor unions was suffering under Reagan, whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/trump-is-no-reagan-when-it-comes-to-union-busting">presidency</a> started with his <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-012292">firing of 11,0000 striking air traffic controllers</a>. Downsizing and outsourcing at American companies in the 1980s also <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/618-an-injury-to-all">eroded union membership</a> and pushed wages down. </p>
<p>Many Guatemalans and Salvadorans were veteran community organizers. They had faced down government terror to participate in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-El-Salvador-Strife-Second/dp/0813300711">unions</a>, peasant leagues, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cry-People-Struggle-Catholic-Conflict/dp/0140060472">Catholic social justice campaigns</a> or <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/every-indio-who-falls/9780826348654">Indigenous rights</a> initiatives – all currents in 1980s revolutionary Central America. </p>
<p>Drawing on these experiences, many Central American immigrants began to organize in their U.S. workplaces, demanding higher wages and safer conditions. </p>
<h2>Salvadorans led Justice for Janitors to victory</h2>
<p>Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/16/justice-for-janitors">Justice for Janitors</a>, a <a href="https://www.seiu.org/about#campaigns">pioneering</a> low-paid workers’ movement that inspired today’s <a href="https://fightfor15.org">US$15 minimum wage campaign</a>. </p>
<p>Justice for Janitors began in Los Angeles in 1990. It aimed to reverse the wage drops that janitors suffered over the past decade. </p>
<p>Rather than do battle with the small subcontractors that hired cleaning crews for big office buildings, Justice for Janitors targeted the corporations that owned those buildings. Led by experienced Salvadoran unionists – some of whom had <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-03/news/ls-42727_1_yanira-merino/2">fled death squad violence</a> back home – the movement used nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes to expose exploitative labor practices. </p>
<p>Speaking out could be dangerous. Police once clubbed participants at a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/25-years-later-lessons-from-the-organizers-of-justice-for-janitors/">peaceful march</a> through Los Angeles’ Century City neighborhood on June 15, 1990. Undocumented workers feared deportation. </p>
<p>But it worked. Janitors in Los Angeles won a <a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/justice-for-janitors-seiu-raise-america/">22% raise</a> after their 1990 citywide strike, <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">showing</a> mainstream labor unions that even the city’s most marginalized workers – undocumented Central Americans, many of them women – had real organizing power. </p>
<p>Over the next decade, some <a href="http://socialjusticehistory.org/projects/justiceforjanitors/items/index/page/2">100,000 janitors nationwide joined the campaign</a>, under the banner of the <a href="http://www.seiu.org/justice-for-janitors">Service Employees Industrial Union</a>. The movement negotiated contracts that increased wages and health benefits for janitors across the U.S. </p>
<h2>Guatemalans defended Florida farmworkers</h2>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of people fled Guatemala during the early 1980s, escaping a <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403964472">genocidal army campaign</a> against Indigenous communities that left entire regions of its highlands charred and empty.</p>
<p>Roughly 20,000 of these Guatemalan refugees, many of whom spoke <a href="https://mayanlanguageimmigrationlawinfo.wordpress.com/languages/">Mayan languages</a>, landed in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maya-Exile-Guatemalans-Allan-Burns/dp/1566390362">Florida</a> in 1982, finding work in sweltering tomato farms and citrus groves. </p>
<p>Up to 90% of the fresh tomatoes in U.S. supermarkets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html">come from Florida</a>. </p>
<p>Working conditions in the state’s tomato fields were dismal in the 1980s. Migrants <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">earned just 40 cents</a> per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked. Some were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-project/index.html">forced by armed guards to work against their will</a>, as a 1997 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1997/November97/482cr.htm.html">court case about the use of slave labor in Florida’s tomato fields</a> exposed. </p>
<p>In 1993, Guatemalan immigrants joined with Florida’s Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a>, a community worker alliance that began in the basement of a local church in Immokalee, Florida. It <a href="https://legacy-etd.library.emory.edu/view/record/pid/emory:cr197">used strategies</a> common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Florida’s agricultural workers.</p>
<p>After five years of work stoppages, hunger strikes and marches, Florida’s tomato pickers won wage increases of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">up to 25%</a>. A multiyear nationwide boycott of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18187-2005Mar8.html">Taco Bell</a> convinced the fast-food chain in 2005 to increase the earnings of the farmworkers who supply its ingredients. Other fast-food giants followed suit. </p>
<p>In 2015, the Immokalee coalition launched the <a href="http://www.fairfoodprogram.org/">Fair Food Program</a>, an industrywide agreement with Florida tomato growers to promote strict health and safety standards and allow outside monitors to oversee working conditions. That same year, President Barack Obama gave the Coalition of Immokalee Workers the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/slavery/">Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts</a> in Combating Modern Day Slavery. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a farmworker on the ground passes a bucket of tomatoes to a worker in a truck full of tomatoes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, one of the United States’ most successful agricultural labor unions, collect tomatoes in Naples, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ImmigrationFlosridaAgriculturalWorkers/ab05c294590d44ca8f949ec97019ebf0/photo?Query=Immokalee%20farmworker&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=39">AP Photo/Wilfredo Leef</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guatemalans organized North Carolina poultry plants</h2>
<p>As Guatemalan migrants <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Faces-Places-Geography-Immigration/dp/0871545683">spread across the South</a> during the late 1980s, recruited by labor contractors in other states, they soon became a powerful organizing force in North Carolina, too. </p>
<p>Case Farms, a poultry company that supplies KFC, Taco Bell, Boar’s Head and the federal school lunch program, was a <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/08132015-0">notoriously dangerous</a> place to work. Safety regulations were routinely ignored to increase output, and workers suffered serious injuries – including losing limbs to cutting machines.</p>
<p>In 1990, the Guatemalan immigrants at Case Farms’ plant in Morganton, North Carolina, organized a union drive.</p>
<p>As labor historian Leon Fink describes in his book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807854471/the-maya-of-morganton/">The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South</a>,” Guatemalan poultry workers drew on prior organizing experiences back home – including coffee plantation strikes and Mayan pride movements – to organize workers. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://sohp.org/research/past-projects/listening-for-a-change/new-immigrants-and-labor/">five years</a> of walkouts, marches and hunger strikes, the Case Farm workers voted in 1995 to join the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The company refused to negotiate, however, and the union pulled out of contract talks after six years. </p>
<p>In 2017, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio challenged Case Farms to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-from-case-farms">explain its alleged violations of U.S. law</a>, after a New York Times and ProPublica investigation exposed ongoing abusive labor practices there. </p>
<p>These unionization stories show Central American migrants in a new light – not as criminals or victims, but as people who have helped make the U.S. a safer place for workers.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-central-american-migrants-helped-revive-the-us-labor-movement-109398">article originally published</a> on Jan. 18, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Oglesby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Often overlooked in the immigration debate are the contributions of migrants, such as how they helped organize workers in the 1990s.Elizabeth Oglesby, Associate Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842202022-06-13T12:30:53Z2022-06-13T12:30:53ZGrassroots mojo and 4 other reasons Starbucks workers have been so successful unionizing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468112/original/file-20220609-18254-f625u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=174%2C73%2C2407%2C1730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activist workers have successfully formed unions at 135 Starbucks since they began organizing in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Starbucks-UnionBargaining/2b75bc1e5fac4d7eadb804c15eff7c99/photo?Query=starbucks&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2636&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Starbucks Workers United <a href="https://komonews.com/news/local/two-more-seattle-starbucks-stores-vote-to-unionize-100-so-far-throughout-us">won its 100th election on May 27, 2022</a> – fittingly, in Seattle, the company’s hometown. And the union has <a href="https://perfectunion.us/map-where-are-starbucks-workers-unionizing/">notched another 46 victories</a> in the just over two weeks since then. It comes six months after organizers won their <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/09/1062150045/starbucks-first-union-buffalo-new-york">first two union victories</a>, in Buffalo, New. York.</p>
<p>Although each unionized workplace is small, with a couple dozen employees apiece, the campaign is already, by my reckoning, one of the most successful unionizing efforts in recent U.S. history, with victories in 28 states. Over 100 additional Starbucks outlets have petitioned to unionize and are awaiting elections in the coming days and weeks, and several other votes are awaiting resolution. Starbucks <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/20/starbucks-files-nlrb-complaints-against-baristas-union.html">has strongly opposed the campaign</a>, and the union has lost about 22 elections so far.</p>
<p>The overwhelming success of the Starbucks labor organizing efforts <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-05-12/starbucks-workers-inspire-amazon-union-show-labor-s-power?sref=Hjm5biAW">is inspiring workers at other retailers</a>, such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/1091130929/chris-smalls-amazon-union-50-warehouses">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/rei-workers-in-soho-voted-to-form-companys-first-union-organizers-say">REI</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61145127">Apple</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/business/economy/trader-joes-union.html">Trader Joe’s</a>, which have all seen an increase in organizing activity or even their first unions.</p>
<p>When the Starbucks unionizing movement was in its infancy, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23056599/starbucks-amazon-union-membership-growth">few observers believed</a> that the campaign <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-12-13/union-victory-starbucks-labor">could spread so quickly</a> or win so many elections, <a href="https://perfectunion.us/map-where-are-starbucks-workers-unionizing/">often by huge margins</a>. Indeed, a few years ago, most union officials would have thought it impossible to organize a young and often transient low-wage service sector workforce spread across <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/218360/number-of-starbucks-stores-in-the-us/">almost 9,000 small stores</a>. And most union drives in recent decades, such as at <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/our-walmart-union-ufcw-black-friday">Walmart</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/14/fedex-anti-union-campaign-teamsters">FedEx</a>, have failed. </p>
<p>So why has the Starbucks campaign been so much more successful?</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://cob.sfsu.edu/directory/john-logan">scholar who has studied</a> corporate opposition to unions for 20 years, I believe there are five key reasons.</p>
<p><iframe id="XJN9r" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/XJN9r/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>1. Shift in sentiment</h2>
<p>The Starbucks campaign would, I believe, likely not have been successful three years ago, before the pandemic hit. </p>
<p>After March 2020, service workers faced increasingly difficult, stressful and dangerous workplace conditions. For example, they were often <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/no-mask-no-service-rules-leave-workers-open-to-customer-abuse">tasked with enforcing mask and vaccine mandates</a> and dealing with unruly customers who refused to comply. And their jobs on the front lines <a href="https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3993.pdf">put them at greater risk</a> of contracting COVID-19. At the same time, surveys showed many workers didn’t think their employers <a href="https://theconversation.com/bad-managers-burnout-and-health-fears-why-record-numbers-of-hospitality-workers-are-quitting-the-industry-for-good-174588">were treating them with respect</a> or <a href="https://www.umass.edu/employmentequity/stressed-unsafe-and-insecure-essential-workers-need-new-new-deal">providing adequate safety equipment</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, record numbers of workers – especially in the service sector – <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSQUR">began quitting their jobs</a> in mid-2021 in what became known as the “great resignation.” The labor shortages created more pressure on overworked employees, and the <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/hidden-reason-for-starbucks-worker-organizing/">huge rise in mobile app orders</a> compounded the workplace stress for Starbucks baristas. </p>
<p>These workers that didn’t quit their jobs, however, became more emboldened and seized an opportunity to get organized. Today, support for unions in the U.S. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">is at its highest since 1965</a>, at 68%.</p>
<h2>2. A role model</h2>
<p>Starbucks Workers United’s strategy involved unionizing one store at a time by using a <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/worker-to-worker-organizing-may-finally-have-its-moment/">worker-driven model</a> that could be replicated easily and quickly. </p>
<p>At the start of the campaign in December 2021, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/starbucks-tells-nlrb-to-let-all-buffalo-workers-vote-on-union-effort.html">Starbucks management tried</a>, and <a href="https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/national-labor-board-buffalo-starbucks-workers-can-form-union-by-store/">failed</a>, to require the union to win a majority of all Starbucks workers in Buffalo – not just those at individual stores. It’s likely pro-union workers <a href="https://btlaw.com/insights/blogs/labor-relations/2022/caffeine-rush-union-organizing-wave-at-starbucks-continues">would have lost such an election</a>, but the National Labor Relations Board <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/business/economy/starbucks-union-vote-mesa.html">rejected Starbucks’ arguments</a>.</p>
<p>This allowed workers to organize each store one at time and develop a replicable model, enabling it to spread rapidly. In fact, when commentators describe the campaign as <a href="https://www.wnylabortoday.com/news/2022/02/03/national-labor-news/it-s-spreading-like-wildfire-after-the-movement-successfully-started-in-buffalo-in-late-2021-unionizing-efforts-at-starbucks-has-now-reached-60-stores-in-19-states/">spreading “like wildfire”</a> or <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/amazon-starbucks-workers-organizing-unions-momentum-movement-moment">similar terms</a>, it obscures the innovative and <a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/05/amazon-starbucks-labor-union-busting-nlrb">deliberate process</a> that has been behind its remarkable success.</p>
<p>Workers typically find out about the campaign through traditional or social media, and then reach out to organizers behind the campaign. They then have a Zoom meeting with a worker-organizer at a union store who explains how to print cards, how to discuss signing up for the union with co-workers, how to write a letter to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz requesting union recognition, and how to petition the NLRB for an election. This pattern has been repeated multiple times throughout the country, even in places in which <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/starbucks-workers-united-wins-in-uss-most-anti-union-city">private-sector unions are rare</a>. </p>
<p>There is no obvious reason why a similar model <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2022/0518/Amazon-Starbucks-and-beyond-Young-workers-fuel-union-drives">could not work</a> at other nonunionized companies with young, progressive workforces, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/business/economy/trader-joes-union.html#:%7E:text=In%20a%20sign%20that%20service,filed%20for%20a%20union%20election.">Trader Joe’s</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/18/apple-retail-stores-union-labor/">Apple</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2022/03/03/first-starbucks-now-rei-next-amazon-and-apple-the-movement-to-unionize-retail-workers-picks-up/?sh=126d702410ad">REI</a>. Indeed, Trader Joe’s employees at a Massachusetts store just filed to create the company’s first union, and REI employees in Manhattan voted to form the company’s first unionized store in March 2022.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of diverse workers mostly standing and wearing black Memphis 7 t-shirts celebrate victory" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=265%2C60%2C3760%2C2957&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467852/original/file-20220608-313-x07fbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of fired Starbucks employees celebrate the result of a vote to unionize one of the coffee company’s locations on June 7, 2022, in Memphis, Tenn. Starbucks says the ex-employees were fired for violating company policies, but the so-called Memphis Seven say they were let go in retaliation for unionization efforts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Starbucks-Union/72f34bea87f24b39a3ba0a237e28cad3/photo?Query=starbucks&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2629&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Adrian Sainz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Starbucks’ progressive rep</h2>
<p>Another factor that helped Starbucks pro-union workers is the retailer’s <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90732166/what-happened-to-starbucks-how-a-progressive-company-lost-its-way">self-proclaimed progressive reputation</a>, as shown through its <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/starbucks-pride-a-long-legacy-of-lgbtq-inclusion/">public support for issues such as LBGTQ rights</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/business/starbucks-blm-ban-reversed.html">racial justice</a>.</p>
<p>Naturally, this has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/business/college-workers-starbucks-amazon-unions.html">attracted workers</a> who tend to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/business/college-workers-starbucks-amazon-unions.html">young, college-educated</a>, <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/hidden-reason-for-starbucks-worker-organizing/">more progressive</a> and thus more inclined to support a union. The flipside of Starbucks’ ostensible progressivism is that its <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/27/business/baristas-view-inside-starbucks-alleged-antiunion-campaign">efforts to prevent workers</a> from <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/starbucks-union-busting-tactics.html">forming unions</a> are seen by some employees as hypocritical.</p>
<p>In addition, Starbucks’ tendency to speak out on progressive issues has increased <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/03/14/starbucks-partners-continue-to-find-success-in-union-efforts">media attention</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/business/college-workers-starbucks-amazon-unions.html">surrounding workers’ efforts to organize</a> and Starbucks’ <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/starbucks-union-battle-pushes-wall-street-away.html">reaction to them</a>. This has helped the campaign spread a lot faster and farther, encouraging like-minded baristas elsewhere to join. </p>
<h2>4. Fellowship of the baristas</h2>
<p>The campaign has also benefited from the strong sense of community that <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90732166/what-happened-to-starbucks-how-a-progressive-company-lost-its-way">already existed among Starbucks’ young staff</a>.</p>
<p>Starbucks has <a href="https://www.nutcache.com/blog/how-starbucks-teamwork-and-partnership-culture-can-inspire-your-employees/">long fostered a sense of camaraderie</a> between its workers. For example, it calls them “partners,” implying they aren’t just casual employees but play a meaningful role in the company. Lawyers and hedge funds use the term partners to refer to employees <a href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/law-firm-partner-vs-associate">who have an ownership stake</a>. </p>
<p>Although workers said they often felt like <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/hidden-reason-for-starbucks-worker-organizing">they weren’t treated as such</a>, this helped create a close-knit community at individual workplaces. That’s why most of the union votes <a href="https://perfectunion.us/map-where-are-starbucks-workers-unionizing/">were either overwhelming or unanimous</a>. In the words of the union, the campaign is about “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcD5pzOXj2c">partners becoming partners</a>.” </p>
<h2>5. Grassroots mojo</h2>
<p>Unlike <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/which-way-our-walmart">labor union drives of the past</a>, which have been <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/29/fortress-unionism/">more typically directed</a> by national or regional leaders, Starbucks workers have driven the unionizing campaign largely on their own. This decentralized, grassroots dynamism is what has allowed the unionizing campaign to spread so widely and so quickly. </p>
<p>The old way of organizing was dependent on union organizers approaching workers at each location, making it <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/29/fortress-unionism">slower and much more cumbersome</a>. Some labor leaders are now more <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/worker-to-worker-organizing-may-finally-have-its-moment/?agreed=1">ready to embrace organizing at a more grassroots</a>, worker-to-worker level. </p>
<p>When workers take the lead, it means you’re more likely to have local buy-in – the organizers are inside the workplace and known and trusted by their co-workers – and doesn’t require them to wait for other union leaders to recognize interest in forming a union. And in this way, the activist workers don’t simply feel like they are part of a union but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/business/economy/amazon-starbucks-union.html">they themselves are the union</a>.</p>
<p>For these reasons, I believe there is every chance that eventually a majority of Starbucks stores will become unionized. And if the Starbucks model continues to be successful, it could encourage workers at other companies to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-23/starbucks-amazon-apple-union-campaigns-history">adopt the same playbook</a>. In fact, we may be on the cusp of a union revival like American workers haven’t seen in almost a century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Starbucks Workers United has already organized 146 locations in about six months. While that’s a fraction of Starbucks’ 9,000 US stores, it’s one of the most successful labor campaigns in decades.John Logan, Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820162022-05-05T16:33:32Z2022-05-05T16:33:32ZIf Amazon wants to be the ‘Earth’s best employer’ it needs to listen to employees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461086/original/file-20220503-24-g6watl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C7%2C4555%2C2583&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amazon has historically opposed trade union recognition by engaging in union suppression practices, like resisting trade union recognition through coercion. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22385644/jeff-bezos-amazon-warehouse-work-union-shareholder-letter-2021">farewell letter to shareholders last year</a>, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a new mission for his company: “Earth’s best employer and Earth’s safest place to work.” The company has since <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/update-on-our-vision-to-be-earths-best-employer-and-earths-safest-place-to-work">added these goals to its list of corporate values</a>.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/amazon-now-employs-almost-1-million-people-u-s-or-n1275539">second largest employer in the United States</a> (behind Walmart) and an employer of increasing scale in Canada and around the world, this declaration is good news. Amazon has the potential to positively impact the lives of over a million employees.</p>
<p>But the company still has a lot of work to do. Amazon has been dogged by negative reports about working for the organization, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/work-at-amazon-jobs-performance-reviews-hiring-firing-interviews-warehouses-delivery-drivers">gender and racial bias toward workers and “abusive mistreatment”</a> by managers, an intensive pace of work leading to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/30/amazon-employees-climate-fear-high-rates-injuries">high incidence of worker injury</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/10/25/a-hard-hitting-investigative-report-into-amazon-shows-that-workers-needs-were-neglected-in-favor-of-getting-goods-delivered-quickly/?sh=cdaa5451f500">workers being underpaid</a>.</p>
<p>If Amazon truly wants to be the “Earth’s best employer,” it needs to start by listening to its employees and prioritizing their needs.</p>
<h2>Amazon’s anti-union history</h2>
<p>So far, Amazon has vehemently opposed trade union recognition, engaging in union suppression practices, like resisting trade union recognition through coercion. </p>
<p>For example, Amazon has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-at-stake-in-amazons-bessemer-alabama-union-vote-5-questions-answered-157498">holding mandatory meetings with workers and distributing written information</a> in a bid to influence union votes and situating <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fe944609-7c9f-4e73-ae96-4102427cb49d">mailboxes for ballots</a> in parking lots that are near security cameras. There have even been accusations of Amazon using former <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html">FBI agents to disrupt organizing efforts</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-advantages-of-unionization-are-obvious-so-why-dont-more-workers-join-unions-164475">Amazon employs union substitution practices</a> to reduce the perceived need for a union among workers, such as <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8185628/amazon-new-workers-hourly-wage-increase/">raising wages</a> in response to the campaigns for union recognition. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People lining up on a sidewalk outside an Amazon building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461083/original/file-20220503-18-hsto87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amazon workers line up outside the company’s Staten Island warehouse to vote on unionization, on March 25, 2022, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amazon’s vehement opposition to trade unions reflects a view of organized labour known as the <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w0364/w0364.pdf">monopoly face of trade unions</a>. Trade unions are understood to have a negative economic impact on companies by restricting the options available to management. Unions are believed to increase the wages and improve the terms and conditions of its members beyond levels that are economically beneficial for firms.</p>
<p>From another perspective, trade unions are the <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w0364/w0364.pdf">collective voice</a> of workers and provide the company with economic value. For instance, without trade unions to give workers an effective voice, workers might leave their firms and take invaluable tacit knowledge with them — knowledge that is difficult and expensive, if not impossible to replace.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, employee retention isn’t a benefit that would sell trade union recognition to Amazon, where efforts have been made to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/06/17/amazon-prime-day-offers-great-sales-heres-what-workers-suffer-through-to-make-this-happen/?sh=ee674c91519f">encourage workers to leave the organization as their productivity diminishes</a> and desire for better terms and conditions grow.</p>
<h2>Benefits of trade unions</h2>
<p>Employee retention aside, trade unions play an important role in identifying operational problems and forcing management to resolve them, rather than to seek cost effective and ultimately counterproductive “fixes.” </p>
<p>In this way, trade unions impose <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095458551">beneficial constraints</a> on firms through which they constrain managerial activity. For instance, unions force management to invest, rather than reduce costs, for the long term benefit of the company and its workers.</p>
<p>The use of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-by-bot-amazon-turns-to-machine-managers-and-workers-are-losing-out">algorithmic management</a> rather than human managers at Amazon means that there is limited human supervisory oversight and day-to-day managerial insight into operations. In this vacuum, trade unions provide an important means of ensuring effective and safe working practices to the benefit of employees and the company. </p>
<p>Whereas the impact of trade unions on productivity is mixed, <a href="https://theconversation.com/unions-do-hurt-profits-but-not-productivity-and-they-remain-a-bulwark-against-a-widening-wealth-gap-107139">the results are often positive, and rarely negative</a>. It’s safe to say that they have an overall positive impact on productivity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people hugging and smiling" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461084/original/file-20220503-24-kyyfrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amazon Labour Union members celebrate after an update during the voting results to unionize Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, N.Y., on April 1, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, there is a value in Amazon engaging with workers through trade unions and collective voice that has less to do with its own competitive advantage and more to do with its broader symbolism. </p>
<h2>Meaningful work</h2>
<p>If Amazon provides its employees with a meaningful involvement in the organization and a voice at work, there are implications for the nature of work elsewhere. </p>
<p>Amazon is symbolic of success — what it does, other firms copy, a process known as <a href="https://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/org_theory/scott_articles/dimag_powel.html">mimetic isomorphism</a>, where firms imitate the market leader in the hopes of replicating its success. Amazon could set an important precedent for other companies to follow and fundamentally change the nature of work in North American and beyond.</p>
<p>In a time of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/4/28/the-perfect-storm">growing inequality, insecurity, vulnerability and destitution for many</a>, coupled with worsening <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/02/us-china-summer-ukraine-trade-biden-xi/">political turmoil</a> and social unrest because of the ongoing pandemic and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/may/02/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-evacuations-set-to-continue-explosions-reported-in-russian-city-of-belgorod-live">Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>, Amazon can be a beacon of hope. </p>
<p>It has the financial resources and market dominance to be an employer of choice: a destination of aspiration, not degradation. In short, Amazon can become the Earth’s best employer, but this must involve democratizing the workplace, recognizing the legitimate right of employees to organize and cooperating with labour representatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geraint Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amazon can become the Earth’s best employer, but this must involve democratizing the workplace, recognizing the legitimate right of employees to organize and cooperating with labour representatives.Geraint Harvey, DANCAP Private Equity Chair in Human Organization, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1700672021-11-09T13:41:14Z2021-11-09T13:41:14ZWhy so many unions oppose vaccine mandates – even when they actually support them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430511/original/file-20211105-10356-wv1ll6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=76%2C33%2C3124%2C2097&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Brooklyn Nets' Kyrie Irving is paying the price for ignoring New York City's vaccinate mandate – and his union's decision to allow it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NetsCIrvingBasketball/9a8b544c044b48d1b977ddcb1aa1999d/photo?Query=Kyrie%20irving&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=6107&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Elise Amendola</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, labor unions have been among the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/osha-covid-meat-plant-fines/2020/09/13/1dca3e14-f395-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html">strongest advocates for workplace safety measures</a>. </p>
<p>So it came as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/29/unions-shouldnt-stand-way-vaccine-mandates/">surprise to many</a> that some unions have resisted the imposition of vaccine mandates, ranging in sentiment from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/17/health-202-labor-unions-are-split-vaccine-mandates/">cautious</a> to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/02/police-firefighters-resist-vaccination/">outright hostile</a>. Their reactions can seem confusing because we tend to associate unions with Democrats, who, polls show, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/poll-support-vaccine-mandates-students-515657">overwhelmingly support vaccine mandates</a>. In fact, some unions, including those that represent police officers, are <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-police-oregon-coronavirus-pandemic-workers-rights-05ff3bd3325fb47f90061b1cc8e339a1">more supportive of Republicans</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GmfL_MIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">an expert in labor law</a>, however, I wasn’t at all surprised by these differences. Understanding a little about the purpose of unions and how they operate shows why.</p>
<h2>Unions have to represent their members</h2>
<p>Police unions have been most vocally opposed to vaccine mandates. </p>
<p>They’ve <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/28/new-york-city-vaccine-mandate-judge/">filed lawsuits</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hell-no-some-police-officers-their-unions-oppose-vaccination-mandates-n1277608">vowed to ignore the mandate</a> and <a href="https://ktla.com/news/california/san-francisco-sheriffs-deputies-threaten-to-quit-over-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/">threatened to quit</a>, even though <a href="https://www.odmp.org/search/incident/covid-19">COVID-19 has been the leading cause of death</a> for police officers in 2020 and 2021.</p>
<p>Although it’s unclear exactly how many police officers and their unions are opposing mandates, their vaccination numbers are <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/cities-police-unions-clash-vaccine-mandates-effect-80608735">well below the national rate for adults</a>, and there have been very hostile objections to mandates in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/us/police-unions-vaccine-workers-rights/index.html">cities across the country</a>. For example, the Chicago police union president urged officers to <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-police-vaccine-mandate-union-head-urges-cops-to-defy/2635725/">defy a vaccine mandate that he compared to a Nazi gas chamber</a>.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand that unions are representative organizations that rely on the support of their members, much like politicians. A union only gains a foothold at a workplace if a majority of employees want it; if the union loses that majority support, it can be kicked out. </p>
<p>Moreover, union leaders obtain and keep their positions through periodic elections. As a result, unions are especially sensitive to the positions of their members. And that’s not only to maintain support, it’s also unions’ main job: representing employees. </p>
<p>So if a union represents workers who oppose vaccine mandates, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that union leaders, who are <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/10/16/491731/unions-democratically-organized-corporations-not/">usually former rank-and-file employees</a>, echo the same view. This is why we see so many unions that represent law enforcement officers and firefighters, who <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-police-oregon-coronavirus-pandemic-workers-rights-05ff3bd3325fb47f90061b1cc8e339a1">tend to be politically conservative</a>, oppose vaccine mandates. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="New York firefighters hold signs opposing vaccine mandates during a news conference." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430585/original/file-20211106-25-1crk7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Firefighter groups, like the FDNY Fire Officers Association, have been among the unions most vocally opposed to mandates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NYVaccineMandateFirefighters/c34efd64b3c24de7b8c97f2c94fc7444/photo?Query=police%20vaccine%20mandate&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=44&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Mary Altaffer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Protecting the right to bargain</h2>
<p>Yet even unions that traditionally support the Democratic Party aren’t always gung-ho about mandates, especially those that are implemented without their input.</p>
<p>While some large unions, like the <a href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/565195-afl-cio-backing-vaccine-requirement-for-workers">AFL-CIO</a> and <a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-announces-support-educator-vaccine-and-testing">National Education Association</a>, quickly backed vaccine mandates, others have taken a more nuanced stance. As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/16/unions-vaccine-mandates-ufcw/">Terri Gerstein from the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program emphasized</a>, it’s important to pay attention to exactly what these unions are doing and saying. </p>
<p>Many unions initially expressed caution or opposition to vaccine mandates, but that reluctance has frequently softened over time. Thus, we see some unions that have always encouraged its members to vaccinate, like the <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-unions-have-opposed-vaccine-mandates-but-that-may-change/2021/08">American Federation of Teachers</a>, first oppose employer-led mandates before reversing course, all the while emphasizing the need for more discussion between workers and management.</p>
<p>The American Federation of Government Employees is encouraging its members to be vaccinated but <a href="https://www.afge.org/publication/largest-federal-employee-union-responds-to-president-bidens-covid-19-vaccine-announcement/">has emphasized that any requirements</a> first be “properly negotiated with our bargaining units.” The Service Employees International Union also pushed for members to get the vaccine, while arguing that employers may be <a href="https://seiu.org/covid-19-faqs">legally required to bargain with unions before implementing mandates</a>.</p>
<p>Although these stances may seem odd, they’re exactly what you should expect.</p>
<p>When a policy that affects workers is first proposed, unions may need some time to gauge their members’ thoughts. Hence the initial hesitation. After that, however, unions focus on protecting one of their members’ vital labor rights: the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/collective-bargaining-rights">right to bargain</a>. </p>
<p>A major reason employees want a union in the first place is get a seat at the table with their employer to hash out work conditions. Employers usually can’t change work conditions on their own because <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/bargaining-in-good-faith-with-employees-union-representative">they have a duty</a> to try to work out an agreement with the union. Therefore, when the possibility of a vaccine mandate arises, a union – even one that supports the mandate – will be very careful to make sure the employer bargains before implementing it. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.njcourts.gov/attorneys/assets/opinions/appellate/published/a0146-21a0159-21.pdf?c=9p4">some state courts</a> and <a href="https://perb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/decisionbank/decision-2783h.pdf">agencies</a> have recently determined that state and local government employers aren’t required to negotiate with unions over vaccine mandates because it’s an urgent health emergency, it’s still an <a href="https://casetext.com/admin-law/virginia-mason-medical-center-5">open question in the private sector</a>. As a result, a union’s failure to at least push for the right to bargain over a mandate would be giving up one of its most powerful rights without a fight.</p>
<h2>Ironing out the details</h2>
<p>But even when its members generally support a mandate and an employer is allowed to impose one, a union may still have an incentive to avoid publicly supporting the mandate. That’s because it will still want to reserve the right to bargain over the mandate’s implementation. </p>
<p>The duty to bargain includes not only the adoption of a rule but also <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/bargaining-in-good-faith-with-employees-union-representative">negotiations over how the rule is implemented</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/tyson-foods-meatpacking-union-strike-deal-over-vaccine-mandate-2021-09-03/">Tyson Foods and its unions agreed</a> to a mandate that included incentives for vaccinations, such as paid leave. </p>
<p>And the U.S. Postal Service and its unions <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/unions/2021/09/usps-says-vaccination-testing-requirements-subject-to-mandatory-union-negotiations/">are negotiating how to address</a> the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/11/05/2021-23643/covid-19-vaccination-and-testing-emergency-temporary-standard">new rule</a> that obligates employers with 100 or more employees to either require workers be vaccinated or take regular COVID-19 tests. Terms include deadlines for compliance, whether the Postal Service will provide on-site testing or vaccinations, and how employees who don’t comply will be disciplined. </p>
<p>Questions over whether disciplinary action can be challenged recently led an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-fop-lodge-7-vaccination-mandate-judge-restraining-order-20211101-ov5l25pyhvdvfemcb3zkfuym6q-story.html">Illinois court to temporarily prevent Chicago</a> from enforcing its vaccination requirement for police officers. The delay was needed, according to the court, to allow unvaccinated officers time to challenge suspensions through the arbitration process that was part of their union’s contract with the city.</p>
<p>A lot is at stake in these post-mandate negotiations, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/10/12/kyrie-irving-nets-vaccine-mandate-unavailable/">Kyrie Irving of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets can attest</a>. </p>
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<p>Irving’s unvaccinated status means that he’s unable to play in his team’s arena because of New York City’s vaccine rules. The NBA has said that players who can’t play because of a vaccine mandate will be fined. That’s a position that the players union initially opposed but, after <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/kyrie-irving-pay-cut-vaccination/7n3x4epp5spv1dftekfffocjd">discussions with the league</a>, ultimately agreed was allowable under the contract. The result is that Irving is set to lose over US$15 million. </p>
<p>Most employees, of course, have nowhere near as much money at stake. However, their interest in having their union involved with decisions over how a vaccine mandate will be implemented is just as great. And this helps explain why unions will be hesitant to publicly support a mandate until they can iron out all these details.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Hirsch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The reasons have a lot to do with the nature of unions as representative of workers’ views, as well as the importance of protecting their right to bargain.Jeffrey Hirsch, Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623342021-09-03T12:37:44Z2021-09-03T12:37:44ZSlavery was the ultimate labor distortion – empowering workers today would be a form of reparations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418876/original/file-20210901-16-nd6f8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4308%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor violations disproportionately affect Black Americans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/labor-groups-and-workers-including-john-beard-with-the-la-news-photo/567385215?adppopup=true">Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The conversation about reparations for slavery entered a new stage earlier in 2021, with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986853285/house-lawmakers-advance-historic-bill-to-form-reparations-commission">voting for the creation of a commission</a> to address the matter.</p>
<p>The bill, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40">H.R. 40</a>, has been introduced every Congress since 1989 by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and John Conyers, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/27/773919009/john-conyers-jr-who-represented-michigan-for-5-decades-dies-at-90">until his death in 2019</a>. But this year marks the first time that its request to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans has cleared the committee stage. </p>
<p>Calls to redress the lasting impact of slavery and racial discrimination have been amplified recently following further evidence of the impact of systemic racism – both through the <a href="https://covidtracking.com/race">disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the Black community</a> and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of U.S. police.</p>
<h2>Disruption of labor relations</h2>
<p>To many, the question going forward is not so much whether or not reparations are in order, but what kinds of reparations might be appropriate.</p>
<p>Most of the conversation to date has focused on reparations in terms of payouts of some form. Prominent author <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>, in a powerful argument for reparations, said payments must be made by white America to Black America – much as <a href="https://qz.com/1915185/how-germany-paid-reparations-for-the-holocaust/">Germany started paying Israel in 1952</a> to compensate for the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/joerg-rieger">scholar who has written on economic justice and the labor movement</a>, I agree that reparations must have economic substance, because the impact of racism is inherently linked with power and money. But my <a href="https://chalicepress.com/products/unified-we-are-a-force">research suggests another model</a> for reparations: If one of the most significant aspects of slavery – even if not the only one – was a massive disruption of labor relations, then a crucial part in the reparations discussion could involve reshaping the labor relationship between employers and employees today. </p>
<p>I believe such a reshaping of the labor relationship would substantially benefit the descendants of enslaved people in the United States. Labor, as my research has argued, has implications for all aspects of life and labor reform would, I believe, address many of the problems of structural racism as well. In addition, reshaping the labor relationship would also have positive effects for all working people, <a href="https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/united-states/">including those who still experience enslavement today</a>. </p>
<h2>Growing racial wage gap</h2>
<p>Labor relations can be considered “distorted” when one party profits disproportionally at the expense of another. In other words, it is a departure from a “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26159/26159-h/26159-h.htm">fair day’s pay for a fair days’s work</a>” – a concept that forms a bedrock demand of the labor movement, alongside good working conditions.</p>
<p>This is not just a matter of money but also of power. Under the conditions of slavery, the distortion of labor relations was nearly complete. Slave owners pocketed the profits and claimed absolute power, while slaves had to obey and risk life and limb for no compensation.</p>
<p>Black Americans continue to be disadvantaged in the labor market today. As CEO compensation <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/">soars</a>, the number of Black CEOs remains remarkably low – there were just <a href="https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-black-ceos-business-history/">four Black CEOs at Fortune 500 companies</a> as of March 2021. In general, the wage gap between Black and white employees <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/black-white-wage-gaps-are-worse-today-than-in-2000/">has grown in recent years</a>. Fueling these disparities, as well as building on them, is the structural racism that reparations could be designed to address.</p>
<p>Unionization can be a tool to rebalance labor relations and can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4300995/">diminish this racial gap</a>, <a href="https://cepr.net/report/black-workers-unions-and-inequality/#five">studies have shown</a>. But union membership in general – and among Black workers in particular – has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/22/workers-are-fired-up-union-participation-is-still-decline-new-statistics-show/">declined in recent decades</a>. And a weaker labor movement is associated, studies show, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/663673">greater racial wage disparity</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black members of the Domestic Workers Union Members march down a road in protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418983/original/file-20210901-13-vcj2s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Unionization can help reduce the racial wage gap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/domestic-workers-union-members-picketing-news-photo/534275792?adppopup=true">Joseph Schwartz/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Another tool to rebalance labor relations is worker-owned cooperatives, which have a <a href="http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/newsroom/7396.php">long tradition in African American communities</a> as <a href="https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/jessica-gordon-nembhard">economist Jessica Gordon Nembhard</a> has noted. From early on, she points out, “African Americans realized that without economic justice – without economic equality, independence and stability … social and political rights were hollow, or actually not achievable.” Gordon Nembhard’s work also shows that such cooperatives were often fought and ultimately destroyed because they were so successful in empowering African American communities. </p>
<h2>A ‘more permanent’ solution</h2>
<p>Some in the labor movement are beginning to link reparations with union rights. Labor <a href="https://dsgchicago.com/">lawyer Thomas Geoghegan</a> has suggested that the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill before Congress that would strengthen workers’ rights and weaken anti-union right-to-work laws, should be viewed as “a practical form of Black reparations.” He argued in <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/160530/labor-law-reform-racial-equality-protecting-right-organize-act">an article for The New Republic</a> that wealth redistribution through union membership is “more permanent and lasting than a check written out as Black reparations, however much deserved, and far more likely to get a return over time.”</p>
<p>While there is considerable disagreement about the profits employers should be able to make from the labor of their employees, there is little disagreement about the wrongness of practices like outright <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/">wage theft</a> – which today takes the form of employers not paying part or all promised wages or paying less than mandated minimum wage. Even those who rarely worry about employers making too much profit would for the most part likely agree that wage theft is wrong. Agreement on this matter takes us back to slavery, which might be considered the ultimate wage theft.</p>
<p>Addressing the ongoing legacy of slavery and systemic racism requires not only economic solutions but also improving labor relations and protecting workers against wage discrimination, disempowerment at work, and violations such as wage theft that <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/">disproportionately affect workers of color</a>.</p>
<p>Reparations that fail to pay attention to improving labor relations may not achieve economic equality. The reparations paid to Israel by Germany, for instance, have not helped to achieve economic equality – the Israeli economy is still, alongside the U.S.’s, among the <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2015/05/21/news/economy/worst-inequality-countries-oecd/">most unequal in the developed world</a>, with the richest 10% of each country’s population earning more than 15 times that of the poorest.</p>
<p>Simple monetary payouts are not, I believe, sufficient to solve the problem of racial inequality. Wage theft can again serve as the example here. While repaying stolen wages – as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/76a9403fe9dc4c2daf8a52c38e16284c">New York state did in 2018</a> by returning $35 million to workers – is commendable, repaying stolen wages does not in itself change the skewed relationships between employer and employee that enable wage theft in the first place. Greater empowerment of working people is needed to do that.</p>
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<h2>Benefiting others as well</h2>
<p>So while redistributing money can be part of the solution, it may not go far enough.</p>
<p>Tying reparations to the improvement of labor relations – which can happen through the empowerment of working people or the promotion of <a href="http://www.usworker.coop/home">worker-owned cooperatives</a> – would not only help those most affected by wealth and employment gaps, Black Americans, it would also <a href="http://www.co-opsnow.org">benefit others who have traditionally been discriminated against</a> in employment, such as women, immigrants and many other working people. </p>
<p>Improving labor relations would address systemic racial discrimination where it is often most destructive and painful: at work, where people spend the bulk of their waking hours, and where the economic well-being of families and by extension entire communities can be decided.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joerg Rieger is supporting the work of worker cooperatives, including the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development, which is hyperlinked at the end of the piece. He is not on any of their boards and he is not receiving any remuneration.</span></em></p>Rebalancing labor relations so that workers are empowered would be an effective way to address racial wealth disparities and atone for the legacy of slavery, a scholar argues.Joerg Rieger, Professor of Theology, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1574982021-03-28T14:55:27Z2021-03-28T14:55:27ZWhat’s at stake in Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, union vote: 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391739/original/file-20210325-17-1f3ayps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=215%2C68%2C1781%2C1302&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are hoping to become the retailer's first unionized employees in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden-Unions/c2511d21eb4e4afba6cee9088c66b1bb/photo?Query=amazon%20AND%20alabama&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Jay Reeves</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Several thousand Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/union-definition-why-companies-amazon-oppose-labor-organizing-workers-rights-2021-3">are currently voting</a> on whether to form the retailer’s first-ever union. The election has been contentious, with workers complaining that Amazon <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/02/amazon-union-warehouse-workers/">is using aggressive tactics</a> to defeat the vote, while high-profile figures including <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/1/22306952/amazon-union-biden-statement-bessemer-alabama-warehouse">President Joe Biden</a> have weighed in on the side of the union. Voting continues through March 29. We asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sWr6QNwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Raymond Hogler</a>, an employment relations expert at Colorado State University, to explain what’s happening and why it matters.</em></p>
<h2>1. Why do Amazon workers want to form a union, and how do they begin?</h2>
<p>In March 2021, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union asked the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/">National Labor Relations Board</a> to hold an election at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer. Some 6,000 workers are eligible to vote by secret ballot about whether they want the union to represent them in their dealings with Amazon.</p>
<p>Amazon, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/amazon-employers-online-retail-covid-pandemic-coronavirus/">one of the largest employers in the world</a>, has no collective bargaining agreements with any of its U.S. employees – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/25/amazon-alabama-europe-unions/">though it does in Europe</a>. Workers typically seek union representation for higher wages and better benefits, and a union can provide a higher level of job security through seniority provisions and grievance procedures in contracts. </p>
<p>As part of its efforts to avoid unionization, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-investors-tell-company-stop-interfere-union-vote-2021-2?op=1">Amazon is holding mandatory meetings with employees</a> and distributing written materials to influence the vote. </p>
<h2>2. What happens if the the union wins the election?</h2>
<p>Winning the election doesn’t automatically mean workers are unionized and get a labor contract. It means only they have the right to negotiate for one. The employer has a duty under the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act</a> to bargain with the union, but it does not have an obligation to agree to anything the union proposes. </p>
<p>The law states in Section 9 that the requirement to bargain collectively is “the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.”</p>
<p>Of course, Amazon could simply shut down the facility – but it couldn’t reopen the same facility elsewhere to escape unionization. While American employers have an absolute right to close their business rather than deal with a union, they do not have a right to shut down one location and move to a different place just to avoid letting workers unionize, as the labor board has held in cases of so-called <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1520&context=hlelj">runaway shops</a>. </p>
<p>And since Alabama is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-to-works-rapid-spread-is-creating-more-union-free-riders-38805">right-to-work state</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/12/976141488/high-stakes-at-a-warehouse-amazon-fights-against-alabama-union-drive">workers will be able to decide</a> whether or not to pay union dues. In general, this is one way <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/right-to-work-states">right-to-work laws</a> impair union strength.</p>
<h2>3. What happens if they don’t reach an agreement?</h2>
<p>The board has no authority to make an employer agree to a contract. If an employer bargains in good faith but the parties fail to reach an agreement, the union has a right to strike. </p>
<p>And if the National Labor Relations Board finds that an employer violated the law during the election, it could order more negotiations. </p>
<h2>4. How about if Amazon wins?</h2>
<p>If the election is deemed “valid” by the board and the effort to unionize fails, workers will have to wait another year before trying again. This is to prevent unions from engaging in continuous organizing efforts and repetitive elections. But if the employer violated the law, the board has the authority to conduct a rerun election or order Amazon to bargain with the union anyway. </p>
<p>An example violation would be if Amazon offered all the employees an unexpected bonus just before the voting begins. The union could argue that this tactic was an illegal conferral of a benefit to discourage unionization. </p>
<h2>5. What does this election mean for the broader labor movement?</h2>
<p>Organized labor views the Amazon campaign as an opportunity to publicize the weaknesses of current law and to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-faces-growing-worker-pressure-in-shadow-of-alabama-union-vote-11616578202">create momentum</a> for new legislation that would help workers organize.</p>
<p>One such bill currently before Congress, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2474/text">Protecting the Right to Organize Act</a>, would establish a <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/what-is-the-pro-act.html">more favorable legal environment</a> for unions by easing rules for union recognition and beefing up penalties for violations of workers’ rights.</p>
<p><a href="https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2021-02.pdf">Advocates for the act claim</a> in addition that reform increase incomes for more working-class Americans and reduces <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/distribution-of-personal-income">inflation-adjusted average incomes</a> for the bottom 90% of households. </p>
<p>Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, <a href="https://aflcio.org/speeches/trumka-calls-pro-act-2020s-most-significant-piece-legislation">said the new legislation is needed</a> to protect workers because many of them “break the law” during union organizing drives. He said the Protecting the Right to Organize Act “creates a true deterrent, so employers think twice before violating the law.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Hogler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although it covers only about 6,000 workers, the election could result in the first unionized Amazon facility in the US and have broader ramifications for the labor movement.Raymond Hogler, Professor of Management, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1529632021-01-11T13:16:55Z2021-01-11T13:16:55ZFired for storming the Capitol? Why most workers aren’t protected for what they do on their own time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377897/original/file-20210110-17-18d8nke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=727%2C565%2C5263%2C3422&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The man on the right wearing the Trump hat was identified by his badge as an employee of Navistar Direct Marketing, which fired him.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NotRealNews/87c8771b339746edafb3b49f74b68dc0/photo?Query=jake&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=37825&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can you be fired for joining a violent mob that storms the Capitol?</p>
<p>Of course you can. </p>
<p>Among the jarring images of white insurrectionists who broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/01/07/man-in-capitol-mob-fired-after-wearing-his-company-id-badge-to-riot/?sh=5f369940514a">man marching through the building holding a Trump flag</a> with his work ID badge still draped around his neck.</p>
<p>It didn’t take long for internet sleuths to zoom in on the badge and alert his employer, Navistar Direct Marketing, a Maryland direct mail printing company. </p>
<p>The company promptly fired the man and contacted the FBI, <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/533195-maryland-company-terminates-employee-who-wore-badge-during">issuing a statement</a> that “any employee demonstrating dangerous conduct that endangers the health and safety of others will no longer have an employment opportunity.” </p>
<p>Even though the Capitol Police let <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/live-blog/2021-01-06-congress-electoral-vote-count-n1253179/ncrd1253295#blogHeader">all but 14 of the rioters</a> walk away, the FBI and District of Columbia police have begun <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-07/how-might-the-u-s-capitol-rioters-face-justice-quicktake">tracking them</a> down. <a href="https://www.kcci.com/article/des-moines-iowa-man-seen-inside-capitol-during-violence/35153695">Other</a> <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-attorney-fired-after-posting-videos-from-15853223.php">companies</a> have also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/capitol-riots-people-fired-jobs-trnd/index.html">taken action</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/properties/status/1347237174073241601">against employees</a> identified in the many photos from inside the Capitol. Even the <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/illinois-ceo-fired-from-suburban-company-following-arrest-in-us-capitol-riot/2412077/">CEO of a data analytics firm</a> found himself without a job following his arrest.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://law.uoregon.edu/people/faculty/tippett">my experience as a law professor</a> and lawyer specializing in employment law, I doubt that Navistar management is losing sleep over whether its decision was legally justified. </p>
<p>It’s not even a close case. Non-unionized workers in the United States – about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">90% of all workers</a> – are employed at-will. That <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-employment-overview.aspx">means you can be terminated at any time</a>, without notice, for any reason. It doesn’t even have to be a good reason. Unless the company has guaranteed your job in writing, or there is a specific law that protects your conduct – such as laws protecting union organizing or whistleblowing – your fate is up to them.</p>
<p>The law is more protective when it comes to unionized workers and government employees. These workers may <a href="https://www.findlaw.com/education/teachers-rights/teachers-rights-tenure-and-dismissal.html">have the right</a> to be terminated only for cause, and they might get a hearing process prior to being disciplined. Government workers are also protected by the First Amendment, particularly when it comes to free speech in their <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12292534138488546769">capacity as citizens</a> rather than speech related to the workplace. </p>
<p>That’s why the teachers and off-duty police officers spotted at the Capitol have only been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/capitol-riots-people-fired-jobs-trnd/index.html">suspended pending investigations</a>, rather than fired outright. For these workers, their fate may depend on whether they were peacefully participating in the day’s earlier rally – an activity that would be considered protected speech – as opposed to engaging in violence or joining the capitol invasion, which would be unprotected illegal conduct. </p>
<p>Things get murky if these government workers were displaying white supremacist symbols, like a confederate flag, at the rally. <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ilr81&div=35&g_sent=1&casa_token=FhyqPAa5lRYAAAAA:tjoHLf4TtES2RenKL5FSwtpxg4bykH9Ck4Jk0lqs1WL8kv-SX1-gTrLDoGOdfM7YOcVfBgPVIQ&collection=journals">Courts have recognized limits</a> on the public speech of police officers to uphold public confidence, community relations and department morale. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A throng of Trump supporters stand in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6 as one snaps a picture." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377898/original/file-20210110-21-cnhxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A supporter of President Donald Trump appears to take a selfie at the Capitol on Jan. 6.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-us-president-donald-trump-protest-inside-the-news-photo/1230454223">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>But as the Brennan Center, a liberal-leaning law and public policy institute, observed in an <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law#footnote8_aylqa0t">August 2020 report</a>, “few law enforcement agencies have policies that specifically prohibit affiliating with white supremacist groups.” The absence of such policies could make it harder for departments to later discipline off-duty police officers for their role.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>State lawmakers <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/533160-at-least-6-gop-legislators-took-part-in-trump-inspired-protests">who participated</a> are a different matter. Because they were elected by the people, they can’t be removed like ordinary employees. That <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state-officials.aspx">might require</a> a recall election or a state impeachment process.</p>
<p>But for most of the folks who snapped selfies in the Capitol – or ended up in someone else’s – if they don’t get a knock on the door from the FBI, they may soon be getting one from HR.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vast majority of US workers are deemed “at will,” which means they can be fired at any time, without notice, and for any reason.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442542020-08-24T12:19:45Z2020-08-24T12:19:45ZThe labor-busting law firms and consultants that keep Google, Amazon and other workplaces union-free<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354118/original/file-20200821-20-11nqvca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C48%2C2013%2C1141&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rite Aid hired anti-union consultants to try to prevent workers from successfully organizing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/3292916718/">Amy Niehouse/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American companies have been very successful at preventing their workers from organizing into unions in recent decades, one of the reasons unionization in the private sector <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">is at a record low</a>. </p>
<p>What you may not realize is that a handful of little-known law and consulting firms do much of the dirty work that keeps companies and other organizations union-free.</p>
<p>IKEA, for example, turned to Ogletree Deakins, one of the largest law firms that specialize in so-called union avoidance activities, to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ikea-accused-of-anti-union-tactics-2018-10">help it crush unionization efforts</a> in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in 2016. Google <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/technology/Google-union-consultant.html">hired IRI Consultants</a>, a firm known for its anti-union activities, for advice on how to deal with growing worker unrest. And just this summer, two liberal-leaning organizations – the <a href="https://scholars.org">Scholars Strategy Network</a> and ACLU Kansas – <a href="https://thebaffler.com/working-stiff/the-new-face-of-union-busting-kelly">recruited the services of Ogletree</a> when their employees tried to form unions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.2.0057?seq=1">I’ve been studying</a> these firms for two decades and <a href="https://www.jwj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnLogan12_2006UnionAvoidance.pdf">have chronicled the key roles</a> they have played in undermining an American worker’s federally protected right to organize. Their tactics, abetted by <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/workers-rights-labor-standards-and-global-trade/">weak labor laws</a>, have turned what should be a worker-driven process into essentially a choice being made by companies. </p>
<h2>Avoiding unions 101</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-6186(06)15007-6">lack of effective federal reporting requirements</a> means there isn’t a lot of data on this union-busting industry. We do know that a lot of companies are using it. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old brochure from the Labor Relations Institute offered clients a money-back guarantee that it could successfully prevent employees from forming a union." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Labor Relations Institute offered clients a money-back guarantee that it could successfully prevent employees from forming a union in a brochure from the 2000s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Logan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a Cornell labor expert, about 75% of all U.S. employers <a href="https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=reports">have engaged the services of a consultant or law firm</a> to stymie efforts by workers to organize – and are spending an <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition-to-union-election-campaigns/">estimated US$340 million a year</a> to do so. </p>
<p>Three of the biggest law firms that do this work are <a href="https://www.littler.com">Littler Mendelson</a>, <a href="https://ogletree.com">Ogletree</a> and <a href="https://www.jacksonlewis.com">Jackson Lewis</a>, which have grown from <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.2.0057">regional operations</a> into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1095796019893336">global union avoidance behemoths</a>. Consultants such as IRI and the <a href="https://lrionline.com">Labor Relations Institute</a> have also developed a reputation for union avoidance expertise in recent decades. IRI even <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1180/Logan-IUR.pdf?1598029329">used to offer a “money-back guarantee”</a> if its efforts weren’t succesful.</p>
<p>Here’s a closer look at the main services they offer clients, which occupy the gray areas of labor law.</p>
<h2>Monitoring unrest in the workplace</h2>
<p>One major reason companies hire these firms is to conduct union vulnerability audits, intended to analyze a workforce to see which departments, locations or demographic groups are most likely to organize. </p>
<p>The tactic has been around since at least the mid-20th century. Management professor Sanford Jacoby documented how <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3115660">Sears Roebuck used vulnerability audits</a> to beat back unionization as early as the 1940s, while labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein showed how Walmart <a href="https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lichtenstein_FinalPDF.pdf">has used similar tactics</a> to remain union-free since the 1960s.</p>
<p>Today’s audits, however, <a href="https://www.littler.com/practice-areas/robotics-artificial-intelligence-ai-and-automation">are more sophisticated</a> and data-driven. Anti-union monitoring software can help management <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/companies-are-using-employee-survey-data-to-predict-and-squash-union-organizing-a7e28a8c2158">squash organizing</a> before it starts, while heat maps that collect data from a wide variety of sources reveal granular detail about where the biggest risks are. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-tracks-unionization-risk-with-heat-map-2020-1">Amazon recently used heat maps</a> to show which of its Whole Foods grocery stories and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/29/21303643/amazon-coronavirus-warehouse-workers-protest-jeff-bezos-chris-smalls-boycott-pandemic">distribution warehouses</a> were most at risk of unionization.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A banner that read 'Vote no' was added to billboards that read 'keep 1 team' near a Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nissan used billboards to convey its anti-union message during a unionization drive in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-ASSOCIATED-PRESS-I-TN-USA-APHST46-FOOTNOTE/bffd484e790d47869a8608cdc17aabf2/1/0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Union inoculation</h2>
<p>The anti-union firms <a href="https://www.jacksonlewis.com/sites/default/files/media/pnc/1/media.1511.pdf">advise companies</a> to treat unions like a “virus” and to “inoculate” employees with messaging about the purported consequences of organizing early and often. </p>
<p>And to that end, another important service these firms provide is supplying companies with anti-union materials, which <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1057%2F9781137319067_2">can be anything</a> from managerial training and websites targeting employees to “vote no” buttons and anti-union billboards – strategically located on the way to work. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/business/economy/nissan-united-auto-workers-mississippi.html">Nissan</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-uaw-election-analysis/thirteen-billboards-one-paint-shop-worker-helped-defeat-union-at-vw-plant-in-chattanooga-idUSBREA1L13220140222">Volkswagen</a> and <a href="https://www.al.com/business/2013/08/anti-union_billboards_put_up_n.html">other carmakers</a> have used billboards as part of their campaigns to prevent unionizing at plants in the U.S. And last year, Delta Airlines put up posters <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/10/18564745/delta-anti-union-video-game-poster">advising employees</a> that buying a video game console would be a better way to spend money than on union dues. Rite Aid, as part of an effort to stop workers at a warehouse in Lancaster, California, from organizing beginning in 2006, hired <a href="https://www.oliverbell.com/who-we-are/about-oliver">Oliver J. Bell & Associates</a> to provide its managers with training resources, according to a <a href="http://www.teamsters952.org/riteaid_report(1).pdf">report by labor rights organization Jobs with Justice</a>. </p>
<h2>Captivating workers</h2>
<p>A third technique is what union avoidance consultants call <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40342475?seq=1">direct explainer activity</a>, such as conducting mandatory anti-union staff meetings.</p>
<p>Workers who experience them describe these “captive” meetings as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40342475?seq=1">form of legalized intimidation</a>, which is one reason <a href="https://cllpj.law.illinois.edu/archive/vol_29/">many other democratic countries</a>, such as Germany and Japan, restrict them. </p>
<p>Law firms generally avoid engaging in activities that involve direct contact with employees because, technically, it must be disclosed under the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/statutes/lmrda-act.htm">Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959</a>. This has created an opening for other types of consultants to specialize in this kind of persuasion. Weak enforcement means that reporting is patchy, even among consultants who talk to employees.</p>
<p>As the pandemic and concerns of benefits and safety <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/coronavirus-unions-layoffs.html">has prompted</a> <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/nonprofit-workers-turn-to-unions-during-pandemic-uncertainty">more workers to try to organize</a>, firms have continued to <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/union-busting-during-a-pandemic-could-prove-lethal-to-workers/">conduct these meetings</a>. HCA Healthcare <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/06/coronavirus-hca-healthcare-nurse-union-busting/">reportedly hired consultants</a> to run meetings at a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, as part of its recent campaign to prevent 1,600 nurses from forming a union. </p>
<p>Using these and other tactics, consultants claim overwhelming success rates in preventing unionization, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/03/business/tougher-tactics-to-keep-out-unions.html">often 95% or higher</a>. While it’s impossible to empirically verify these claims, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230303348">most labor relations researchers believe</a> they are highly effective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unionization is at a record low in part thanks to the tactics these firms use on behalf of companies and other organizations.John Logan, Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1425392020-07-30T12:13:56Z2020-07-30T12:13:56ZNext COVID casualty: Cities hit hard by the pandemic face bankruptcy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350026/original/file-20200728-29-giz4cq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C5%2C3916%2C2796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pandemic's longterm effects could include city bankruptcies across the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-lynchburg-virginia-city-hall-is-closed-during-the-news-photo/1212429375?adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. cities are fast running out of cash. </p>
<p>The pandemic will reduce local government revenues by an <a href="https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/cfed-district-data-briefs/cfddb-20200513-estimates-of-state-and-local-government-revenue-losses-from-pandemic-mitigation.aspx">estimated US$11.6 billion</a> in 2020. With COVID-19 requiring residents to stay home and stores to shutter, the bulk of this reduction comes from a slump in local sales taxes. Declines will continue into 2021. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/coronaviruss-painful-side-effect-is-deep-budget-cuts-for-state-and-local-government-services-141105">State revenues are heading in the same direction</a>, so many U.S. cities will need to rely on help from the federal government. Aid to cities may be part of the next pandemic aid package now being discussed by members of the House and Senate. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/27/senate-coronavirus-legislation-heals-act/">But so far</a>, the Republicans’ bill leaves out any new funding for state and local governments, while the Democrats’ bill includes $1 trillion for it.</p>
<p>And if federal assistance arrives, it will not fix every city’s budget.</p>
<p>The pandemic has hit budgets so hard that even cities in relatively good financial health – including those with <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/10/11/how-rainy-day-funds-help-cities-prepare-for-revenue-volatility">rainy day funds</a> to help them through an emergency – will face significant changes to staffing and services. </p>
<p>For cities in the poorest shape, the pandemic could mean bankruptcy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Downtown in Vallejo, California" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350027/original/file-20200728-19-52jrg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Northern California city of Vallejo declared bankruptcy in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/buildings-in-downtown-vallejo-are-relfected-in-a-storefront-news-photo/565997867?adppopup=true">Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Size matters</h2>
<p>Bankruptcy is a legal process where people, companies and governments who cannot pay their debts seek to reduce them.</p>
<p>Which debts get paid during a bankruptcy are important decisions. They involve how comfortable a city employee’s retirement might be, the level of health insurance for pensioners and workers, the extent of labor protections for employees and the future cost of borrowing for a city.</p>
<p>City bankruptcy was created by Congress after the Great Depression, in response to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2978769">4,770</a> different units of city government going belly up. <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/07/07/by-the-numbers-a-look-at-municipal-bankruptcies-over-the-past-20-years">Twenty-seven states</a> now allow their cities to file for bankruptcy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncsl.org/documents/fiscal/glm11spiotto.pdf">Those states</a> that do not allow city bankruptcy – Georgia and Iowa explicitly prohibit filing, with the other 21 states having no specific allowance or prohibition – manage the problem of city indebtedness in various ways, ranging from strict budget oversight to the disbanding of heavily indebted cities. Since 1938, city bankruptcy has been used <a href="https://muninetguide.com/municipal-bankruptcy-statistics/">around 700</a> times. </p>
<p>A city’s bankruptcy differs from corporate bankruptcy in that it does not allow for the liquidation of assets. For cities, bankruptcy is used to reduce debts, not sell off things - such as public roads and buildings - to pay off debts. The bankruptcy judge’s role is to determine whether the proposed reduction is fair to all people the city owes money to, which may include workers, pensioners, bankers, suppliers and investors.</p>
<p>But bankruptcies can look different in different cities. </p>
<p>We are scholars who research changes in how cities go about budgeting. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cico.12449">Our work has</a> showed that the city bankruptcies that followed the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008 were not uniform. </p>
<p>If you were in a big city, your government owed money to lots of people. The converse was true in small cities. As the number of participants in a bankruptcy increases, the task of deciding how much different creditors should get repaid becomes more complicated. </p>
<h2>Somebody doesn’t get paid</h2>
<p>Westfall Township, Pennsylvania, home to about 2,000 people, declared bankruptcy in 2009 after losing a lawsuit to New Jersey real estate developers David and Barbara Katz. <a href="https://www.recordonline.com/article/20090418/NEWS/904180319">Courts ruled</a> that the city owed the Katzes $20.8 million after improperly denying them permission to develop projects in the township. </p>
<p>With annual revenues of just $1 million, Westfall had few options but to file for bankruptcy. </p>
<p>Resolving Westfall’s bankruptcy meant reaching a new agreement with the Katzes. The bankruptcy court approved a <a href="https://www.poconorecord.com/article/20100302/news/3020328">$6 million settlement</a> with the developers and gave Westfall 20 years to pay. The city would also raise property taxes and delay the repayment of other debts. By 2014, Westfall’s budget had recovered enough for Pennsylvania to <a href="https://www.poconorecord.com/article/20140611/NEWS/140619940">remove it</a> from its list of distressed cities.</p>
<p>Bankruptcy proceedings were more complicated in Vallejo, California, which is on the northern end of San Francisco Bay. Vallejo, <a href="https://www.california-demographics.com/cities_by_population">population 120,000</a>, had a 2008-2009 budget of $79.6 million. In 2008, the city lost around one-quarter of its revenues as local sales taxes and real estate development fees collapsed. Vallejo suddenly found itself unable to pay all of its bills.</p>
<p>The City Council voted unanimously to file for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0308518x15595756">bankruptcy</a>. </p>
<p>In its bankruptcy filing, the city estimated it had between 1,000 and 5,000 creditors. The most contentious part of the bankruptcy concerned the city’s obligations to its own unionized employees. Vallejo argued that its bankruptcy should include the option of reducing employee wages and benefits, and changing working conditions, if necessary, without union consent. </p>
<p>The judge agreed and, in doing so, <a href="https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/ten-years-after-bankruptcy-filing-vallejo-looks-ahead#:%7E:text=Vallejo%20filed%20for%20Chapter%209,Christmas%2C%20a%20Nixon%20Peabody%20partner">expanded</a> what types of debt could be reduced in bankruptcy. This was, and remains, <a href="https://www.lowenstein.com/media/3098/jcr-chapter-9-levine-gross-article.pdf">controversial</a>. Although unions have <a href="https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2009/05/less-stringent-standard-applies-to-rejection-of-collective-bargaining-agreements-by-municipalities-in-bankruptcy">pushed back</a>, later bankruptcies have confirmed the court’s decision.</p>
<p>Vallejo ultimately chose not to impose new employment contracts on most of its employees. </p>
<p>That decision helped Vallejo avoid costly legal battles – but the city’s main expenditures, wages and pensions, remained <a href="https://californiapolicycenter.org/vallejo-faces-2nd-bankruptcy-because-they-didnt-restructure-pensions/">largely unaltered</a>. The city emerged out of bankruptcy solvent but <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2399654419872218">struggling</a>. Filing for bankruptcy ended up costing Vallejo over $20 million in court and legal fees.</p>
<h2>Art, philanthropy and pension debts in Detroit</h2>
<p>Vallejo’s bankruptcy foreshadowed an even more complex one in Detroit, where revenue decline and failed <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/detroits-deals-financial-institutions-led/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CDetroit%20entered%20into%20the%20swap,Detroit%20if%20interest%20rates%20rose.">Wall Street bets</a> left the city unable to balance its budget. </p>
<p>Detroit listed 100,000 creditors in its 2013 bankruptcy filing, totaling <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2013/09/15/how-detroit-went-broke-the-answers-may-surprise-you-and/77152028/">$18.5 billion</a> in debts. Like Vallejo, Detroit would have to decide which creditors to stiff, effectively asking them to pay for the city’s budget failures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Detroit's biggest debt during bankruptcy was to its pension holders." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350023/original/file-20200728-17-7aqlgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detroit’s biggest debt during bankruptcy was to its pension holders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/william-davis-of-detroit-michigan-a-city-of-detroit-retiree-news-photo/454499844?adppopup=true">Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The eventual settlement would reduce Detroit’s debts by $7 billion, mostly by slashing the amount of borrowed money the city would have to repay to banks and investors.</p>
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<p>But <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2018/07/18/detroit-bankruptcy-retirees-pension/759446002/">no creditor</a> would walk away unscathed. Wages, pensions and health care for city employees were all cut. The city also entered into a complex “<a href="https://cppp.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IHI_Digital_2017.pdf">Grand Bargain</a>” brokered by local philanthropists with the state of Michigan and pension holders that helped settle the city’s largest debt, which was to pensioners, while keeping in the city its one major asset, the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection.</p>
<p>The administrative and legal costs of the Detroit bankruptcy came in at around $100 million.</p>
<h2>No single path</h2>
<p>The bigger the city, the more complicated and expensive the bankruptcy. More creditors means more lawyers making competing claims on the city’s dwindling revenues. </p>
<p>It also makes the process of picking winners and losers more complex and something that can involve testing the limits of bankruptcy law. When these limits expand, just what going bust means can change dramatically. Things that once seemed untouchable, like pensions, can become vulnerable in bankruptcy courts.</p>
<p>With many budgets in tatters, the prospect of growing numbers of city bankruptcies looms. <a href="https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6493-cities-under-austerity.aspx">Distressed cities</a> will have to figure out what the process means for them.</p>
<p>It is rarely possible to predict what any city will decide. With any part of a city’s operations - including salaries, pensions, road repairs, borrowing, park maintenance, policing, libraries - potentially fair game, everyone involved faces great uncertainty. There is no <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Spiotto-J.-v8.pdf">single, predictable path</a> through city bankruptcy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142539/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With sales tax revenues plummeting because of the pandemic, many cities will face bankruptcy – and that could affect everything from retirees’ pensions to whether roads get fixed.Mark Davidson, Associate Professor of Urban Geography, Clark UniversityKevin Ward, Professor, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1373672020-05-06T12:22:16Z2020-05-06T12:22:16ZTo understand the danger of COVID-19 outbreaks in meatpacking plants, look at the industry’s history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332828/original/file-20200505-83751-u4g5sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C1035%2C691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers in a pork processing plant, 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Figure_7-_Workers_in_a_Hog_Slaughter_and_Processing_Plant_Use_Hooks_and_Other_Tools_(27007559560).jpg">USGAO/Wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Large meatpacking plants have become <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/1/21239396/covid-19-meatpacking-prison-jail-moral">hotspots for coronavirus infection</a>, along with jails and nursing homes. As of May 1, nearly <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6918e3.htm?s_cid=mm6918e3_x">5,000 packing plant workers in 19 states</a> had fallen ill, and 20 had died. </p>
<p>Packing plants from Washington state to Iowa to Georgia have <a href="https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/22993-covid-19-meat-plant-map">temporarily suspended operations</a>, although President Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-delegating-authority-dpa-respect-food-supply-chain-resources-national-emergency-caused-outbreak-covid-19/">invoked the Defense Production Act</a> in an effort to quickly restart these facilities.</p>
<p>As Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds put it in a press conference, virus outbreaks in packing plants are “<a href="https://cbs2iowa.com/news/local/gov-reynolds-says-meatpacking-plants-will-stay-open-even-as-hundreds-of-workers-infected">very difficult to contain</a>.” But what makes these plants so dangerous? As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W7VMrUkAAAAJ&hl=en">sociologist</a> who has studied <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15364925/From_Collective_Bargaining_to_Social_Justice_Certification_Workers_Rights_in_the_American_Meatpacking_Industry">food system labor issues</a>, I see two answers. </p>
<p>First, working conditions experienced in meatpacking plants, which are shaped by the pressures of efficient production, contribute to the spread of COVID-19. Second, this industry has evolved since the mid-20th century in ways that make it hard for workers to advocate for safe conditions even in good times, let alone during a pandemic.</p>
<p>Together, these factors help to explain why U.S. meatpacking plants are so dangerous now – and why this problem will be difficult to solve.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cZOT9YOtl0U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Employees at large meatpacking plants say they don’t feel safe from COVID-19.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A hard job in good times</h2>
<p>The meatpacking industry is an important job source for thousands of people. In 2019 it employed nearly 200,000 people in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/2019/may/naics4_311600.htm">direct meat processing jobs</a> at wages averaging US$14.13 per hour or $29,400 yearly.</p>
<p>Even in normal conditions, meatpacking plants are <a href="https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/meatpacking/">risky places to work</a>. The job requires using knives, saws and other cutting tools, as well as operating industrial meat grinders and other heavy machinery. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10599240801985373">Traumatic injuries</a> due to workplace accidents are common, and mistakes can have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/exploitation-and-abuse-at-the-chicken-plant">gruesome consequences</a>. Government researchers have also documented <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-03-27-14_b.html">chronic injuries</a>, such as repetitive motion strains, among packing plant workers. </p>
<p>The same conditions that lead to these accidents and injuries during normal times also contribute to the spread of coronavirus. To understand this connection, it is first important to know that meatpacking is a volume industry. The higher a plant’s daily throughput – that is, the more animals it turns into meat – the more lucrative it is.</p>
<p>For instance, one Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which shut down indefinitely in April after <a href="https://www.dglobe.com/newsmd/coronavirus/5382800-Sioux-Falls-pork-plant-COVID-19-cases-near-900-as-officials-prep-re-opening">hundreds of workers</a> tested positive for COVID-19, employed 3,700 people and produced <a href="https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/press-room/company-news/smithfield-foods-to-close-sioux-falls-sd-plant-indefinitely-amid-covid-19">18 million servings of pork daily</a>.</p>
<p>To maximize efficiency, production takes place on an assembly line – or more accurately, a disassembly line. Workers stand close together and perform simple, repetitive tasks on animal parts as the parts stream by. </p>
<p>Production lines move quickly, with industry averages ranging from <a href="https://thecounter.org/usda-final-approval-faster-hog-line-speeds-pork-processing/">1,000 animals per hour in pork processing</a> to over <a href="https://thecounter.org/usda-approves-poultry-slaughterhouse-increase-line-speed-food-safety/">8,000 per hour in chicken plants</a>. In October 2019 the Trump administration <a href="https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/72fa69e6-5e16-4347-83b4-4e3361317272/2016-0017+.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&useDefaultText=0&useDefaultDesc=0">eliminated limits on production line speed</a> in pork processing plants, and it has also <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/04/24/usda-let-poultry-plants-move-faster-crowd-lines-covid-coronavirus-spread-meat-packing-workers/3013615001/">waived limits for individual chicken processing plants</a>.</p>
<p>The speed and organization of meatpacking both promote the spread of coronavirus. Employees labor alongside one another, working at a rate that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to practice protective behaviors such as covering sneezes and coughs. </p>
<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/organizations/meat-poultry-processing-workers-employers.html">guidelines</a> to allow meatpacking workers to continue working during the pandemic. They include spacing workers at least six feet apart and installing barriers between them. Some plants have <a href="https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/23006-shielding-line-workers-during-a-pandemic">adopted these controls</a>, but the pressures of rapid production may well limit their effectiveness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332819/original/file-20200505-83730-15dv0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meat processing stations at the JBS Beef Plant in Greeley, Colo., equipped with new sheet-metal partitions, April 23, 2020. As of early May 2020 the plant had recorded more than 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 6 employee deaths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/meat-processing-stations-at-the-jbs-greeley-beef-plant-news-photo/1220671197?adppopup=true">Andy Cross via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unionizing the industry</h2>
<p>Understanding why meatpacking workers tolerate these difficult and dangerous conditions requires a look at the industry’s history. </p>
<p>Many people assume that jobs in packing plants have always been as difficult and dangerous as those depicted in journalist Upton Sinclair’s famed 1906 novel “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/140/140-h/140-h.htm">The Jungle</a>.” That book described meatpacking workers in early 20th-century Chicago facing <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2019/01/10/sinclair-jungle-immigrant-narrative/">similar conditions to those in the modern industry</a>.</p>
<p>But this assumption conceals an important story. For several decades after World War II, conditions in meatpacking plants steadily improved as a result of pressure from workers themselves. </p>
<p>Starting in 1943, the United Packinghouse Workers of America, a labor union, <a href="http://www.ufcw.org/about/ufcw-history/">organized meatpacking employees in major cities</a>. At the height of its influence, this union secured “<a href="https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bls_1063_1952.pdf">master agreements</a>” with the largest firms, such as Armour and Swift, ensuring standard wages and working conditions across the industry.</p>
<p>One source of the UPWA’s influence was its ability to build <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1093/ohr/26.1.23">interracial alliances</a>. Racial antagonism between black and white workers, linked to job discrimination and the use of black workers to break strikes in the early 20th century, had historically undermined union efforts in meatpacking plants. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332835/original/file-20200505-83779-1pabj9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UPWA District Area 5 Members Parade float, circa 1960, Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/labor-of-love-revs-addie-and-claude-wyatt-photographs/">Source: Chicago Public Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRP5mNYn1fucFAR86LZAobFtvUzWm6ykOPeqZ-kdod_d-rgjBRa&usqp=CAU">union’s logo</a>, which depicted clasped black and white hands, symbolized its ability to bridge these differences. Its <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/united-packinghouse-workers-america-upwa">support for the civil rights movement</a> in the 1960s also revealed its commitment to racial equality.</p>
<h2>A changing labor force</h2>
<p>But by the 1970s, the union was in decline. A key factor was industry leaders’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1526/003601107782638701">decision to shift production</a> from cities with a strong union tradition, like Chicago and Kansas City, to small towns scattered across the Great Plains and the southeastern United States. </p>
<p>Rural work forces are more difficult to organize than their urban counterparts for many reasons. Most small towns do not have a history of union activity, and anti-union sentiment is often strong – as shown by the prevalence of <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-laws-and-bills.aspx#chart">right-to-work laws</a> in many rural states. </p>
<p>Moreover, packing plants are often small towns’ only major employers. Workers and municipal authorities alike <a href="https://www.thehawkeye.com/news/20200427/if-we-lost-tyson-we-lost-everything">depend on plants</a> for jobs and tax revenue. This relationship creates enormous pressure to treat meat processing companies with deference.</p>
<p>Additionally, meatpacking <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=41120">consolidated</a> in the late 20th century. Plants grew larger, and a relative handful of firms such as <a href="https://www.cargill.com/meat-poultry/beef-business">Cargill</a> and <a href="https://www.tysonsustainability.com/food">Tyson</a> came to dominate processing of <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/43.5/cattlemen-struggle-against-giant-meatpackers-and-economic-squeezes">beef</a>, <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/26925-top-5-broiler-producers-dominate-us-production">poultry</a> and other meats. Consolidation gives these firms greater ability to control working conditions and wages.</p>
<p>Finally, today’s plants often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00079.x">recruit workers from Mexico and Central America</a>, some of whom may lack legal authorization to work in the U.S. They also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-019-00694-9">hire refugees</a> who may be unfamiliar with U.S. labor protections and have few other employment possibilities.</p>
<p>These workers’ precarious legal and economic standing makes it hard for them to challenge employers. Cultural differences, language gaps and racial prejudice can also pose obstacles to collective action.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1256330283432828929"}"></div></p>
<h2>The challenge of coronavirus</h2>
<p>Workers’ organizations have not disappeared. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has <a href="http://www.ufcw.org/2020/04/28/order/">called on the Trump administration</a> to ensure safety during the pandemic, but it is fighting an uphill battle.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-taking-action-ensure-safety-nations-food-supply-chain/">President Trump’s reassurances</a> that closed plants will reopen safely, I expect that the pressures of efficiency and limits on workers’ ability to advocate for themselves will cause infections to persist. </p>
<p>In meatpacking as in other industries, the pandemic has revealed how people who do “essential” work for Americans can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-call-workers-essential-but-is-that-just-referring-to-the-work-not-the-people-137460">treated as if they are expendable</a>.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Haedicke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred at more than 100 US meatpacking plants. Geography, workforce demographics and economic concentration make it hard for workers to fight for better conditions.Michael Haedicke, Associate Professor of Sociology, Drake UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.