tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/unions-1809/articlesUnions – The Conversation2024-02-11T13:51:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226852024-02-11T13:51:49Z2024-02-11T13:51:49ZThe video game industry is booming. Why are there so many layoffs?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573963/original/file-20240207-19-2zzpmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C0%2C4573%2C2152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tech companies have laid off thousands of game developers in recent months.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The video game industry had a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/2023-was-a-banner-year-for-video-games-and-video-game-industry-layoffs-1.7052006">banner year in 2023, with critically acclaimed blockbuster titles selling millions of copies</a>. Yet, it was also a year of layoffs with <a href="https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2023">10,500 game makers losing their jobs</a>. And with <a href="https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2024">5,900 reported layoffs in January alone</a>, 2024 will likely surpass the previous year’s numbers.</p>
<p>An endemic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211014213https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211014213">crunch mentality</a>, exploitation, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170211061228">work intensification and growing unionization</a> in the game industry collide with government and lobbyist reports about economic prosperity and employment growth. </p>
<p>The industry <a href="https://canadasvideogameindustry.ca/">contributed $5.5 billion to Canada’s GDP in 2021</a>, an <a href="https://canadasvideogameindustry.ca/#GDP">increase of 23 per cent from 2019</a>. Global game revenue is <a href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/tmt/media/outlook/insights-and-perspectives.html">predicted to rise</a> from US$227 billion in 2023 to US$312 billion in 2027. </p>
<p>If the industry is booming, why are there so many layoffs? Who is benefitting? Who stands to lose? And what can we do about it?</p>
<h2>Cycles of layoffs</h2>
<p>In terms of why this is happening, long-standing structural issues related to the supply and demand of labour lead to recurring layoff cycles. Very large teams spend years and <a href="https://gamingbolt.com/marvels-spider-man-2-had-a-total-budget-of-315-million">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> to make a single game. Historically, studios ramp up and hire employees in peak production and hand out pink slips after launch, as they “<a href="https://circa.ualberta.ca/?page_id=307">cannot sustain the expense of idle workers</a>.” Critical and commercial failures escalate these layoffs. </p>
<p>In addition, the labour pool is growing. Post-secondary games programs have proliferated over the <a href="https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/221309/view/">past 15 years</a>. Thousands of graduates with expertise in <a href="https://hevga.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/HEVGA_2019_Survey_of_Program_Graduates.pdf">game design, programming, art, cinematics and music</a> enter the workforce each year with little prospect of finding employment in their chosen profession. These labour supply and demand issues collide with inflation and wider layoffs in the tech industry.</p>
<p>There’s an easy answer to the question of who benefits from layoffs — it’s
shareholders. Many of the largest layoffs have come <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24049050/microsoft-activision-blizzard-layoffs">in the wake of corporate takeovers</a>. Some companies explicitly point to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/unity-software-cutting-25-staff-company-reset-continuation-2024-01-08/">improving profit margins as their impetus</a>. </p>
<p>Whether short-term returns will play out in the long-term remains to be seen. Layoffs often result in planned or ongoing game projects being cancelled and some of the teams left standing seem wildly understaffed. Activision Blizzard’s esports division reportedly had <a href="https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/activision-blizzard-reportedly-left-with-just-12-esports-division-employees-after-layoffs">only 12 full time staff</a> left after the latest round of layoffs. </p>
<p>As to who is impacted, it is disproportionately young and marginalized workers. Even when layoffs <a href="https://kotaku.com/dragon-age-dreadwolf-bioware-layoffs-lawsuit-ea-1850900755">target senior talent</a>, the influx of experienced developers into the job market pushes junior people further away from access to entry level roles. The 2021 <a href="https://igda-website.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/15161607/IGDA-DSS-2021-Diversity-Report_Final.pdf">Developer Satisfaction Survey</a> showed those most likely to be in precarious positions were gender minorities and racialized people. Waves of layoffs will only exacerbate their marginalization.</p>
<h2>Unions can help</h2>
<p>Can unions protect game industry workers from layoffs? Vocal calls to organize are bolstered by reports that <a href="https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/microsoft-and-activision-blizzard-layoffs-didn-t-impact-a-single-cwa-union-member#close-modal">unionized workers have fared better</a>. Indeed, unions can help. </p>
<p>First, it is more difficult for an employer to change the conditions of work or fire employees when there is an active certification campaign due to the risk of an <a href="https://cirb-ccri.gc.ca/en/about-appeals-applications-complaints/labour-relations-unfair-labour-practice">unfair labour practice</a> complaint.</p>
<p>Second, unions that are engaged in active collective bargaining are better placed to eliminate, reduce or delay the impact of known or anticipated layoffs. They may be able to use the threat of strike action to bargain down the extent of the layoffs or negotiate less harmful alternatives like job sharing, reduced hours or wage freezes. Workers in bargaining are also protected by the <a href="https://newsguild.org/what-is-status-quo-and-how-can-it-protect-you-from-layoffs/">requirement to maintain the status quo</a> on terms and conditions of work. </p>
<p>Third, unions can negotiate specific protective language into a collective agreement. This can range from prevention to mitigation and include “no layoff” provisions, retraining or reassignment obligations, imposed financial transparency, and required negotiation over the nature, extent and outcomes of any restructuring at a company. </p>
<p>But even <a href="https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/microsoft-and-activision-blizzard-layoffs-didn-t-impact-a-single-cwa-union-member#close-modal">unionized workers can be laid off</a>. In many cases, the best a union can do is mitigate the impact through negotiated terms like longer notice periods, severance packages, recall procedures and supplementary unemployment benefits. In the end, a union can only protect what it has negotiated into the collective agreement, and employers strongly resist constraints on their operational flexibility. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smartphone displaying the words Riot Games." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573960/original/file-20240207-18-tqec32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&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">California-based Riot Games, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, recently announced it was laying off 11 per cent of its global staff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Holding companies accountable</h2>
<p>Another solution is to call for greater accountability from game companies, which benefit from public money. It is no secret that game labour costs are heavily subsidized through government tax credits in countries like the <a href="https://igda.org/resources-archive/rd-tax-credit-opportunities-for-video-game-developers/">United States</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/01/04/1068916102/how-subsidies-helped-montreal-become-the-hollywood-of-video-games">Canada</a>, <a href="http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/what-does-the-new-tax-credit-for-irelands-games-industry-actually-mean/">Ireland</a> and <a href="https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/income-deductions-and-concessions/income-and-deductions-for-business/concessions-offsets-and-rebates/digital-games-tax-offset">Australia</a>. </p>
<p>The Financial Services Union, representing Irish game developers, recently called on the government to require employers to sign written statements committing to provide <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/game-industry-tax-credit-5436230-May2021/">“quality employment”</a> before they can receive a tax credit. Cyclical hiring and layoffs obscure employment statistics and reduce accountability. Governments should be concerned with whether or not their subsidies are creating <em>sustainable</em> jobs.</p>
<p>In addition, the post-secondary supply of “surplus labour” creates a vast and eager reserve workforce. This disincentivizes employers from investing in their employees. Universities and colleges need to take a long hard look at the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419851080">role they play</a> and the promises they make to students. </p>
<p>Claims that students are being prepared for well-paid, exciting careers seem dubious given the current employment situation. These claims are suspect given that few games programs systematically track the career trajectories of their graduates. Exactly what jobs are they preparing graduates for? </p>
<p>This is what we and our colleagues are tracking in our longitudinal employment study, <a href="https://first3yearsproject.com/">The First Three Years</a>. One of this article’s co-authors, Johanna Weststar, spoke about our initial findings regarding <a href="https://gdcvault.com/play/1029220/Lost-XP-Why-Junior-Game">impacts on diversity and career longevity</a> at the 2023 <a href="https://gdconf.com/">Game Developer’s Conference</a>.</p>
<p>Some might take layoffs for granted as a natural part of mergers, acquisitions and other consolidation efforts, however layoffs and exploitation are not new in the game industry. Ultimately they are a symptom of a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.2.0007">financialized industry focused on short-term gains</a> for owners and shareholders. </p>
<p>Unions, worker and consumer activism, and demands for greater accountability for taxpayer dollars and the promises of higher education are important pieces of any solution. So too are efforts to envision <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545402/the-videogame-industry-does-not-exist/">alternative ways to craft a more sustainable industry</a>. To address this broken system, we ultimately must ask who benefits from layoffs in a booming industry and systematically remove those benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer R. Whitson has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to support research on the digital game industry.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johanna Weststar has received funding from the International Game Developers Association, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Dancap Private Equity Research Award to support her research on the digital game industry. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Gouglas has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Higher Education Video Game Alliance to support research on postsecondary games education and the digital game industry. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenzie Gordon 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>Recent waves of layoffs shine a light on the systemic issues in the game industry and the post-graduation promises universities are making to students.Kenzie Gordon, PhD Candidate, Digital Humanities & Media Studies, University of AlbertaJennifer R. Whitson, Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of WaterlooJohanna Weststar, Associate Professor of Labour and Employment Relations, DAN Department of Management & Organizational Studies, Western UniversitySean Gouglas, Professor, Digital Humanities, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2203632024-02-01T22:06:59Z2024-02-01T22:06:59ZQuébec’s teacher strike offers lessons on the urgent need to support public education<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/quebecs-teacher-strike-offers-lessons-on-the-urgent-need-to-support-public-education" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The doors of <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10184999/concerns-mounting-over-childrens-welfare-as-quebec-teachers-strike-drags-on/">around 800</a> Québec public schools were closed due to the strike action of <a href="https://www.lafae.qc.ca/public/file/communique-entente-principe-28dec2023.pdf">the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement</a> (FAE) from Nov. 23 through Jan. 8. </p>
<p>During this strike period, <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2037932/common-front-and-quebec-reach-tentative-agreement-over-pay-for-public-sector-workers">368,000 students</a> missed 22 days of school while teachers also lost the same number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-do-teachers-get-paid-when-they-go-on-strike-130158">days in pay</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, teachers in unions represented by the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/common-front-voting-begins-1.7083702">Common Front</a> were on strike for 11 days. </p>
<p>The strikes impacted public school teachers, students and parents across Québec at multiple levels including primary, secondary and adult education. </p>
<p>The consequences both in the short- and long-term are potentially devastating. The strike offers lessons about the urgent need to support teachers and address issues in public education. </p>
<p>Failing to do so will continue to negatively affect teacher morale, burnout and attrition. It will also risk further corroding the critical role of public schooling in supporting our communities. </p>
<h2>Understanding demands, uplifting teacher voices</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.lafae.qc.ca/negociation-nationale">demands</a> of the FAE were extended beyond pay, including better recognition (including improved pension plans and parental rights), better family-work-life balance, better class composition, a reduction in the workload, new provisions regarding grievances and arbitration, better treatment of teachers with precarious status and a healthy workplace. </p>
<p>These demands cover finances, classroom practices and teacher well-being.</p>
<p>Given the current social and educational climate, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/end-of-topsy-turvy-school-year-5-education-issues-exposed-by-the-covid-19-pandemic-161145">post-pandemic educational challenges</a>, supporting teachers and policy changes is of the utmost importance. </p>
<p>Mitigating current challenges by accepting teacher demands is crucial because healthy and well-supported teachers are paramount for <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689628">successful student learning</a>. </p>
<p>The role of teacher well-being is particularly critical due to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1797439">continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic</a> in Canada.</p>
<h2>Must change systemic problems</h2>
<p>The lack of resources and support that teachers receive can lead to several consequences, ranging from increased stress and exhaustion to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688231151787">burnout</a>.</p>
<p>While teachers are proven to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.006">resilient</a> in the face of these challenges, the concept of resilience itself is a <a href="https://www.toronto.com/opinion/don-t-call-me-resilient----it-covers-up-systemic-racism/article_e79cedf4-c81e-5999-bff6-fee793feacbb.html">contested one</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-dont-call-me-resilient-our-podcast-about-race-149692">Listen to 'Don't Call Me Resilient': Our podcast about race</a>
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<p>Teachers should not need to be resilient because of policies and practices that do not provide a healthy, positive working environment. </p>
<p>Asking teachers to endure sub-optimal working conditions shifts the burden of addressing structural and systemic issues away from governmental responsibility for public education reforms. </p>
<p>It also places an undue strain on the relationships between teachers, students and parents, whose interests should be aligned. There is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsecp.2012.29.4.8">clear relationship</a> between student and teacher well-being. When the well-being of teachers is prioritized, <a href="http://www.iier.org.au/iier29/turner2.pdf">students’ work and learning flourishes</a> in schools.</p>
<h2>Serious attrition rates</h2>
<p>The prolonged strike and the unwillingness of the government to address union demands in a timely manner may have further reduced teacher morale. It may also exacerbate the already high <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2014.900009">teacher attrition</a> rates in Québec. </p>
<p>In fact, it points to the lack of concern for teachers who cite <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.696044">psychological and interpersonal reasons</a> for leaving their roles. </p>
<p>Through policy and practice, teachers need to be valued as essential workers in education. Priority needs to be placed on not just bringing new professionals to the field, but keeping them. </p>
<h2>Consequences for students, families</h2>
<p>The prolonged strike will not just impact teacher morale: students will also bear the long-term consequences. </p>
<p>Students will have experienced learning loss, the stalling of academic gains, and social and psychological disruptions. </p>
<p>Although the Québec government has allocated <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-announces-300-million-catch-up-plan-for-students-after-weeks-of-strike-1.6717307">$300 million</a> on a catch-up plan designed to help students who have fallen behind with free tutoring and summer camps for high schoolers who are at risk of dropping out, the reverberations of the strike will last for years to come. </p>
<p>Studies have demonstrated that strike actions impact <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06050-9">educational achievements</a> and even <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/703134#_i37">employment and labour market earnings</a>. </p>
<p>Parents and families, especially mothers, will be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102679">impacted financially</a>.</p>
<h2>Uneven effects</h2>
<p>We must also consider larger connections between this educational labour issue and class struggles because the impacts of the strikes are certainly uneven. Hundreds of thousands of students in the public system will be racing to catch up on missed time while students in private schools <a href="https://montreal.citynews.ca/2024/01/07/quebec-teachers-hopeful-after-strikes/">did not miss</a> a day. </p>
<p>These students will compete on the same ministerial examinations and for places at <a href="https://www.cegepsquebec.ca/en/cegeps/presentation/what-is-a-cegep/">CEGEPs — colleges in Québec offering the first level of post-secondary education — which</a> have become increasingly competitive. </p>
<p>During the strike, parents and caregivers were forced to manage child care alongside their own daily responsibilities, and many did not have the financial means for private tutoring or other ways to supplement learning loss. </p>
<p>Teachers from various backgrounds and economic statuses were also unpaid during this time; an unexpected loss of income can drastically influence one’s livelihood.</p>
<h2>Deeper reflection needed</h2>
<p>The strike is indicative of deeply entrenched problems in Québec’s public schools and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/sask-teachers-federation-announces-full-day-rotating-strikes-1.7097861">reverberates with</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10105600/ontario-elementary-teachers-reach-contract-deal/">problems seen across</a> the country.</p>
<p>Now that these strike actions are over, an opening is created for deeper reflection and work on transforming education and restoring the teaching profession to one that is highly valued and respected. </p>
<p>The success of students, the education system and the future of our communities depend on the learning that children receive in schools today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Nanre Nafziger receives funding from Spencer Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and McGill University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Safeera Jaffer 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>The success of students, the education system and the future of our communities depend on the learning that children receive in schools today.Safeera Jaffer, Research Assistant, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill UniversityR. Nanre Nafziger, Assistant Professor, African/Black Studies in Education, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219582024-01-25T18:21:40Z2024-01-25T18:21:40ZWhat UAW backing means for Biden − and why the union’s endorsement took so long<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571435/original/file-20240125-19-6chglq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7228%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> UAW President Shawn Fain, left, clasps hands with President Biden after endorsing his bid for reelection.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-and-shawn-fain-president-of-the-united-news-photo/1950953071?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers has endorsed President <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/politics/biden-uaw-endorsement/index.html">Joe Biden’s bid for reelection in 2024</a>. “Joe Biden has earned it,” said union president Shawn Fain on Jan. 24 as he announced the union’s decision to back the incumbent candidate.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation U.S. asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of labor, politics and business issues</a>, to explain why the UAW waited until now to endorse Biden and why this endorsement matters.</em></p>
<h2>Why is the UAW endorsement significant?</h2>
<p>The UAW’s endorsement provides symbolic and substantive support for the president.</p>
<p>Symbolically, it shores up Biden’s backing by organized labor – a critical constituency in an election year that promises a tight rematch between him and former President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Recent national polls have <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/">leaned at least slightly in Trump’s favor</a>, which means that Biden will have to mobilize voters in key battleground states like Michigan – where the largest number of the UAW’s <a href="https://uaw.org/abou">400,000 active and 580,000 retired</a> members live – to win reelection.</p>
<p>Substantively, the endorsement clears the way for the deployment of the political muscle of this union to help get out the vote for Biden in November. Historically, the United Auto Workers has tried to help its members and the public in general become well informed about politics and elections and sought to mobilize voters for the candidates it endorses.</p>
<p>Although the ranks of organized labor in the U.S., including the UAW, have generally declined significantly since their heyday in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers has a formidable network in battleground states like Michigan, where roughly 130,000 of its members reside. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan">Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020</a>, while <a href="https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/michigan/">Hillary Clinton lost it by just 11,600 votes</a> in 2016.</p>
<p>Unions made <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/unions-spent-big-boost-biden/">about US$27.5 million in contributions</a> to Biden’s 2020 campaign. While nominally a significant amount, it pales in comparison to the amount that businesses contributed. Biden’s 2020 bid was the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/2020-cycle-cost-14p4-billion-doubling-16/">first ever to draw more than $1 billion</a> from donors.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain announced the union’s endorsement of President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What led to the delay in endorsing?</h2>
<p>Rather than make an early endorsement of President Biden, in 2023 the United Auto Workers instead <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-uaws-fain-rocky-road-194104577.html">voiced dissatisfaction with the administration’s policy</a> of accelerating the transition to electric vehicles.</p>
<p>From the union’s perspective, the Biden administration had not given labor rights adequate protection as the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/03/auto-union-withholds-support-for-biden-citing-evs-00095136">Big Three automakers formed joint ventures</a> with foreign-based manufacturers of batteries to facilitate the industry’s transition to producing far more electric vehicles. </p>
<p>As the union prepared for its contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the global company that manufacturers Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles in the U.S. – the UAW hoped to exert whatever influence it could over lawmakers and the companies to open the joint ventures to union representation.</p>
<p>But Fain made it abundantly clear at the time, as he has done again and again, that Trump was not a viable alternative. He <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/politics/fain-trump-detroit/index.html">has repeatedly said</a> that Trump’s election in 2024 would be “a disaster.”</p>
<p>And to be sure, the UAW <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/joe-biden-endorsed-by-united-auto-workers-in-2020-presidential-campaign.html">didn’t endorse Biden’s 2020 candidacy until April 21 of that year</a>. It moved faster this time.</p>
<h2>How did UAW members vote in 2016 and 2020?</h2>
<p>Despite widespread union endorsements of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, a significant percentage of union members cast their ballots for Donald Trump in both elections.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/3">38% of union members voted for Trump</a> compared with 58% for Clinton, according to University of Michigan researchers. In 2020, 40% of voters in union households voted for Trump compared with 56% for Biden.</p>
<p>That’s in line with the UAW’s partisan breakdown in prior elections. About <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-auto-workers-endorsement-trump-election-ef4b26cd00fc67c4915f22e54b885866">60% of UAW members and retirees have historically voted for Democratic Party</a> candidates, according to Brian Rothenberg, a former union spokesman.</p>
<p>In close races, support from the United Auto Workers and the rest of organized labor could prove decisive, notwithstanding that the union’s membership has fallen from <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/in-the-news/uaw-membership-peaked-at-1-5-million-workers-in-the-late-70s-heres-how-its-changed/">1.5 million in the late 1970s</a> to less than 400,000 today, and that overall the union membership rate in the U.S. workforce <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">has shrunk to 10%</a>. </p>
<p>And in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have numerous union members, the United Auto Workers’ efforts on behalf of presidential candidates may tip the balance. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t05.htm">Unions had roughly 564,000 members in Michigan</a> in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. </p>
<h2>Was there a chance that the UAW could have backed Trump?</h2>
<p>No chance whatsoever.</p>
<p>The United Auto Workers would have condemned itself within the Democratic Party and progressive circles if it had broken with tradition and not endorsed the party’s candidate. Endorsing Trump would have forfeited the UAW’s leverage to influence the Biden administration’s policies regarding the transition to vehicle electrification.</p>
<p>“Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that’s who he represents,” <a href="https://www.wxyz.com/news/uaw-endorses-president-joe-biden-for-2024-election-fain-calls-donald-trump-a-scab">Fain declared</a> before making the union’s endorsement. “If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member, he’d be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker. Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society.”</p>
<p>I believe that endorsing Trump would also have created an irreconcilable rift in the union itself with harmful fallout. And it would have alienated Biden, who showed his support for the union’s strikers in September 2023 by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-makes-history-striking-auto-workers-picket-line-rcna117348">standing with them on the picket line</a> – a first for any sitting president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221958/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>In close races, support from the United Auto Workers and the rest of organized labor could prove decisive.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/2210952024-01-16T17:45:20Z2024-01-16T17:45:20ZSaskatchewan teacher strike: It’s about bargaining for the common good<p>For the first time in more than a decade and for only the <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/explainer-a-brief-history-of-teachers-strikes-in-saskatchewan">fourth time since 1973</a>, people in Saskatchewan are facing interruptions to schooling due to teacher labour unrest.</p>
<p>While a <a href="https://regina.ctvnews.ca/teachers-hit-the-picket-line-as-saskatchewan-deep-freeze-continues-1.6726764">Jan. 16 province-wide teachers’ strike</a> means only <a href="https://regina.ctvnews.ca/no-teacher-wanted-this-stf-president-says-5-day-strike-notice-was-about-giving-sask-parents-time-1.6723525">a single day</a> of job action, there is a real possibility strike actions could escalate over the next few weeks. </p>
<p>That’s particularly the case with 90 per cent of Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) members having participated in an October vote about job action against the government — and
<a href="https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/buckle-up-sask-teachers-union-votes-95-in-favour-of-potential-job-action-1.6619971">95 per cent of those voting teachers</a> backing job action. </p>
<p>The strike follows early December news that conciliation talks between the STF and the Government of Saskatchewan had broken off. </p>
<p>According to the teachers’ union, the <a href="https://www.stf.sk.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/12-13-2023_STF-Message-to-Saskatchewan-Parents-and-Students.pdf">central issues</a> in this dispute are <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/teachers-union-frustrated-with-province-not-addressing-growing-class-sizes">class size</a>, “classroom complexity” (<a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/what-is-classroom-complexity-and-why-does-it-matter-to-the-stf">the diversity of student needs in any one classroom,</a>), <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/stf-bargaining-update">related support for students</a>, <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/stf-says-job-action-virtually-inevitable-after-failed-talks-with-province">workplace violence</a>, meaningful actions to <a href="https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/sask-teachers-union-province-at-odds-on-key-issues-as-contract-talks-languish-1.6672626">reconciliation education</a> and other in-class issues. </p>
<p>For their part, teachers have not made their wage demands public, suggesting that for them, wages are not the central issue in this round of bargaining.</p>
<p>Both <a href="https://x.com/evanbrayshow/status/1735045295543669098?s=20">conservative commentators</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10180136/saskatchewan-premier-scott-moe-state-of-education/">and the premier</a> have argued the bargaining table is not the place for teachers to negotiate concerns about classroom issues. </p>
<p>The province, focused on wages, has tabled an offer that keeps wages at below inflation <a href="https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2023/june/29/government-trustee-bargaining-committee-tables-fair-deal-for-teachers">levels for the next three years</a>. </p>
<p>In other provinces, teachers’ unions have successfully argued that classroom size is directly related to workload, which has always been a collective bargaining matter. </p>
<p>Although bargaining is sometimes interpreted narrowly as a discussion over wages and benefits it is not, by its nature, limited to that. Bargaining can — and has — acted as a democratic tool to expand public resources to areas beyond workplace compensation.</p>
<h2>Bargaining classroom size</h2>
<p>In Ontario, the <a href="https://www.pssbp.ca/wp-content/uploads/Teachers-Meshed-Agreement-2019-2022-FINAL-emailed-for-signatures-March-1-2021-PDF.pdf">Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario</a> has negotiated that the boards and government provide ongoing classroom size data to the union in order to determine future classroom ratios. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://osstftoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HotLinked-2019-2022-OSSTF-Collective-Agreement-Finalised-with-All-Signatures-1.pdf">Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation</a> has language on class size in its collective agreements with specific classroom ratios. </p>
<p>Similar negotiations have occurred in Québec over <a href="https://cpn.gouv.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/03/CPNCA_APEQ_E5_CC-ang_consolide_2023-03-15_V2.pdf">workload issues</a>. </p>
<p>The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation won a <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16241/index.do">dramatic ruling</a> before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2016. The court ruled the government’s decision to unilaterally prevent teachers <a href="https://canliiconnects.org/en/commentaries/44636">from bargaining classroom size and composition</a> was a violation of their constitutional rights to bargaining collectively. </p>
<p>The decision resulted in hiring hundreds of new teachers to address chronically underfunded classrooms in that province.</p>
<h2>Cuts to education</h2>
<p>The dispute in Saskatchewan did not come out of nowhere. </p>
<p>There has been a 10 per cent drop in <a href="https://www.stf.sk.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Education-in-Saskatchewan-Facts-and-Statistics_11-Oct-2023.pdf">per-student funding since 2012-2013</a>. </p>
<p>In 2017, the Saskatchewan Party government <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-government-decides-not-to-amalgamate-school-boards-1.4035499">cut funding to public education</a> by $22 million from the previous fiscal year. In the same period, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10027832/saskatoon-schools-enrolment-spikes/#">enrolments have risen to record numbers</a>. </p>
<p>These issues pushed teachers to a collective bargaining dispute in <a href="https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/top-stories-of-2020-teachers-strike-avoided-as-pandemic-surged-into-saskatchewan">2019, but it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. </p>
<h2>Staffing crises</h2>
<p>Post-pandemic, teacher morale and turnover have reached crisis levels. </p>
<p>Samantha Becotte, the STF’s president, noted there has been a general crisis in <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9940451/canada-teacher-shortage">education across the country</a> evident in teacher shortages, with <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9848620/saskatchewan-teachers-contract-talks/#">an attrition rate of about 40 per cent among educators in the first five years of their careers</a>.</p>
<p>Becotte’s comments align with research showing attrition rates have hovered <a href="https://archipel.uqam.ca/12263/1/2013_Karsenti%2C%20T%20et%20Collin%2C%20S_Education.pdf">at close to 50 per cent</a> over about the last decade. </p>
<p>Government underfunding has also led to creeping <a href="https://leaderpost.com/opinion/heather-ganshorn-medeana-moussa-beware-privatization-creep-in-education-system">privatization</a>. </p>
<p>Squeezed board budgets have meant an increase in fees to some Saskatoon and Regina parents <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/upped-lunch-hour-supervision-fees-for-sask-parents-as-school-resumes">for lunch-time supervision</a>.</p>
<p>These cuts have also resulted in <a href="https://www.stf.sk.ca/about-stf/news/bargaining-impasse-declared-teachers-to-hold-sanctions-vote/#">dramatic declines in classroom supports</a>. Numbers have dropped for many educational roles, including for <a href="https://pubsaskdev.blob.core.windows.net/pubsask-prod/90049/2022-23%252BEducation%252BSector%252BStaffing%252BProfile%252B-%252Bprov.pdf">educational assistants, English as an additional language teachers, counsellors, librarians, psychologists and other pathologists</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Parents rights’ issues</h2>
<p>On top of this, the government called a special session of the legislature in September 2023 to bring in a hastily drafted bill to <a href="https://theconversation.com/saskatchewan-naming-and-pronoun-policy-the-best-interests-of-children-must-guide-provincial-parental-consent-rules-212431">restrict the ability of transgender and gender-diverse children from</a> being able to identify with their preferred pronouns at school. </p>
<p>The government said this was an issue <a href="https://regina.ctvnews.ca/parents-bill-of-rights-officially-introduced-in-sask-legislature-beginning-pronoun-policy-s-push-into-law-1.6598701">of parents’ rights</a>. Yet many others interpreted it as an attack on the ability of teachers to provide necessary support and guidance to kids in a safe and supportive environment. </p>
<p>For some, it speaks to a hostile position of the government towards teachers, since the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-name-pronoun-policy-new-school-year-1.6956559">STF has opposed the policy and pledged support for teachers who refuse to abide by it</a>.</p>
<h2>Bargaining as important tool</h2>
<p>Trying to prevent teachers from including issues surrounding unmet student needs in bargaining is to effectively leave the public in the dark on the conditions of our schools and render governments largely unaccountable. </p>
<p>The most important tool that all unionized workers have at their disposal is their ability to collectively bargain. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teachers-union-activism-helped-shift-the-u-s-election-debate-on-education-147620">How teachers' union activism helped shift the U.S. election debate on education</a>
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<p>As researchers with the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University have documented, unions across North America have leveraged broad public support to <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/faculty-research-engagement/center-innovation-worker-organization-ciwo/bargaining-common-good">bargain for issues related to the common good</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Centers/CIWO/ciwo_bcg-memo.pdf">Many of these campaigns</a> have been waged by teachers’ unions. Unions have bargained for many things, including linguistic and cultural resources for teachers, more diverse staffing, anti-racism education, green education — and importantly for teachers in Saskatchewan — smaller classroom sizes. </p>
<h2>Unions driving change</h2>
<p>Unions beyond the education sector <a href="https://archives.nupge.ca/sites/default/files/documents/New-Forms-of-Privatization-2016.pdf">in Canada</a> have <a href="https://cupe.ca/sites/cupe/files/bargaining_and_privatization_guide_en.pdf">made similar gains</a>. </p>
<p>For example, in 1981-1982, the <a href="http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca/volume19/pdfs/04_nichols_press.pdf">Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)</a> waged a strike to extend paid maternity leave benefits to workers. CUPW’s success encouraged other unions to take a similar position and today public maternity/paternity leave is a universal <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental.html">public program</a>. </p>
<p>Unions and their members have real power when they use the tools available to them to seek real workplace and community change.</p>
<h2>Bargaining about trade-offs</h2>
<p>To be sure, bargaining is about trade-offs. Prioritizing issues related to what unions identify as key “common good” themes might mean that other issues cannot be highlighted. </p>
<p>Workers might forego larger wage increases for smaller classroom sizes or for increased resources for issues like reconciliation with Indigenous nations.</p>
<p>But that is a choice workers will democratically make through their union. In the case of Saskatchewan teachers, the numbers do not lie. While salaries and benefits will always be an issue, there is overwhelming teacher support for existing bargaining proposals. </p>
<p>We believe this democratic mandate is significant — and one that could lead to safer and more just educational experiences for workers and students across the province.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Enoch is a member of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Smith 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>Chronically underfunded classrooms with fewer supports to meet student needs is a core issue for Saskatchewan teachers.Charles Smith, Associate Professor, Political Studies, University of SaskatchewanSimon Enoch, Adjunct professor, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199032023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023’s historic Hollywood and UAW strikes aren’t labor’s whole story – the total number of Americans walking off the job remained relatively low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566377/original/file-20231218-27-2y9ix7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C502%2C5470%2C3511&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SAG-AFTRA captain Mary M. Flynn rallies fellow striking actors on a picket line outside Netflix studios in November 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXHollywoodStrikes/5dfb21d54c2f4414bd9f4adde9a2a0e1/photo?Query=hollywood%20strike&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2120&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/unions-workers-2023-strikes-companies-da09de12">More than 492,000 workers</a> – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, autoworkers, hotel cleaners, teachers and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/california-labor-strikes.html">during the first 10 months of 2023</a>.</p>
<p>That includes about <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">46,000 autoworkers who</a> went on strike for about six weeks, starting in mid-September. The United Auto Workers union won historic gains that have the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/business/economy/uaw-labor.html">potential to transform the industry</a> in its contracts with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler.</p>
<p>In addition, more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-workers-gain-21-wage-increase-in-pending-agreement-with-kaiser-permanente-after-historic-strike-215864">75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers</a> took part in the largest strike of U.S. health care workers to date.</p>
<p>This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">lull in U.S. strikes</a> and a <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/union-membership">decline in union membership</a> that began in the 1970s. Today’s strikes may seem unprecedented, especially if you’re under 50. While this wave constitutes a significant change following <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decades of unions’ losing ground</a>, it’s far from unprecedented.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=w6GUu_EAAAAJ">We’re sociologists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69FEXj0AAAAJ&hl=en">study the history of U.S. labor movements</a>. In our new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">Union Booms and Busts</a>,” we explore the reasons for swings in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">the share of working Americans in unions</a> between 1900 and 2015. </p>
<p>We see the rising number of strikes today as a sign that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers at a rally carrying strike signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.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">Maryam Rouillard raises her fist on Aug. 8, 2023, while taking part in a one-day strike by Los Angeles municipal workers to protest contract negotiations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-hearse-on-5th-avenue-with-a-sign-that-reads-new-news-photo/1311461424?adppopup=true">Apu Gomes/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Millions on strike</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">number of U.S. workers who go on strike in a given year</a> varies greatly but generally follows broader trends. After World War II ended, through 1981, between 1 million and 4 million Americans went on strike annually. By 1990, that number had plummeted. In some years, it fell below 100,000.</p>
<p>Workers by that point were clearly on the defensive for several reasons. </p>
<p>One dramatic turning point was the showdown between President Ronald Reagan and the country’s air traffic controllers, which culminated in a 1981 strike by their union – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5604656/1981-strike-leaves-legacy-for-american-workers">Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization</a>. Like many public workers, air traffic controllers did not have the right to strike, but they called one anyway because of safety concerns and other reasons. Reagan depicted the union as disloyal and ordered that all of PATCO’s striking members be fired. The government turned to supervisors and military controllers as their replacements and <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">decertified the union</a>.</p>
<p>That episode sent a strong message to employers that permanently replacing striking workers in certain situations would be tolerated.</p>
<p>There were also many <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/labor-relations-striking-balance-budd/M9781260260502.html">court rulings and new laws</a> that favored big business over labor rights. These included the passage of so-called <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">right-to-work laws</a> that provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces – without requiring the payment of union dues. Many conservative states, like South Dakota and Mississippi, have these laws on the books, along with states with more liberal voters – such as Wisconsin.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/union-membership-drops-to-record-low-in-2022-00078525">union membership plunged</a> from <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47596.html">34.2% of the labor force in 1945</a> to around 10% in 2010, workers became less likely to go on strike.</p>
<p>Wages kept up with productivity gains when unions were stronger than they are today. Wages increased 91.3% as productivity grew by 96.7% between 1948 and 1973. That changed once union membership began to tumble. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">Wages stagnated</a> from 1973 to 2013, rising only 9.2% even as productivity grew by 74.4%.</p>
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<h2>Prime conditions</h2>
<p>In general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398203500402">strikes grow more common when economic conditions change</a> in ways that empower workers. That’s especially true with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-47d74791145f0224280ffe908b6e820a">tight labor markets</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-wholesale-federal-reserve-interest-rates-consumers-1838b302c99045749b0597853886d32c">high inflation</a> seen in the U.S. in recent years.</p>
<p>When there are fewer candidates available for every open job and prices are rising, workers become bolder in their demands for higher wages and benefits.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/800649">Political and legal factors</a> can play a role, too. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/">New Deal enhanced unions’ ability to organize</a>. During World War II, unions agreed to a no-strike pledge – although some workers continued to go on strike.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">workers who went on strike peaked in 1946</a>, a year after the war ended. Conditions were ripe for labor actions at that point for several reasons. The economy was no longer so dedicated to supplying the military, pro-union New Deal legislation was still intact and <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/podcasts/best-my-ability-podcast/season-2-archive/episode-5-strike-wave">wartime strike restrictions</a> were lifted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Reagan’s crushing of the PATCO strike gave employers a green light to permanently replace striking workers in <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes">situations in which doing that was legal</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, as we describe in our book, employers can take many steps to discourage strikes. But labor organizers can sometimes overcome management’s resistance with creative strategies.</p>
<h2>New economic equations</h2>
<p>Between 1983 and 2022, the share of U.S. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">workers who belonged to unions fell by half, from 20.1%</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/19/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people=">10.1%</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t reverse that decline, but it did change the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-job-vacancies-pay-raises-wage-war-74d1689d573e298be32f3848fcc88f46">balance of power between employers and workers</a> in other ways.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">great resignation</a>,” a surge in the number of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic, now seems to be over, or at least cooling down. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm">unemployed people for every job opening</a> reached 4.9 in April 2020, plummeted to 0.5 in December 2021, and has remained low ever since. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many workers have become more dissatisfied with their wages. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">strikes by teachers</a> that ramped up in 2018 responded to that frustration. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA">U.S. inflation, which soared to 8% in 2022</a>, has eroded workers’ purchasing power while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">company profits</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">economic inequality</a> have continued to soar. </p>
<p>Technological breakthroughs that leave workers behind are also contributing to today’s strikes, as they did in other periods.</p>
<p>We’ve studied the role technology played in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">printers’ strikes</a> of the 1890s following the introduction of the linotype machine, which reduced the need for skilled workers, and the <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/dock/1971_strike_history.shtml">longshoremen strike of 1971</a>, which was spurred by a drastic workforce reduction brought about by the <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-history-of-containerization-in-the-shipping-industry/">introduction of shipping containers</a> to transport cargo.</p>
<p>Those are among the precedents for the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/actors-strike-ends-hollywood-5769ab584bca99fe708c67d00d2ec241">actors and screenwriters</a> strikes of 2023, which hinged on the financial implications of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/residuals-hollywood-strike-actors-writers-7c32f386c910a11db4324875d99dc366">streaming in film and television</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">artificial intelligence in the production</a> of movies and shows.</p>
<p>Working conditions, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">health and safety concerns and time off</a>, have also been at the root of many recent strikes.</p>
<p>Health care workers, for example, are going on strike over safe <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nurses-strike-new-jersey-394eb774eea0add0a60c272c5b7819ac">staffing levels</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/railroad-paid-sick-time-negotiations-norfolk-southern-70327831f881dcf86a43e05d22a5bdd5">rail workers</a> voted to strike over sick days and time off, but were blocked from walking off the job by a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/">U.S. Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s signature</a>.</p>
<p>Time and again, when the conditions have been right, U.S. workers have gone on strike and won. Sometimes more strikes have followed, in waves that have the potential to transform workers’ lives. But it’s still too early to know when this wave will crest. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published <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">Aug. 24, 2023</a>, with nearly complete data for the number of strikers in 2023 and additional details about several strikes.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stepan-Norris received funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Kerrissey 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>Two labor scholars argue that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift.Judith Stepan-Norris, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, IrvineJasmine Kerrissey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Director of the Labor Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155872023-11-26T20:36:17Z2023-11-26T20:36:17ZHere’s why union support is so high right now<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/heres-why-union-support-is-so-high-right-now" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Over 65,000 teachers in Québec <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-teachers-strike-staff-may-be-on-strike-until-christmas-says-union-vice-president-1.6661466">could remain on strike until Christmas</a> if a deal isn’t reached, their union said on Sunday. The warning comes amid widespread labour unrest in the province, including nearly <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/nearly-570000-of-quebecs-public-sector-workers-are-on-strike-thursday">570,000 workers on strike at the same time</a> last week.</p>
<p>These collective actions are on the heels of the recent “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/union-labour-summer-of-strikes-1.6970861">summer of strikes</a>,” that saw a number of labour actions take place, including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/actors-are-demanding-that-hollywood-catch-up-with-technological-changes-in-a-sequel-to-a-1960-strike-209829">Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uaw-unions-tough-bargaining-strategy-is-working-214679">United Auto Workers’ strike</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/starbucks-workers-over-150-stores-strike-over-pride-decor-row-2023-06-23/">a number of Starbucks strikes</a>. In Canada, <a href="https://theconversation.com/b-c-labour-dispute-its-time-for-an-industrial-inquiry-commission-into-ports-and-automation-210779">port workers in British Columbia</a>, <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/workers-at-ontario-s-public-broadcaster-walk-off-the-job-1.6527764">workers from Ontario’s public broadcaster,</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/sj-inside-workers-agreement-1.6990304">city workers in Saint John</a> also held strikes.</p>
<p>One of the reasons strikes seem to have increased in popularity and publicity is the record high support for workers’ unions. According to a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">recent Gallup poll</a>, 71 per cent of Americans are supportive of labour unions — the highest rate since 1965. A recent <a href="https://angusreid.org/unions-strike-labour-canada-ndp-conservatives-liberals/">Angus Reid survey</a> found three-in-five Canadians believe unions have had a positive impact for workers.</p>
<p>Why is this support so high now? <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/technologies-helping-shape-surge-worker-strikes-us/story?id=102994468">Some have argued</a> that worsening working conditions, wages falling out of step with inflation and the increasing use of artificial intelligence across industries are contributing to workers’ collective action. </p>
<p>However, this is only part of the picture. More important than these conditions are the workers’ <em>perceptions</em> of these conditions. The rise in union support may be better explained by the general rise in people’s acknowledgement of their own disadvantages, and their negative emotional reactions to that disadvantage.</p>
<h2>Importance of perception</h2>
<p>Research shows that recognizing one’s disadvantage, coupled with experiencing an emotional reaction to it — usually anger — is an important predictor of taking part in collective actions like protesting, striking or joining a union. This is true <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1088868311430825">even when accounting for objective measures of disadvantage</a>, like social class, income and education. </p>
<p>When it comes to support for unions specifically, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27767155">1991 study found</a> people’s feelings about their perceived social status were more important in predicting union support than their objective social standing, which is determined by factors like income, education and class. In other words, people’s perceptions determined union support.</p>
<p>This perspective also explains why union support hasn’t risen in times when working conditions have worsened. The years following the 2008 recession, for example, brought about many labour issues, including <a href="https://www.kansascityfed.org/Jackson%20Hole/documents/4547/2014vonWachter.pdf">widespread unemployment</a>, <a href="https://u.demog.berkeley.edu/%7Ejrw/Biblio/Eprints/PRB/files/65.1unitedstates.pdf">declining household wages</a> and <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/great-recession-american-dream/">increased levels of temporary and precarious work</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">union support among Americans was at a historical low</a> around that time. While no statistics exist for the Canadian context, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.18740/S4M887">evidence suggests</a> unions were equally unpopular in Canada after the Great Recession. </p>
<h2>The COVID-19 pandemic’s role</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted how we view our lives. Recent studies suggest people are now <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/pandemics-make-us-more-averse-inequality">more aware of the inequalities present in our societies</a> and are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jesp.2022.104400">more willing to do something about it</a>, compared to the pre-COVID era. </p>
<p>An awareness of the unjust systems that influence our behaviours has been shown to <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1088868311430825">be a prerequisite for the anger</a> that drives collective action. Essentially, the more we recognize injustice, the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1987.9713692">more likely we are to engage in collective action</a>.</p>
<p>The height of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with several union strikes that reveal this pattern. For instance, the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/the-pandemic-has-caused-a-surprising-rebound-for-the-unions-participation-is-now-higher-than/article_04de56b9-3a88-539c-94ef-c1b1f68793d6.html">2020 Dominion grocery store workers’ strikes in Newfoundland</a> were driven by a growing awareness of the disparities between top executives, who earned millions during the pandemic, and front-line workers who saw little to no wage increases. </p>
<p>Although this divide <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2022/01/Another%20year%20in%20paradise.pdf">had been widening for years</a>, the pandemic accentuated it. <a href="https://nursesunions.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/a_time_of_fear_possamai_final_book_digital.pdf">Union statements during the strikes</a> emphasized that the issues faced by workers were exposed by the pandemic, rather than being created by it. </p>
<p>The pandemic has helped create an environment where workers are more likely to feel disadvantaged and angry. Until public perception and awareness of inequality changes, we will likely continue to see an increased number of strikes and other forms of collective action. </p>
<h2>What should employers do?</h2>
<p>Employers have a crucial role to play in all this. If they wish to avoid their workers taking collective action against them, they should demonstrate their support of their employees by attending to their needs. Issues like <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-businesses-can-best-help-employees-disconnect-from-work-174522">work-life balance</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/employers-need-to-prioritize-employee-mental-health-if-they-want-to-attract-new-talent-205738">mental health support</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/diversity-in-the-workplace-isnt-enough-businesses-need-to-work-toward-inclusion-194136">diversity and inclusion</a> are top of mind for employees.</p>
<p>When employees’ needs are met, they are less likely to perceive disadvantages in the workplace and harbour resentment. A <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S321689">recent study found</a> that employees who believed they were being fairly paid for positive workplace behaviours — like co-operating with others and coming in to work early — felt less resentment towards those they considered more advantaged. </p>
<p>Effective communication with workers, fostering participative leadership and encouraging co-operation between workers have also been shown to <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/08863680122098298">reduce angry feelings</a> stemming from an employee’s negative workplace comparisons. </p>
<p>These approaches work because they encourage constructive solutions to employee issues. In the end, the link between people’s perceptions of their own lives and their support for unions highlights just how important it is for employers to take their employees’ needs into account.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nabhan Refaie 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>The rise in union support can be explained by the growing recognition people are having of their own disadvantages, and the anger they feel about it.Nabhan Refaie, PhD Candidate in Management (Organizational Behaviour), University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173412023-11-13T16:26:27Z2023-11-13T16:26:27ZLevelling the playing field: The case for a federal ‘anti-scab’ law<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/levelling-the-playing-field-the-case-for-a-federal-anti-scab-law" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The federal government has just <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-58/first-reading">introduced Bill C-58</a>, its much anticipated <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10081053/canada-anti-scab-legislation/">“anti-scab” legislation</a>. If adopted, the law will prohibit the use of replacement workers in the event of a strike or lockout in any federally regulated industry.</p>
<p>The legislation will also require the parties to negotiate a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anti-scab-labour-federally-regulated-workplaces-1.7023020">maintenance of activities agreement</a> in advance of a labour dispute to allow for the undertaking of maintenance work to protect the integrity and safety of the workplace.</p>
<p>The bill, a product of the Liberal and NDP <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/03/22/delivering-canadians-now">confidence-and-supply agreement</a>, represents the first time a federal government has committed to an anti-scab law.</p>
<p><a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8717920/ndp-unions-liberals-strikes-anti-scab-law/">Unions have long</a> <a href="https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-welcome-anti-scab-legislation/">advocated for a ban</a> on replacement workers, arguing their use unduly shifts power to employers and gives the boss an unfair advantage in collective bargaining. </p>
<p>In particular, union leaders justify the need for a ban by pointing to instances where employers chose to <a href="https://www.unifor.org/news/all-news/why-we-need-anti-scab-legislation">lock out</a> workers and “starve them out” while continuing to operate with scab labour. </p>
<p>Business organizations, on the other hand, frame their opposition to anti-scab laws by focusing on the potential for economic disruption. They argue that a ban on replacement workers would give unions <a href="https://torontosun.com/news/national/urgent-need-to-rethink-labour-laws-after-b-c-port-strike-cfib">too much power</a>, <a href="https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/a-ban-on-replacement-workers-is-a-threat-to-small-businesses-and-the-economy">threaten the survival of small businesses</a> and make Canada <a href="https://www.iedm.org/uploaded/pdf/janv05_en.pdf">less competitive</a>. </p>
<h2>Assessing the arguments</h2>
<p>Making sense of these competing perspectives can be tricky because there is no expert consensus on the economic effects of anti-scab laws. The studies that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-232X.1996.tb00405.x">do exist</a> offer contradictory evidence based on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227383030_The_Laws_of_Unintended_Consequence_The_Effect_of_Labour_Legislation_on_Wages_and_Strikes">different statistical methods</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cpp.35.1.99">assumptions, time spans</a> and the inclusion or exclusion of certain sectors of the economy. </p>
<p>Opponents of the legislation tend to selectively rely on <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/economic-effects-of-banning-temporary-replacement-workers.pdf">corporate-funded research</a> by right-wing think tanks to make the case that a ban on scab labour will drive away business and wreak havoc more generally. </p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://medicinehatnews.com/commentary/opinions/2022/11/17/for-what-its-worth-anti-scab-legislation-gives-advantage-to-unions-they-shouldnt-have/">common argument</a> is that if employers can’t use replacement workers, businesses may not be able to operate during a labour dispute and will lose revenue as a result. This outcome would theoretically jeopardize the business and the future job security of the striking workers. </p>
<p>The reality, however, is that <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/majority-of-liberal-mps-join-conservatives-to-vote-down-anti-scab-bill/article1072069/">no union leader</a> is interested in negotiating employers out of business or putting the jobs of their members at risk.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1722744670663455093"}"></div></p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://chamber.ca/news/statement-from-the-canadian-chamber-of-commerce-regarding-anti-replacement-worker-legislation/">corporate objections</a> to the contrary, anti-scab laws can play an integral role in improving union-management relations. At some point, almost all work stoppages end, and workers return to their jobs. </p>
<p>The resentment caused by the use of scab labour lingers, however, poisoning labour relations and leading to <a href="https://www.hrreporter.com/news/hr-news/the-aftermath-of-replacement-workers-can-linger-long-after-the-strike-is-over/310485">lower workplace morale</a>. This is especially true in the case of contentious labour disputes where the use of replacement workers triggered <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/giant-mine-explosion">picket line violence</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/frustration-grows-as-videotron-strike-continues-in-quebec-1.312994">or vandalism</a>.</p>
<p>Such incidents are far <a href="https://www.unifor.org/sites/default/files/documents/fairness_on_the_line_final%20web.pdf">less likely</a> to occur if scab labour is taken out of the equation. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/striking-a-balance-how-the-law-regulates-picket-lines-213111">Striking a balance: How the law regulates picket lines</a>
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<h2>Negotiated settlements</h2>
<p>The other benefit of an anti-scab law is that it would force employers to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/point-counterpoint-anti-scab-smith-1.5531736">focus on reaching negotiated settlements</a> rather than strategizing over how to best undermine and antagonize union members exercising their right to strike. </p>
<p>This levels the playing field and brings the focus back to the bargaining table where deals are made.</p>
<p>The business lobby’s argument that a ban on replacement workers would <a href="https://www.simcoe.com/business/federal-private-member-s-bill-tips-the-scales-toward-unions-in-labour-negotiations-barrie-chamber/article_7312d7ab-1837-54fe-8a16-aed1e99228c4.html">render unions more difficult</a> in bargaining is belied by the fact that anti-scab legislation at the provincial level has not produced “strike-happy” unions. </p>
<p>Québec and British Columbia have had legislative bans on replacement workers in provincially regulated industries for decades. <a href="http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca/volume13/pdfs/02_savage_butovsky_press.pdf">Neither jurisdiction</a> experienced escalating wage demands, dramatic increases in strike activity, or economic collapse as a result. </p>
<p>Why then should we expect different outcomes as a result of a federal anti-scab law? </p>
<h2>Politics of labour law reform</h2>
<p>It’s worth remembering that corporations have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/highlights-in-canadian-labour-history-1.850282">resisted virtually every single improvement</a> to workers’ rights since the 1800s. </p>
<p>This includes opposition to union recognition, the right to strike, the shorter work week and improved employment standards. Given this history, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the business lobby is keen to defeat or water down Bill C-58.</p>
<p>At a <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=09e7f3fe-e565-449d-b458-d30d7d5795b4">recent news conference</a>, Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan indicated the law would not take effect until 18 months after receiving Royal Assent. </p>
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<p>That’s an eternity in politics and provides the business lobby with ample time to <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/11/13/Unions-Get-More-Power-Replacement-Worker-Ban/">change the government’s mind or pressure it to run out the clock</a> in advance of the next federal election. </p>
<p>In the meantime, unions and their allies are not sitting idle. We can expect unions to continue <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230918460175/en/Demonstration-With-the-NDP-and-CLC-in-Support-of-Anti-Scab-Legislation">organizing rallies</a> <a href="https://canadianlabour.ca/campaigns/we-need-pro-worker-legislation/">and actions</a> to pressure the government to deliver on its commitment.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.socialistproject.ca/relay/relay17_harden.pdf">Previous attempts</a> to win anti-scab legislation through opposition-led bills have usually faltered because Liberal MPs got cold feet and switched their votes on second or third reading under pressure from the business community. </p>
<p>The dynamics are different this time as a result of the confidence-and-supply agreement with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ndp-turns-60-its-never-truly-been-the-political-arm-of-organized-labour-161964">union-friendly NDP</a> and the government’s desire to use the legislation as a wedge issue to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-caucus-speech-canadians-hurting-1.6580001">undermine recent Conservative efforts</a> to gain support from blue-collar union members.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pierre-poilievre-is-popular-among-union-members-whats-it-really-all-about-201547">Pierre Poilievre is popular among union members. What's it really all about?</a>
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<p>Whether the legislation will serve that purpose remains an open question.</p>
<p>But that should not distract from the policy goal of reforming labour laws in ways that promote collective bargaining, protect workers’ rights and level the playing field between unions and employers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Savage receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Unions have long advocated for a ban on replacement workers, arguing their use unduly shifts power to employers and gives the boss an unfair advantage in collective bargaining.Larry Savage, Professor, Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164752023-11-07T19:01:44Z2023-11-07T19:01:44ZHow unionization is empowering Jamaican domestic workers to demand decent work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558102/original/file-20231107-25-rcwoyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C38%2C1226%2C852&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jamaica has the potential to become a regional leader in advancing decent work for domestic workers thanks to unionization efforts. Members of the Jamaica Household Workers' Union pose for a photo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jamaica Household Workers' Union)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-unionization-is-empowering-jamaican-domestic-workers-to-demand-decent-work" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In thousands of households across Jamaica, domestic workers do the work of cooking, cleaning, gardening and caring for children, the elderly and people with disabilities. </p>
<p>While this work is essential to the functioning of the economy and to the well-being of many Jamaican families, domestic workers often experience low pay, poor working conditions and informal work arrangements. Due to their isolation in the home, they’re also vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---travail/documents/publication/wcms_802551.pdf">Estimates put the number of domestic workers in Jamaica at around 56,000, 80 per cent of whom are women</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://caribbean.unwomen.org/en/news-and-events/stories/2016/9/jamaica-ratifies-domestic-workers-decent-work-convention">Jamaica ratified</a> International Labour Organization Convention No. 189, the Domestic Workers Convention. The landmark convention is the first international legal instrument to recognize domestic work as equivalent to all other kinds of work <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---travail/documents/publication/wcms_214499.pdf">and is founded on</a> “the fundamental premise that domestic workers are neither ‘servants’ nor ‘members of the family’ nor second-class workers.” </p>
<p>Jamaica is one of only 36 countries to have ratified the convention. To its credit, the Jamaican government has made progress toward making decent work a reality for domestic workers, <a href="https://jis.gov.jm/national-minimum-wage-moves-to-13000-june-1/">including by raising the national minimum wage</a>.</p>
<h2>Decent work deficits persist</h2>
<p><a href="https://brocku.ca/social-sciences/labour-studies/wp-content/uploads/primary-site/sites/147/Black-and-Marsh.-2023.-Acheiving-Decent-Work-for-Domestic-Workers-Online-version.pdf">A study I conducted with Lauren Marsh, of the Hugh Shearer Labour Studies Institute at the University of the West Indies,</a> has been published to coincide with the seventh anniversary of Jamaica’s ratification of the convention. It finds that domestic workers continue to experience deficits in decent work.</p>
<p>Without government action, we fear that progress toward achieving decent work for this marginalized, but essential, workforce will stall. </p>
<p>We surveyed more than 200 domestic workers, held focus groups and interviewed key stakeholders in government and civil society. </p>
<p>Overall, we found that while domestic workers are generally covered under Jamaica’s labour laws, many experience an “enforcement gap” — the difference between the rights and protections established in law and those that are actually respected by employers in the workplace. </p>
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<img alt="A woman walks along a shopping strip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558106/original/file-20231107-15-aslw9g.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">
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<span class="caption">A woman shops in the historic downtown of Falmouth, Jamaica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>And while the <a href="https://jis.gov.jm/domestic-workers-encouraged-to-sign-up-for-nis/">Ministry of Labour and Social Security is sensitive to the challenges facing domestic workers,</a> it currently lacks the capacity to adequately promote and enforce compliance with labour standards in the sector. </p>
<p>Furthermore, far too many domestic workers lack awareness of their rights. Just over half of survey respondents said they were not aware of any laws that protect domestic workers in Jamaica. This finding is troubling, as workers’ awareness of rights is key to their realization. </p>
<p>Domestic workers are generally frustrated with Jamaica’s slow pace toward making decent work a reality in the sector. For instance, nearly 90 per cent of domestic workers surveyed believe the government doesn’t adequately inform domestic workers of their rights; 82 per cent would like to see the government do a better job at enforcing laws that protect domestic workers. </p>
<h2>Raising awareness</h2>
<p>There is some good news. The <a href="https://jhwu.org/">Jamaica Household Workers’ Union</a>, with 7,280 members across 13 chapters, has done excellent work in raising domestic workers’ awareness of their rights and protections. </p>
<p>We found that domestic workers who are members of the union are more likely than non-union domestic workers to contribute to Jamaica’s social security scheme, twice as likely than their non-union counterparts to possess a written employment contract, making enforcing rights easier, and are far more likely than their non-union counterparts to be aware of their labour and social security protections. </p>
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<p>These findings suggest that strengthening collective representation for domestic workers is a promising route to ensuring that rights on paper are rights in practice.</p>
<p>Our report includes several recommendations that may act as a guide to action for achieving decent work for domestic workers in Jamaica. </p>
<p>First and foremost, the Jamaican government must invest in building the capacity of the <a href="https://mlss.gov.jm/">Ministry of Labour and Social Security</a> to enforce and promote compliance with labour standards in the domestic work sector — including through the creation of a domestic work section — and through public awareness campaigns to ensure employers and workers alike know their rights and responsibilities. </p>
<h2>Collective bargaining needed</h2>
<p>To strengthen collective representation and worker voice, the government should also work with employers’ groups and the Jamaica Household Workers’ Union to establish the legal and institutional framework and conditions necessary for <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---travail/documents/publication/wcms_436279.pdf">collective bargaining in the domestic work sector.</a></p>
<p>Decent work is fundamental to social justice, gender equality and fulfilling Jamaica’s commitments under the national development plan, <a href="https://www.vision2030.gov.jm/">Vision 2030 Jamaica.</a> </p>
<p>Relative to its Caribbean neighbours, Jamaica is making slow but steady progress toward making decent work a reality for domestic workers — and the Jamaica Household Workers’ Union is establishing best practices in domestic worker organizing and collective representation. </p>
<p>That means Jamaica has the potential to become a regional leader in advancing decent work for domestic workers. It’s a leadership role the government and civil society should fully embrace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Black 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>Domestic workers in Jamaica often experience low pay, poor working conditions and informal work arrangements. Here’s how unionization could change their situation.Simon Black, Associate Professor of Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2152052023-10-26T12:40:49Z2023-10-26T12:40:49ZBack in the 1960s, the push for parental rights over school standards was not led by white conservatives but by Black and Latino parents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555414/original/file-20231023-21-xoa3d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=251%2C81%2C3944%2C2717&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, left, and then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin participate in a debate on Sept. 28, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-virginia-gov-terry-mcauliffe-and-republican-news-photo/1343655159?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A key issue underlying the 2023 Virginia election first drew statewide – and national – attention in a debate two years ago.</p>
<p>During a 2021 Virginia gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/glenn-youngkin-parental-rights-education-strategy/index.html">Terry McAuliffe</a> made a critical mistake that led to his defeat by GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin.</p>
<p>Instead of acknowledging concerns that parents were having over school curriculum, McAuliffe dismissed them.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision,” McAuliffe said during the debate. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”</p>
<p>McAuliffe’s remarks sparked a backlash among white conservatives who were incensed that their children were being forced to read books that touched on contentious topics such as racism and sexuality. </p>
<p>In fact, one of Youngkin’s <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2021/10/beloved-glenn-youngkin-ad-toni-morrison-book-banning.html">initial television ads</a> showed a white mother who was nearly brought to tears by her son’s anguish after reading about the horrors of slavery in Toni Morrison’s “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/beloved-toni-morrison-virginia.html">Beloved</a>.” She said the book should not have been required high school reading. </p>
<p>But while Youngkin and other <a href="https://americanindependent.com/virginia-book-bans-siobhan-dunnavant-schuyler-vanvalkenburg/">GOP politicians</a> campaigning for offices from <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/virginia-school-board-extremist-candidates-1234829927/">local school boards</a> to <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/10/11/in-henrico-virginia-senate-candidates-battle-over-banning-books-accusation/">state legislatures</a> in the 2023 cycle have hitched their political success to parental rights and banning books deemed offensive, they do not own those issues.</p>
<p>In fact, the very thing that parental rights advocates are fighting to exclude is the very thing that parental rights groups of the 1960s fought to have included: an accurate reflection of the role that Black people played in the shaping of American history and culture. </p>
<p>I know this because <a href="https://faculty.lawrence.edu/podairj/">I spent</a> a great deal of time studying one of the seminal parental rights movements in American public education for my book, “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300109405/the-strike-that-changed-new-york/">The Strike That Changed New York</a>.”</p>
<p>In that book, I detailed the 1968 struggle over community control of public schools in the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. There, as in Virginia, <a href="https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/community-control-and-the-1968-teacher-strikes-in-nyc-at-50-a-roundtable">parents who felt shut out</a> by the public education system demanded to have their voices heard in determining school curricula. </p>
<p>But at Ocean Hill-Brownsville, it was Black and Latino parents who demanded their right to have a say in the education of their children. </p>
<h2>Inside the classrooms</h2>
<p>For decades, Black history had been a neglected topic in New York City schools. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, only a handful of textbooks on the Board of Education-approved list discussed the history of African Americans in significant detail. The lack of such material was widely blamed for the disappointing academic performance of Black and Latino students. </p>
<p>In an effort to help those students and improve test scores, New York City school officials launched an experiment to give the mostly minority parents more say in school matters by appointing them to school governing boards. As I note in <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300109405/the-strike-that-changed-new-york/">my book</a>, the new governing boards immediately set out to move the history of Black Americans from the margins of the American experience to its epicenter.</p>
<p>Not everyone supported the changes to what was being taught in the classrooms. When the newly formed board composed of <a href="https://jacobin.com/2018/09/ocean-hill-brownsville-strikes-1968-united-federation-teachers">Ocean Hill-Brownsville parents</a> fired 13 teachers and six administrators for trying to block the changes, the United Federation of Teachers union organized several strikes to shut down the schools in a dispute over control of personnel, finances and curricula. </p>
<p>The strikes lasted for 36 school days and affected about 47,000 teachers and nearly 1 million students. The strike ended on Nov. 17 when the state took control of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of Black men are standing together in front of a school building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555418/original/file-20231023-32966-f48ze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&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">Members of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville local school governing board leave Brooklyn Junior High School 271 on Dec. 2, 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/led-by-the-rev-c-herbert-oliver-members-of-the-ocean-hill-news-photo/515546496?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Most of the jobs left vacant by striking union members were filled by a group of nonunionized “replacement” teachers sympathetic to the Ocean Hill-Brownsville parents.</p>
<p>In this racially charged atmosphere, local parents enjoyed an unprecedented opportunity to assert their rights. In the words of one school board representative, they sought to “supply the missing pieces of Black culture,” which would be “the well-spring from which all areas will flow, and counter the total focus in today’s curriculum on the European Anglo-Saxon experience.”</p>
<p>During <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/803382499">the strike</a>, Ocean Hill-Brownsville parents worked with the teachers who had defied the union and staffed the schools to help implement an ambitious Black history curriculum. It included lessons on Black revolutionary leaders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/19/1112040871/denmark-vesey-is-honored-his-slave-revolt-was-thwarted-and-he-was-executed">Denmark Vesey</a>, <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/turners-revolt-nat-1831/">Nat Turner</a> and <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/malcolm-x">Malcolm X</a>. </p>
<p>Their recommendations would eventually influence the direction of curricula in the New York City public school system as a whole.</p>
<h2>A constant struggle</h2>
<p>This example of parental rights serves as a reminder to those who assume that white conservatives are the only active and involved parents trying to assert their rights.</p>
<p>Indeed, in Virginia itself, Black parents are still having an effect on what is taught in public schools. In one example, the <a href="https://richmond.com/news/local/education/new-draft-history-standards-reorient-framing-of-race-relations/article_4504a142-7775-546d-9ea0-3c4272436a00.html">Youngkin administration</a> proposed a set of revisions to the state’s Standards of Learning in history and social sciences that failed to mention Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. </p>
<p>Black politicians and parents <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/11/17/missing-context-political-bias-some-of-critics-objections-to-virginias-new-history-standards/">criticized those revisions</a> as “white-washing,” and the changes were later <a href="https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/board-of-education-rejects-youngkins-proposed-revisions-to-k-12-history-standards/article_ac6dbdb1-8632-5abd-97e4-39b978982b3f.html">rejected by the state Board of Education</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A classroom with Black students has large photographs of Black leaders and a map of Africa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555411/original/file-20231023-19-euw8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&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">Black students during a class at a school in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood in November 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-boys-during-a-class-at-an-school-in-the-ocean-hill-news-photo/1429049619?adppopup=true">Anna Kaufman Moon/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In a further blow to conservatives, parental activists helped shepherd <a href="https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching-learning-assessment/k-12-standards-instruction/history-and-social-science/standards-of-learning">new, more historically inclusive</a> standards that were approved in April 2023. </p>
<p>The standards state unequivocally that “the institution of slavery was the cause of the Civil War.” In addition, they recognize “the indelible stain of slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States and around the world” and emphasize “the development of African American culture in America.”</p>
<p>Most important, at least to those who agree that parents should have an active role in the education of their children, the standards state that “parents should have access to all instructional materials utilized in any Virginia public school.”</p>
<p>The parental rights movement, then, in Virginia and elsewhere, is not solely the province of the right. As history has shown – and today’s debates over school curricula show – “parental rights” are for all parents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerald Podair 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>With control over the Virginia Legislature at stake in the Nov. 7 election, the historic battle over what is taught in public schools remains a priority for both Democrats and Republicans.Jerald Podair, Professor of History, Lawrence 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>
</figcaption>
</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>
</figcaption>
</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>
<figcaption>
<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>On Oct. 11, 2023, a new memorial was unveiled at the site of the 1911 fire. 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/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/2144412023-09-28T12:36:50Z2023-09-28T12:36:50ZTaylor Swift and the end of the Hollywood writers strike – a tale of two media narratives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550689/original/file-20230927-29-ed9vu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C3977%2C2632&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taylor Swift cheers as the Kansas City Chiefs play the Chicago Bears on Sept. 24, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/taylor-swift-watches-during-a-regular-season-game-between-news-photo/1700723950?adppopup=true">David Eulitt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This fall, I’ve been starting my sociology classes by asking my students to share some uplifting news they’ve come across. </p>
<p>On Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, they were abuzz about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-66919232">Taylor Swift’s appearance at the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday</a>. Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce had left Arrowhead Stadium together in Kelce’s convertible, confirming dating rumors. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=B2WlnYkAAAAJ&hl=en">As a scholar of the attention economy</a>, I wasn’t exactly surprised. Many of my students love Swift’s music, and the story had dominated major social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, as a trending topic. </p>
<p>But I was taken aback when I learned that not a single student had heard that the Writers Guild of America <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/09/24/writers-strike-agreement-wga-amptp/">had reached a deal</a> with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, after a nearly 150-day strike. This <a href="https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/Memorandum-of-Agreement-for-the-2023-WGA-Theatrical-and-Television-Basic-Agreement.pdf">historic deal</a> includes significant raises, improvements in health care and pension support, and – unique to our times – protections against the use of artificial intelligence to write screenplays. </p>
<p>Across online media platforms, the WGA announcement on Sept. 24, 2023, ended up buried under headlines and posts about the celebrity duo. To me, this disconnect felt like a microcosm of the entire online media ecosystem.</p>
<h2>Manufacturing consent online</h2>
<p>It almost goes without saying that news and social media platforms promote some stories and narratives over others. </p>
<p>This particular occurrence is fascinating, however, because the AMPTP represents some of the media conglomerates that directly disseminate news. For example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/business/media/warner-bros-discovery-cnn-streaming-max.html">CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery</a>, a member of the AMPTP. </p>
<p>At the time of this writing, CNN.com has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/search?q=wga&from=0&size=10&page=1&sort=newest&types=all&section=">three headlines</a> about the WGA strike and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/search?q=taylor&from=0&size=10&page=1&sort=newest&types=all&section=">eight headlines</a> about Swift at the Chiefs game. </p>
<p>Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s 1988 book “<a href="https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/5537300/mod_resource/content/1/Noam%20Chomsky_%20Edward%20S.%20Herman%20-%20Manufacturing%20Consent_%20The%20Political%20Economy%20of%20the%20Mass%20Media-Bodley%20Head%20%282008%29.pdf">Manufacturing Consent</a>” outlines the problem of media ownership by conglomerates. According to this theory, powerful interests control narratives, in part, by owning news sources. </p>
<p>There’s a free press in the U.S. But Herman and Chomsky argue that the news that reaches everyday people tends to be framed by a set of assumptions that align with the ideological interests of the media corporations and their advertisers: maintaining the economic status quo and spurring consumerism. </p>
<p>In the U.S. today, <a href="https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-90-media-america-illusion-choice-objectivity-2020/">six conglomerates own and control 90% of media outlets</a>.</p>
<p>Per Pew Research Center data, a majority of Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/01/12/more-than-eight-in-ten-americans-get-news-from-digital-devices/">get their news from online sources</a>. Scholars have since adapted Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Demuyakor/publication/348404543_The_Propaganda_Model_in_the_Digital_Age_A_Review_of_Literature_on_the_Effects_of_Social_Media_on_News_Production/links/606f00b2a6fdcc5f778e81e2/The-Propaganda-Model-in-the-Digital-Age-A-Review-of-Literature-on-the-Effects-of-Social-Media-on-News-Production.pdf">to explain how social media ecosystems function</a>.</p>
<p>The role of <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/94d7/4593f66af3675f6bd1a8fb3abd4e89e0d7e2.pdf">algorithms is a key focus</a> of emergent research on manufacturing consent online. Sociologist Ruha Benjamin’s work consistently shows that <a href="https://aas.princeton.edu/publications/research/race-after-technology-abolitionist-tools-new-jim-code">algorithms are encoded with their developers’ biases</a>. Other studies show that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1994624">critiques about algorithmic biases are suppressed</a> by corporate digital media platforms through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221077174">strategies like shadow-banning</a>, which refers to covertly banning users of concern without their knowledge. These algorithms determine what is trending on websites like X. This, in turn, influences trends on other platforms, like Google searches.</p>
<p>Google trend results show an enormous increase in search queries about Travis Kelce since Sept. 20, 2023, with the WGA strike victory receiving almost no interest in comparison. The massive gap in interest between these topics serves as an example of algorithms supporting trending topics over other newsworthy content. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing a spike in searches for Swift and Kelce." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550730/original/file-20230927-21-lwplc4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=259&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 Google Trends graph shows online searches since Sept. 20, 2023, for ‘Travis Kelce,’ represented by the blue line, and ‘WGA,’ represented by the red line.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aarushi Bhandari/Google Trends</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another key focus of the propaganda model for social media is <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/25880/1/1004203.pdf">targeted advertising</a>. </p>
<p>Unlike their predecessors in television, social media companies use “big data” to know users intimately and present ads that are personalized to each user. This strategy includes guerrilla marketing techniques like the ones employed by several companies after Swift’s appearance.</p>
<p>For example, the National Football League <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/nfl/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-nfl-jersey-sales-1.6978782">changed its X bio</a> to read “NFL (Taylor’s Version).” Sales of Kelce’s jersey <a href="https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38496220/taylor-swift-effect-travis-kelce-jersey-sales-spike-nearly-400">skyrocketed in the few days</a> after Swift’s appearance at the Chiefs game. Hidden Valley Ranch changed its X handle to “Seemingly Ranch” after a Swift fan account noted that during the game, Swift had dipped her chicken fingers in “<a href="https://twitter.com/tswifterastour/status/1706076507540767211">seemingly ranch</a>.”</p>
<h2>Corporate media coverage of labor issues</h2>
<p>The muted coverage of the writers strike fits into <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875461854/through-jaundiced-eyes/#bookTabs=1">a longer historical pattern</a> of tension between labor movements and corporate media. </p>
<p>In many cases, corporate media has <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801488870/framed/#bookTabs=1">framed disproportionately negative narratives</a> about strikes and union activities. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X9902300402">an analysis of media coverage</a> of tensions between the United Auto Workers and General Motors from 1991-93 found that major newspapers, including The New York Times, consistently framed GM’s position in a positive light, while crafting significantly more negative stories about the strike and autoworkers. <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801488870/framed/#bookTabs=1">Similar patterns are visible</a> in media reporting on the 1993 American Airlines flight attendant strike and the 1997 United Parcel Service strike. </p>
<p>When not covering labor issues in a negative light, corporate media has a track record of ignoring and minimizing these issues. Communications scholar Jon Bekken’s meta-analysis of media coverage discovered <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20141222211416id_/http://javnost-thepublic.org:80/article/pdf/2005/1/5/">substantial drops in coverage of labor issues</a> by major outlets like the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and CBS throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.</p>
<p>This historical dynamic is <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/labor/article/19/3/77/318130">beginning to change</a>. Increasing <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.aspx">public support for labor unions</a> and worker action have made it difficult to ignore the bubbling currents of organized labor across many industries, from <a href="https://sbworkersunited.org/strike-with-pride">Starbucks</a> to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/09/26/uaw-strike-big-three-reputation/">autoworkers</a>. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://perfectunion.us/americans-broadly-support-the-uaw-strike-regardless-of-party/">58% of Americans support the ongoing United Auto Workers strikes</a> against GM, Ford and Stellantis, the company that makes Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles.</p>
<p>Despite corporate ownership and biased algorithms, labor movements have managed to secure public support, demonstrating that Americans are increasingly aware of their own class interests. During such a fraught political climate for the economic status quo, the WGA victory is a major indicator that strikes work.</p>
<p>So, amid these tensions, a feel-good story about Taylor Swift and football is a gift to media executives – and one that helps sell more ranch dressing, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aarushi Bhandari 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>What does it say about the online media ecosystem when the end of a 146-day strike is buried under headlines and posts about Swift’s budding romance with NFL star Travis Kelce?Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2118682023-09-24T12:10:18Z2023-09-24T12:10:18ZSocial media is a double-edged sword for the public image of Canadian labour unions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548901/original/file-20230918-17-fektcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C30%2C3426%2C2176&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is hope that social media can breathe new life into the labour movement.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/social-media-is-a-double-edged-sword-for-the-public-image-of-canadian-labour-unions" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Union membership in Canada <a href="https://doi.org/10.25318/36280001202201100001-eng">has been declining over the past four decades</a>. In 2022, the percentage of employees who are union members fell to 29 per cent from 38 per cent in 1981. This decline has been partly attributed to the stagnant or outdated image of unions, which makes it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/102425890701300204">difficult for some workers to relate to these organizations</a>.</p>
<p>There is hope that social media can <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---actrav/documents/publication/wcms_875935.pdf">breathe new life into the labour movement</a>. Social media platforms offer unions the opportunity to communicate with their members, advocate for their causes, address grievances and rally public support swiftly and efficiently.</p>
<p>However, social media is not a panacea for the challenges facing unions. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00221856231192322">Our recent research reveals</a> that rather than revitalize the public image of unions, social media can sometimes have the opposite effect, underscoring a serious concern: the potential for unions to become invisible online.</p>
<h2>Widening the divide</h2>
<p>Our research has identified four ways in which social media can distort the image of unions. First, it can increase the “us versus them” divide between unions and entities like companies, employers or governments. This growing divide can be partly attributed to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-bad-behavior-why-social-media-design-makes-it-hard-to-have-constructive-disagreements-online-161337">normalization of vehement or abrasive disagreements online</a>.</p>
<p>This effect is reminiscent of the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">heightened political polarization</a> we are witnessing today with the widening chasm between left- and right-leaning groups. Social media has played a role in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2021.1976070">exacerbating this type of polarization</a>.</p>
<p>According to the union communication managers we spoke to, there is a higher tolerance for aggressive communication online. This phenomenon is fuelled by the fierce competition among organizations vying for the fleeting attention of social media users.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Images of social media likes, follows, and comments float above a hand scrolling on a cell phone screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548897/original/file-20230918-21-ek67qz.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">An argumentative online culture and the fleeting attention of social media users have led some unions to adopt briefer, less nuanced and more assertive communication styles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The combination of these two factors — an inherently argumentative online culture and the pursuit of attention — has led some unions to adopt briefer, less nuanced and more assertive communication styles. The fervour generated by such polarizing content can rally supporters and drive conversations that amplify the union’s message.</p>
<p>Importantly, not all unions experience this effect to the same degree. Our findings indicate that unions with an activist background are more likely to be polarized online.</p>
<h2>Self-centeredness</h2>
<p>The second way social media can distort the online image of unions is by fostering self-centred behaviour. Social media has been shown to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000137">encourage narcissistic behaviour in its users</a> and our research suggests this also applies to organizations like unions.</p>
<p>Unions can unintentionally distort their online image by portraying their members in an overly positive way. Our research found that content praising union members tended to generate more engagement, such as likes, comments or shares. As a result, some communication managers gravitated towards this type of content to increase online engagement.</p>
<p>This tendency was most pronounced in unions with a homogeneous membership and strong professional identity, where fostering a sense of professional pride is easier.</p>
<h2>Becoming a caricature of themselves</h2>
<p>The third way social media can distort the online image of unions is through caricaturing, a process that exaggerates the characteristics of a union to the point of appearing absurd or grotesque.</p>
<p>This type of distortion likely stems from the pressure to maintain an active online presence by posting frequently. All the unions in our study posted between five to seven messages weekly on their Facebook pages. </p>
<p>However, not all the unions had fresh or engaging content to share regularly. As a result, their communications often became overly repetitive and focused on routine activities, such as union meetings, assemblies and the signing of collective agreements. This led to an exaggerated, caricatured online representation of the unions. </p>
<p>Unions most susceptible to self-caricaturing online were those with a more <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803110716472">bureaucratic mindset</a>, as they were less likely to have new and interesting content to share consistently.</p>
<h2>Disappearing behind the news</h2>
<p>The final way social media can distort the online image of unions is through what we call the “fading effect.” This occurs when communication managers over share news articles from external media outlets, rather than sharing news directly related to the union itself.</p>
<p>This can result in a decline in an organization’s visibility and relevance online — to the point where the identity of the union almost disappears. This effect becomes more pronounced when there is no accompanying text or references connecting the shared news articles to the union or its members. </p>
<p>Unions most susceptible to the fading effect are those with social media managers who lack expertise or those that have a <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100456590">servicing model of unionism</a> as opposed to the organizing model.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An laptop open to a news article is seen over the shoulder of a young woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548903/original/file-20230918-27-77a0sh.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unions that only share news articles, instead of news about themselves and their members, risk fading into the background too much.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Invisibility on social media</h2>
<p>Social media can be a double-edged sword for labour unions. While certain distortion effects may yield positive outcomes, others have negative effects. Polarizing and self-centredness, for example, can be beneficial because they increase online engagement, but caricaturing and fading effects can decrease online engagement.</p>
<p>A lack of engaging online content poses a significant risk to unions, potentially rendering them algorithmically invisible. Studies have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185620979337">caricaturing and fading effects are prevalent among unions</a>, increasing the risk of the labour movement being marginalized in the digital public sphere.</p>
<p>Since communication plays a key role in bolstering the power of unions, there is a legitimate concern that social media could weaken their ability to defend workers’ rights, instead of strengthening it. </p>
<p>Our research underscores the need for unions to think about how they can transform their images online with more effective social media communication. As the labour movement adapts to the digital age, the balance between engagement and algorithmic visibility is vital for the future of workers’ advocacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Lévesque receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc-Antonin Hennebert and Vincent Pasquier do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the digital landscape offers opportunities for unions to engage and mobilize supporters, it also presents challenges, including the risk of being marginalized in the vast online world.Vincent Pasquier, Professeur en GRH et relations professionnelles, HEC MontréalChristian Lévesque, Professeur de Relations du Travail, HEC MontréalMarc-Antonin Hennebert, Professor of Human Resources Management, HEC MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134372023-09-21T12:45:25Z2023-09-21T12:45:25ZReality TV show contestants are more like unpaid interns than Hollywood stars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548929/original/file-20230918-29-jud5nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C3584%2C2619&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Country singer Adley Stump, a former contestant on NBC's hit reality show 'The Voice,' performs at an Air Force base in Washington state.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jblmpao/19564078650">Joint Base Lewis McChord/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In December 2018, John Legend <a href="https://twitter.com/johnlegend/status/1070158841499840512?s=20">joined then-newly elected U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> to criticize the exploitation of congressional interns on Capitol Hill, most of whom worked for no pay.</p>
<p>Legend’s timing was ironic. </p>
<p>NBC’s “The Voice” had just announced that Legend would join as a judge. He would go on to <a href="https://talentrecap.com/the-voice-coaches-salary-how-much-do-nick-jonas-kelly-clarkson-john-legend-and-blake-shelton-make/">reportedly earn US$14 million</a> per season by his third year on the show. Meanwhile, all of the participants on “The Voice,” save for the winner, earned $0 for their time, apart from a housing and food stipend – much like those congressional interns.</p>
<p>The fall 2023 TV lineup will be saturated with low-cost reality TV shows like “The Voice”; for networks, it’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/how-prime-time-tv-will-look-different-this-fall-63ff818c">an end-around</a> to the ongoing <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/negotiations-set-resume-striking-writers-hollywood-studios-rcna105230">TV writers</a> <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/09/actors-strike-picket-line-netflix-paramount-1235545964/">and actors</a> strikes. </p>
<p>Whether it’s “The Voice,” “House Hunters,” “American Chopper” or “The Bachelorette,” reality shows thrive thanks to a simple business model: They pay millions of dollars for big-name celebrities to serve as judges, coaches and hosts, while participants work for free or for paltry pay under the guise of chasing their dreams or gaining exposure. </p>
<p>These participants are the unpaid interns of the entertainment industry, even though it’s their stories, personalities and talent that draw the viewers. </p>
<h2>Dreams clash with reality</h2>
<p>To conduct research for my book, “<a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030445867">Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians, and Power in Society</a>,” I interviewed musicians around the country. </p>
<p>The book was about the exploitative nature <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gmjw/bad-deals-are-baked-into-the-way-the-music-industry-operates">of record contracts</a>. But during my research, I kept running into singers who had either auditioned for or participated in “The Voice.” </p>
<p>On “The Voice,” singers compete on teams headed by a celebrity coach. Following a blind audition and various elimination rounds, the <a href="https://www.mlive.com/entertainment/muskegon/2012/10/how_does_the_voice_work_your_c.html">live broadcasts</a> begin with four teams of five members apiece. These 20 contestants spend months working in Los Angeles and are <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/voice-mentors-contestants-money-1370215">provided with only their room and board</a>. Each week, at least one player is eliminated. At the end of each season, the winner receives $100,000 and a record contract. </p>
<p>While some viewers might see reality shows like “The Voice” as launching pads for music careers, many of the musicians I spoke with were disheartened by their experiences on the show.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EGkmybURE5c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Contestants audition for ‘The Voice’ ahead of its 24th season.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike “American Idol,” where a number of winners, from Kelly Clarkson to Jordan Sparks, have made it big, no winners of “The Voice” have become stars. The closest person to “making it” from “The Voice” <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/08/921574715/snl-nixes-morgan-wallen-appearance-after-singer-violates-covid-19-safety-protoco">is the controversial</a> country singer Morgan Wallen, who was infamously dropped by his <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/country-star-morgan-wallen-caught-video-using-n-word-label-n1256630">label and country radio</a> following the emergence of a video of him using a racial slur. And Wallen didn’t even win “The Voice”; in fact, he <a href="https://thevoice.fandom.com/wiki/Morgan_Wallen">barely made it past</a> the blind audition.</p>
<p>Former contestants repeatedly told me that the television exposure did little to help their careers. </p>
<p>Prior to joining the show, many of the musicians were trying to scratch out a living through touring or performing. They put their developing careers on pause to chase their dreams. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2020.1733577">the show’s contracts have stipulated</a> that contestants cannot perform, sell their name, image and likeness, or record new music while on “The Voice.” (The Conversation reached out to NBC to see if this remains the case for the current season, but did not receive a comment.) </p>
<p>This leaves the 20 finalists with no means to sell their music, even as they spend up to eight months competing. When the show’s losers return to performing, many of them have little new material to promote. By the time they drop a new single or album and announce a tour, some of them told me that they had lost a good portion of their following. </p>
<p>There is one group of people who receive meaningful exposure from these shows: the coaches and judges. Several singers, such as Gwen Stefani and Pharell Williams, have used “The Voice” to jolt their stagnating music careers. While earning millions as coaches and judges, these stars even use the show to <a href="https://screenrant.com/the-voice-coaches-popstars-successful-music-careers-boost/">promote their music</a> – something the contestants themselves are barred from doing.</p>
<p>Paying these contestants is feasible. If Legend earned $13 million instead of $14 million, that spare million dollars could be dispersed to half of the contestants at $100,000 apiece – an amount that’s currently only reserved for the winner of the show. Cut the salaries of all four coaches by $1 million apiece, and it would free up enough money to pay all 20 contestants $200,000 each. </p>
<h2>A gold mine for networks</h2>
<p>“The Voice” is far from the only reality show to take advantage of the genre’s low overhead costs.</p>
<p>Over the past two decades, shows featuring Americans looking to buy houses or remodel their homes <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/how-hgtv-became-industry-juggernaut">have exploded in popularity</a>. HGTV cornered this market by creating popular shows such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369117/">House Hunters</a>,” “<a href="https://www.hgtv.com/shows/flip-or-flop">Flip or Flop</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1827882/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_property%2520brothers">Property Brothers</a>.” </p>
<p>Viewers might not realize just how profitable these shows are.</p>
<p>Take “House Hunters.” The show follows a prospective homebuyer as they tour three homes. Homebuyers featured on the show have noted that <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/06/house-hunters-true-story-of-being-on-the-show.html">they earn only</a> <a href="https://www.thelist.com/391705/heres-how-much-people-get-paid-to-be-on-house-hunters/">$500 for their work</a>, and <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/543696/how-much-do-you-get-paid-for-being-on-house-hunters">the episodes take</a> three to five days and about 30 hours to film. The show’s producers <a href="https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/house-hunters-do-the-realtors-on-the-show-get-paid.html/">don’t pay the realtors</a> to be on it.</p>
<p>The low pay for people on reality TV shows matches the low budget for these shows. A former participant wrote that episodes of “House Hunters” <a href="https://utahvalley360.com/2015/04/01/10-things-learned-filmed-hgtvs-house-hunters/">cost around $50,000</a> to film. Prime-time sitcoms, by comparison, have a $1.5 million to $3 million <a href="https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/tv-series-budgets-costs-rising-peak-tv-1202570158/">per episode budget</a>.</p>
<h2>Sidestepping the unions</h2>
<p>That massive budget gap between reality TV and sitcoms is not simply due to an absence of star actors. </p>
<p>Many scripted television shows are based in Los Angeles, where camera crews, stunt doubles, <a href="https://www.motionpicturecostumers.org/">costume artisans</a>, <a href="https://local706.org/about/">makeup artists and hair stylists</a> are unionized. But shows like “House Hunters,” which are filmed across the country, <a href="https://cmii.gsu.edu/files/2017/09/Beck-USG-FINAL-Film-Report-2014.pdf">will recruit crews from right-to-work states</a>. These are states where employees cannot be compelled to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment. For these reasons, unions have far less power in these states than they do in places traditionally associated with film and entertainment, such as California and New York. </p>
<p>That’s one reason why <a href="https://www.stage32.com/blog/acting-in-atlanta-everything-you-need-to-know-2319">TV production</a> started moving to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/20/1189065338/non-union-film-workers-trying-to-break-into-the-atlanta-scene-are-hit-hard-by-st">Atlanta</a> – what’s been dubbed the “<a href="https://time.com/longform/hollywood-in-georgia/">Hollywood of the South</a>” – where shows like “The Walking Dead” and “Stranger Things” have been filmed.</p>
<p>But in my research, I also learned that Knoxville, Tennessee, has become a reality TV mecca. Like Georgia, Tennessee is also a right-to-work state. In Knoxville, many working musicians join the city’s <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1108/9781839827686">low-paying entertainment apparatus</a> by taking gigs working on TV and film production crews in between shows and tours.</p>
<p>At a time when TV writers and actors are on strike, it is important to understand that the entertainment industry will try to exploit labor for profit whenever it can. </p>
<p>Reality TV is a way to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/reruns-reality-fill-out-strike-struck-fall-tv-season-2023-09-07/">undercut the leverage of striking workers</a>, whether it’s through their lack of unionized actors, or their use of nonunionized production crews.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of striking workers yell, hold signs and thrust their arms skyward." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548927/original/file-20230918-17-6dymb1.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">With actors and writers on strike, many networks and streaming services are featuring reality TV-heavy fall lineups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-union-walk-a-news-photo/1532794702?adppopup=true">David McNew/Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Contestants, casts and crew members are starting to catch on. Many reality TV participants have said that they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/08/12/scabs-actors-writers-strike-breakers/">feel like strike scabs</a>, and Bethenny Frankel of “Real Housewives” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/aug/18/we-wont-take-this-any-more-reality-tv-stars-battle-to-unionise">is reportedly trying to organize</a> her fellow reality performers.</p>
<p>Preying off contestants who are desperate for exposure, reality TV might just be the next labor battle in the entertainment industry. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://twitter.com/johnlegend/status/1070158841499840512?s=20">John Legend</a> put it, “Unpaid internships make it so only kids with means and privilege get the valuable experience.” </p>
<p>Reality TV does the same to aspiring actors, musicians and celebrities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Arditi 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>With the TV writers and actors strikes leaving networks with little scripted content, the fall 2023 lineup will be saturated with low-cost reality TV shows like ‘The Voice.’David Arditi, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131112023-09-13T20:35:43Z2023-09-13T20:35:43ZStriking a balance: How the law regulates picket lines<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/striking-a-balance-how-the-law-regulates-picket-lines" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Picket lines are often the most visible feature of a labour dispute. And with the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9867957/summer-strikes-canada/">recent uptick in strike action across the country</a> — from port workers in British Columbia to grocery chain employees in Toronto — Canadians have been more likely than usual to encounter one.</p>
<p>Picket lines are meant to disrupt business as usual, rally support and communicate a message — all in an effort to increase pressure on employers to reach a negotiated settlement.</p>
<p>While picketing is a legal expressive activity, how the right to picket squares with property rights and civil rights is not straightforward. </p>
<p>The common view is that while picketers may carry signs, they may not — or at least, should not — prevent others from crossing picket lines. The reality is more complicated. </p>
<h2>Legal context</h2>
<p>Picketing is almost exclusively regulated by courts. Historically, courts did <a href="https://cbr.cba.org/index.php/cbr/article/view/2368/2368">not look kindly upon picketing</a> and police forces were only too eager to enforce injunctions (court orders) or engage in other efforts to dismantle picket lines.</p>
<p>Today, courts are less keen to use the blunt instrument of an injunction to limit picketing. Intervening too quickly in a labour dispute is now seen as unfairly helping one side, namely employers. This shift in approach was heavily influenced by the connection the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn between picketing and freedom of expression. </p>
<p>According to the Supreme Court, picketing “<a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1945/index.do">always involves expressive action</a>,” which is protected under the guarantee of freedom of expression in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As such, the court ruled that picketing may only be limited to prevent “wrongful acts.”</p>
<p>Courts will consider criminal acts like violence and damage to property as reasons to limit picketing. But wrongful actions also include things like trespassing and nuisance (interfering with others’ lawful right to enter and exit). </p>
<p>Since the main function of a picket line is to discourage others from crossing, delaying others in order to provide the union an opportunity to convey its message is key. </p>
<p>So, how do courts find the right balance between the expressive rights of picketers and the property and civil rights of others — all while ensuring the general safety of everyone involved? Some inconvenience to employers and the public is an essential part of the equation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in jeans, a T-shirt and a ball cap hands a flyer to a passerby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.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">A striking TVO employee hands out flyers on the picket line outside of TVO offices in August 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Striking a balance</h2>
<p>Because the outcomes of judicial interventions are uncertain, employers and unions can benefit from negotiating non-binding picketing protocols in advance of any dispute.</p>
<p>Where they exist, protocols govern how picket lines will operate. For example, an employer may allow picketers to come onto private property to avoid creating dangerous traffic or public safety conditions. Or the parties may agree that people attempting to cross a picket line will be delayed a given amount of time, thereby allowing the union to communicate its message.</p>
<p>In fact, a refusal to even discuss a protocol in advance <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2004/2004canlii2565/2004canlii2565.html?resultIndex=1">may work against the refusing party</a> if a request for an injunction is later filed.</p>
<p>While the role of local police in labour disputes varies, it is now common for them to formally take a neutral stance and play no more than a mediating role with regard to public safety. While police are expected to keep the peace, they <a href="https://www.yrp.ca/en/about/resources/Labour_Disputes_Pamphlet.pdf">are not normally authorized to intervene on behalf of either party</a> engaged in the dispute. </p>
<p>When injunctions are issued, police do intervene to uphold court orders. But workers are generally still permitted to delay traffic, often with the proviso that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/coop-workers-injunction-10-minutes-1.5410026">anyone who doesn’t want to hear the union’s message may proceed at will</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, in issuing an injunction a judge may set further rules, for example, on the number of picketers or where they are permitted to picket.</p>
<p>The same balancing principles apply to <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/metro-seeks-injunction-against-striking-workers-preventing-deliveries-to-stores-1.6535373">secondary picketing</a> (picketing against a third party to increase pressure on the struck employer). </p>
<p>For example, an <a href="https://77b90736.flowpaper.com/MetroOntarioIncvUniforanditsLocal414EndorsementdatedAugpdf/#page=1">injunction recently granted against Unifor,</a> the union representing striking Metro grocery workers in the Toronto area, restricted picketing workers from blockading the company’s distribution centres. </p>
<p>Yet the order still permitted picketers some <a href="https://77b90736.flowpaper.com/InterimOrderofJusticeChalmers/#page=1">leeway to continue stopping vehicles</a> for a prescribed amount of time. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-metro-workers-1.6953627">The workers recently ratified a new collective agreement after their month-long strike</a>.</p>
<h2>Emotions can run high</h2>
<p>Strikes may be inconvenient for the public. For striking workers, they can be highly emotional affairs. If a strike drags on or becomes particularly heated, negotiated protocols and even injunctions <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/regina-coop-refinery-lockout-unifor_ca_5e42f45bc5b6f1f57f1989fd">may be ignored out of frustration, anger or a sense of urgency</a>. </p>
<p>Besides the legal questions at play, union members also stress moral arguments for respecting picket lines. A refusal to do so can <a href="https://macleans.ca/opinion/whats-the-point-of-a-picket-line-to-stop-scabs/">feel like a betrayal</a>, especially when those crossing the line are from within union ranks.</p>
<p>That’s because crossing a picket line almost inevitably weakens the union’s bargaining position, and, ironically, may help to prolong the dispute by alleviating pressure on the employer to come to a negotiated settlement. </p>
<p>“Naming and shaming” replacement workers — known as scabs — also <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13334/index.do">enjoys some constitutional protection</a>. </p>
<p>In short, the politics of picket lines can be complex, especially for members of the public encountering them for the first time. </p>
<p>No one wants a strike or lockout; they are stressful and full of uncertainty. While labour stoppages are typically used as a last resort to overcome a bargaining impasse, they can become lightning rods for unions, employers and members of the public. </p>
<p>Recognizing, however, that competing rights are at play is key to understanding how the law aims to uphold civil and property rights without jeopardizing workers’ freedom of expression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Braley-Rattai receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Savage receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>When it comes to picket lines, courts aim to uphold civil and property rights without jeopardizing workers’ freedom of expression.Alison Braley-Rattai, Associate Professor, Labour studies, Brock UniversityLarry Savage, Professor, Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129132023-09-08T15:58:13Z2023-09-08T15:58:13ZHow unions could help reality TV cast and crew win better pay and working conditions<p>“Just because you can exploit young, doe-eyed talent desperate for the platform TV gives them, it doesn’t mean you should.” Original Real Housewives of New York star Bethany Frankel <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/bethenny-frankel-reality-union-strike-1235674531/">recently issued</a> this rallying call for unionisation of reality TV. She hopes to instigate a “<a href="https://mashable.com/article/reality-tv-reckoning-union-bethenny-frankel">reality reckoning</a>” that will help other unscripted TV performers realise their rights to better pay and working conditions.</p>
<p>And so just as actors and screenwriters are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">going on strike</a> in the US, reality TV stars are asking whether it’s their time to demand better protections and rights as workers. </p>
<p>US union the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists certainly thinks it’s time. It’s <a href="https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-representation-and-protection-reality-performers">supporting Frankel</a> in her fight for reality TV star unionisation. </p>
<p>Our research has <a href="https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/august-2021/film-and-television/grafting-on-love-island/">highlighted the need</a> for a greater focus on the conditions for participants in these shows, who are often filmed in controlled environments (think contestants locked in a house together for weeks without clocks, with meals and free-time restricted) and under contractual arrangements that can involve non-disclosure agreements and tie-ins after the show. </p>
<p>Research into <a href="https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/BU_State_of_Play_2021%20%281%29.pdf">working conditions for production staff</a> in this sector also suggests that long hours, bullying, harassment, sexism, lack of accommodation for childcare, stress and mental health problems are rampant. </p>
<p>Reality television has often been at the centre of screen labour discussions, particularly after its relatively cheap production costs led to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/reehines/2023/05/17/reality-tv-to-the-rescue-amid-writers-strike-abc-and-fox-lean-on-unscripted-shows/?sh=682b15757916">a production boom</a> during the previous Writers Guild of America strike in 2008-9. It was largely regarded as a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118599594.ch2">scab genre</a> by the wider industry as a result. But this time around, reality show participants are making their own demands that could change the nature of television production.</p>
<p>And this is not only a US issue. UK cast members from The Only Way is Essex reportedly <a href="https://employeebenefits.co.uk/towie-boycott-itv-party-pay-dispute/">went on “strike”</a> in 2019. They boycotted ITV’s summer party in protest at the amount they were being paid and <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9603820/itv-towie-stars-strike-low-pay/">are thought to have received</a> a bump in pay within 24 hours.</p>
<p>Even more significantly, in 2011 a French court ruled that participants on Temptation Island (a show where couples are sent to an island to try the single life) should be treated as salaried staff, setting a precedent for <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203843567-10/reality-tv-job-fran%C3%A7ois-jost">considering reality television as work</a>. Discussing the kinds of working conditions they endured, their lawyer, Jérémie Assous, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/france-reality-tv-contestants-ruling">said at the time</a>: “The principle is universal and simple. You cannot make people work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is slavery.” </p>
<p>In 2019, an Australian reality TV participant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/22/house-rules-channel-seven-ordered-to-pay-compensation-to-reality-show-contestant">won her case</a> for compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder against Australian home renovation show House Rules. The broadcaster, Channel 7, had argued contestants were not workers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-house-rules-landmark-ruling-could-trigger-other-workers-compensation-claims-from-reality-tv-stars-125801">New house rules: landmark ruling could trigger other workers' compensation claims from reality TV stars</a>
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<p>While these cases could set precedents for better treatment of people on reality TV shows, their rights are in a grey area that depends on local labour laws in a global TV production industry. Reality television participants as a group have long made money and built brands for the sector, with little compensation for their time and toil. </p>
<p>In the UK, Love Island participants reportedly earn <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/11020100/love-island-prize-contestants-paid/">a £250 weekly fee</a> while on the show – although this seems to have <a href="https://www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/love-island-contestants-weekly-fee-29175531">increased over the years</a>, it’s still well below <a href="https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates">the UK minimum wage</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, the show becomes a platform for <a href="https://www.heart.co.uk/showbiz/celebrities/molly-mae-hague-tommy-fury-net-worth/">the lucky few</a> who launch lucrative (but <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@actrav/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_161381.pdf">precarious</a> careers such as social media influencing, brand endorsements or other lower-level public appearances. But this kind of unwaged “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q31skt">hope labour</a>” is prevalent in the digital economy and creative industries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Blurred image of three couples on a beach on a tv screen, with hand holding remote control in the foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.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">People often sign up for reality TV shows hoping to develop lucrative social media-based careers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/reality-tv-show-stream-on-television-2029589708">Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>What do reality TV workers need?</h2>
<p>Problems around workers’ rights in reality TV come from two directions. </p>
<p>First, concerns about pay and <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/global/rebecca-ferguson-x-factor-itv-ofcom-abuse-1235636204/">the contracts that participants might sign</a>. Some hand over their rights “in perpetuity throughout the universe” – a common legal phrase that indicates the unending ownership rights of these production companies over performances. </p>
<p>During our research, we found a report (not available online) from <a href="https://www.equity.org.uk/">UK union Equity</a> to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-minimum-wage-low-pay-commission-report-2011">Low Pay Commission</a> that said talent show contestants have signed contracts that waive protection over worker time laws via a loophole under the National Minimum Wage Act for competitions.</p>
<p>The second issue is around the treatment of participants during the production process. In the UK this issue was raised as part of <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6345/reality-tv-inquiry/">a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into reality television</a> as a direct result of a number of high-profile suicides linked to reality television. </p>
<p>A subsequent Ofcom consultation led to <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-2/protecting-tv-radio-participants">a change in the Broadcasting Code in 2020</a>. Broadcasters must now demonstrate adequate duty of care and a more robust approach to informed consent. This means placing a greater emphasis on welfare support, mental health and analysis of psychological risk. But this change has not led to a conversation about worker rights and pay.</p>
<h2>Joining a union for reality TV workers</h2>
<p>The UK has fewer long-running reality shows with regular fixed cast members than the US. And given the complexity and uncertainty around reality TV work in general, it remains to be seen how unionisation could apply across multiple formats and sub-genres. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/august-2021/film-and-television/grafting-on-love-island/">it’s still important</a> for duty of care issues to be thought about alongside questions of workers rights, pay and contractual obligations.</p>
<p>As part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project called Re-CARE TV: Reality Television, Working Practices and Duties of Care, we are researching this issue. We are partnering with <a href="https://bectu.org.uk/about/">Bectu</a> (the creative industry workers’ union), to find solutions to improve the <a href="https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/35897/1/BU_State_of_Play_2021%20%281%29.pdf">working conditions of crew</a>. </p>
<p>We are also working with Equity to examine the benefits of more formalised union representation to better inform reality participants of their contractual rights and expectations of care. </p>
<p>It’s important to take this type of entry into a media career seriously so participants and production staff can lay the foundations for a fruitful career – just like people in any other profession. </p>
<p>Reality television has pioneered precarious, competitive, exploitative and non-unionised models of work that are now endemic across the creative industries. So, while it might be surprising that the “scab genre” is now at the forefront of calls for a more caring industry, it is clear that it is about time for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Wood receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI and has previously received funding from the ESRC and British Academy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Newsinger receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI, and has previously received funding from the British Academy and the British Film Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jilly Kay receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI. </span></em></p>Reality TV workers may not need their own union but they could benefit from joining existing unions serving the creative industries.Helen Wood, Professor in Media and Cultural Studies, Aston UniversityJack Newsinger, Associate Professor in Cultural Industries and Media, University of NottinghamJilly Kay, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127422023-09-06T19:05:39Z2023-09-06T19:05:39ZAir traffic control chaos: how human error can lead a tiny glitch to spiral out of control<p>Several thousand passengers were stranded at airports, hotels and connection depots following the recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66644369">system-wide glitch of the UK air traffic control systems</a>. Some passengers were told of flight cancellations in advance, so they could make alternative travel plans. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, following some 2,000 flight cancellations over 48 hours, most passengers were either <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2023-08-29/a-nightmare-passengers-left-sleeping-on-airport-floor-as-flights-cancelled">sleeping on airport floors</a> or sitting on planes which were unable to take off. So what was the glitch and how did it create so much chaos?</p>
<p>The problems appear to have been caused by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/uk-air-traffic-control-failure-what-caused-it-and-who-will-have-to-pay">unusual data in a flight plan</a> submitted into the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) system by a French airline. This data couldn’t be processed because it wasn’t recognised by computers.</p>
<p>But it’s also worth considering whether there were organisational issues. It will be important to know how much senior staff knew about the systems they were in charge of and how proactive they were in addressing the problem.</p>
<p>From the managerial perspective, Nats can be divided into four different units. These are: local, regional, central and top (where the higher level of decision-making occurs). </p>
<p>In principle, controllers should be able to rectify the data error. In practice, a common approach is to mark and hold it temporarily – something called “error parking”. This can mitigate the problem as long as everything else continues to work properly. But this can also cause the error to “grow”, affecting other parts of the system.</p>
<p>This week, Nats released its a <a href="https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/NERL%20Major%20Incident%20Investigation%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf">preliminary report</a> into the incident. Its chief executive Martin Rolfe said the error was “a one in 15 million” event. In a response, transport secretary Mark Harper said he wanted to “echo NATS’s apology to those who were caught up”.</p>
<p>However, the incident will also be subject to <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-air-traffic-system-overhauled-ministers-inquiry-flights-chaos-2580435">investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)</a>. There are some obvious questions to ask. </p>
<p>These focus on the roles played by managers in the identification of glitches and their repair, the quality of training offered to unit controllers, guidelines for standardised operating procedures – documenting day-to-day processes to make them repeatable – and support for resolving glitches.</p>
<p>In December 2013, an air traffic control system failure led authorities to recommend changes to Nats’ “crisis management capabilities” and for it to consider the different ways crises can be handled. A year later, another incident occurred, caused by a fault in software written in the Ada programming language that was developed in the 1980s. </p>
<p>The resulting <a href="https://www.caa.co.uk/media/r42hircd/nats-system-failure-12-12-14-independent-enquiry-final-report-2-0-1.pdf">enquiry report</a> said that “it is evident that neither of these recommendations had been addressed fully”. It made further recommendations to strengthen systems and contingency steps to help ensure they were “sensitive to their impact on the wider aviation system”.</p>
<p>For the most recent incident, the picture remains unclear. But, in my experience as a researcher of management, managers further up the chain can often pay more attention to immediate threats. They may therefore underestimate the impact of accumulated errors, or may not have enough time to monitor them.</p>
<h2>Bigger picture</h2>
<p>There has been stinging criticism of the chaos from figures within the industry, including the director general of the International Air Transport Association, <a href="https://www.cityam.com/former-british-airways-boss-criticises-staggering-air-traffic-control-failure/#:%7E:text=Former%20British%20Airways%20boss%20criticises%20'staggering'%20air%20traffic%20control%20failure,-Guy%20Taylor&text=It%20is%20%E2%80%9Cstaggering%E2%80%9D%20that%20the,from%20Britain's%20air%20traffic%20operator.">Willie Walsh</a>, Ryanair boss <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/ryanair-michael-o-leary-air-traffic-control-b2401251.html">Michael O'Leary</a> and <a href="https://www.cityam.com/easyjet-boss-questions-whether-nats-is-fit-for-purpose-after-air-traffic-control-failure/">Johan Lundgren</a>, chief executive of Easyjet.</p>
<p>“This system should be designed to reject data that’s incorrect, not to collapse,” Walsh explained. Lundgren said a review of the situation should determine whether NATs is “really fit for purpose, not only on the systems but on the technology, on the staffing levels”. O'Leary said the preliminary report into the chaos was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66723586">“full of excuses”</a>.</p>
<p>With that in mind, it’s reasonable to ask questions of managers in charge of the systems and procedures, including whether everything possible was done to avoid the disruption seen during the bank holiday.</p>
<p>Another point to bear in mind: many senior managers – particularly at chief executive and managing director level – are not necessarily technicians. This means that they may not be fully aware of glitches or their potential impacts if the problems have not previously been reported.</p>
<p>Sometimes, front-line workers may have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-6486.00387">reasons not to report problems</a>. For example, they might not be significant enough. Or, employees might feel that raising their heads above the parapet could limit their career opportunities. Unfortunately, as long as the glitch is not salient and the machine still works, people usually ignore it.</p>
<p>What’s currently unclear is the precise role management culture, decision making or an inability by senior staff to understand parts of the system might have played in this – if at all. That will be for the CAA investigation to disentangle. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Problems affecting air traffic control have the potential to spark a crisis of consumer confidence which must be addressed as a matter of urgency. There are a couple of things that should already be happening. </p>
<p>Nats has now apologised to the affected passengers. But managers and authorities should also offer replacement flights, coupons or other objects of comparable value as compensation. A phone line or website should be set up to ease the situation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Air traffic control tower" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546183/original/file-20230904-23-14zua9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&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="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diverse-air-traffic-control-team-working-1978893014">Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Managers have been <a href="https://www.nats.aero/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/NATS-Limited-2022.pdf">improving communication</a> between technicians and non-technicians and should be praised for this change in attitudes. The more two sides talk to each other, the lower the chances of something like this happening again.</p>
<p>However, the damage to the aviation industry from this episode has been severe. The risk for the industry is that passengers affected by the problems may look to alternative forms of transport in the future. In addition, aviation insurers may significantly raise the insurance premium, ultimately affecting the cost of flying for consumers.</p>
<p>The CAA has a very serious job to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirk Chang 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>The chaos caused over the August bank holiday may well have been preventable.Kirk Chang, Professor of Management and Technology, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2123242023-08-31T13:56:29Z2023-08-31T13:56:29ZUnited Auto Workers strike – if it happens – should channel the legacy of Walter Reuther, who led the union at the peak of its power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545293/original/file-20230829-27-rgt0fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=905%2C555%2C3260%2C2298&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Walter Reuther, center, shakes hands with a Ford executive after agreeing on a three-year contract in 1967.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/after-announcement-that-agreement-had-been-reached-by-the-news-photo/517772622?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers are engaged in high-stakes labor negotiations that could lead to the union’s first simultaneous strike against all of Detroit’s Big Three automakers: <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/electric-vehicle-jobs-uaw-strike-biden">General Motors, Ford and Stellantis</a>, the company that owns Chrysler.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/25/uaw-strike-authorization-vote/">decades of making concessions</a> to their employers, the union’s <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2023/08/12/uaw-negotiations-stellantis-leader-pushes-back/70581896007/">demands for pay increases</a> and better benefits exceed what some <a href="https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/08/potential-uaw-strike-would-cost-billions-analysis-shows/">automotive industry executives say are reasonable</a>. Unless the two sides reach an agreement by midnight on Sept. 14, 2023, <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of the 150,000 UAW members</a> employed by the three companies have authorized their leaders to call a strike.</p>
<p>It would be the industry’s first walkout since a <a href="https://www.apnews.com/83b9a7d6f2b04d0da468c97ccf39b095">monthlong GM strike in 2019</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/21/uaw-big-three-automakers-union-contract-negotiations">UAW President Shawn Fain</a>, elected in March 2023, and other new UAW leaders have a decidedly more militant approach than their recent predecessors – some of whom <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">landed in prison</a> after being <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">convicted of embezzling</a> union funds.</p>
<p>As a labor and business 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>, I believe that whether or not the union does hold a strike against one or more of the automakers in the near future, it would benefit from heeding some lessons from its own past. In particular, it should consider the legacy of <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p066269">Walter Reuther</a>, the labor leader who served as the UAW’s president from 1946 until his death in 1970. By balancing his vision and aspirations with pragmatism, Reuther showed that bold labor leaders can score big wins.</p>
<h2>Miscalculations can be costly for workers</h2>
<p>Although strikes can lead to victories, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.867">workers can end up worse off</a> than they would have been had they not walked off the job. People who go on strike can even end up unemployed. That means unions must carefully calculate whether the risk of going on strike is worth taking.</p>
<p><a href="https://jacobin.com/2021/08/reagan-patco-1981-strike-legacy-air-traffic-controllers-union-public-sector-strikebreaking">Strikes that fail to meet their objectives</a>, often due to miscalculations by unions of their power to win concessions from employers, litter U.S. labor history. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2006.0140">failures were particularly common in the 1980s and 1990s</a>, as companies and other employers demanded concessions and replaced workers during and after strikes.</p>
<p>That trend began with the ill-fated strike by 11,500 air traffic controllers in August 1981. Soon after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/robert-poli-who-led-air-traffic-controllers-union-in-1981-strike-dies-at-78/2014/09/23/8ccd0e44-4267-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html">Robert E. Poli assumed its presidency</a>, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers went on strike. The union, known as PATCO, underestimated President Ronald Reagan’s resolve and <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-patco-strike-reagan-and-the-roots-of-labors-decline">overestimated its members own irreplaceability</a>.</p>
<p>Reagan’s swift termination of the striking workers and his success in replacing them with new employees destroyed PATCO and normalized the replacement of strikers by employers.</p>
<p>More strikes would lead to similar failures, including one by <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6mtdg6.15">Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota</a>, which lasted 13 months starting in August 1985. A <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1100889856">15-month walkout by International Paper workers</a> at several plants in 1987 and 1988 was also disastrous for the strikers.</p>
<p>In both cases, the local union leaders launched prolonged strikes over corporate demands for wage cuts and other givebacks to compete with their lower-cost nonunion rivals. The unions underestimated management’s resolve and proved incapable of conducting effective publicity campaigns or <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6mtdg6.15">applying other kinds of pressure to combat the companies</a>. </p>
<p>The companies fired strikers, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1986/02/16/the-hormel-strike-was-doomed/eaf87a1c-b393-44d7-aedd-6316cd8078e9/">replacing them permanently</a> with other workers.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Walter Reuther</h2>
<p>A UAW strike today could also miss the mark, given that Detroit’s Big Three face <a href="https://www.carpro.com/blog/full-year-2021-sales-report-with-most-brands-reporting">relentless competition from foreign automakers</a>, along with <a href="https://evadoption.com/ev-sales/evs-percent-of-vehicle-sales-by-brand/">Tesla and newer U.S.-based companies that only manufacture electric vehicles</a>. What’s more, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/13/ford-vs-gm-same-industry-two-increasingly-different-companies.html">GM, Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/february/stellantis-announces-155-million-investment-in-three-indiana-plants-to-support-north-american-electrification-goals">Stellantis are spending billions</a> to phase in large-scale EV production.</p>
<p>Here are three lessons that I believe Fain and other UAW leaders should draw from Reuther’s legacy:</p>
<p><strong>1: Articulate a clear vision</strong></p>
<p>In 1945, a year before he became the UAW’s longest-serving president, Reuther led <a href="https://www.apnews.com/83b9a7d6f2b04d0da468c97ccf39b095">320,000 GM workers on a 113-day strike</a> that ended with pay raises, overtime compensation and paid vacation days. The way he spelled out the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/26295254">philosophy behind the strike</a> helped inspire the workers’ confidence.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://jamesteneyck.com/walter-reuther/">autoworkers had done their part to win World War II</a>, Reuther later said, they struck for “the right of a worker to share – not as a matter of collective bargaining muscle, but as a matter of right – to share in the fruits of advancing technology.” </p>
<p>Like <a href="https://uaw.org/walter-reuther-quote-collection/">many of Reuther’s poignant comments</a>, those words still resonate today as technology upends the automotive industry.</p>
<p><strong>2: Recognize the limits of what’s within reach</strong></p>
<p>In 1950, following a <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/strikes-lordstown-haymarket-pullman-shirtwaist-uaw-ufw-afl?language_content_entity=en">102-day strike by 95,000 Chrysler workers</a>, Reuther negotiated breakthrough agreements with GM, Ford and Chrysler known collectively as the “<a href="https://jacobin.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-colleges-union-walter-reuther-treaty-detroit/">Treaty of Detroit</a>.” The pacts included big increases in wages, health care benefits and retirement pensions. </p>
<p>But pragmatism tempered Reuther’s determination to achieve all the union’s objectives. He knew when to strike and when to settle. Reuther understood the union’s capacity to hold a strike and how much harm it could inflict upon a company before the costs became prohibitive for both sides.</p>
<p>He used strikes strategically, knew which company to target – and when. Reuther knew to settle when the union’s ability to push a company for further concessions had reached a ceiling beyond which the losses on both sides exceed any possible future gains.</p>
<p>And he realized that worker priorities that could not be won in a current round of bargaining could be pushed to the next. Reuther understood that autoworkers and their employers depended on each other to make progress. </p>
<p><strong>3: Balance competing interests</strong></p>
<p>Reuther also understood the limits of the UAW’s power, and he knew how to bargain for a contract that both autoworkers and automotive executives could accept.</p>
<p>In a speech he made on Labor Day in 1958, <a href="http://reuther100.wayne.edu/pdf/Labor_Day_Address.pdf">Reuther defined
labor’s task</a> as “to cooperate in creating and sharing abundance … [which] requires working out a proper balance between competing equities of workers, stockholders and consumers.”</p>
<h2>New reality</h2>
<p>Reuther’s reign coincided with Detroit’s dominance. <a href="https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/animated-chart-of-the-day-market-shares-of-us-auto-sales-1961-to-2016/">At least 85% of the vehicles U.S. drivers bought</a> through the mid-1960s were made by the Big Three automakers.</p>
<p>Those companies’ total U.S. market share is less than half of that now – a total of about 41%, with <a href="https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gm-continued-gain-us-market-share-and-extended-its-truck">16% for GM</a>, <a href="https://www.cascade.app/studies/ford-strategy-study">14% for Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.stellantis.com/content/dam/stellantis-corporate/investors/events-and-presentations/presentations/Stellantis_FY_22_Results_Presentation.pdf">11% for Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>Autoworkers also wield less power today than they did back then.</p>
<p>UAW membership has dwindled to fewer than 400,000 members, including the 150,0000 people directly employed by GM, Ford and Stellantis who may soon go on strike. Some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/united-auto-workers-union-raises-dues-first-time-47-years-n121586">1.5 million workers belonged to the union</a> at its 1979 peak. Unions represent <a href="https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/united-auto-workers-union-membership-rose-3-in-2022-to-383000/">only 16% of the workers employed in the U.S. motor vehicle and parts industry</a> in 2022, down from nearly 60% in 1983.</p>
<p>GM, Ford and Stellantis have <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/08/17/ford-salaried-workers-parts-warehouses-depot-uaw-strike-jobs/70601006007/">vowed to resist any demands they deem unreasonable</a>. Both labor and management could incur potentially substantial losses in a strike, which would compound over time. Even a 10-day strike could cause an estimated <a href="https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/10-day-uaw-strike-against-big-three-could-cause-economic-losses-exceeding-5-billion/">US$5 billion in economic damage</a> or more, according to the Anderson Economic Group consulting firm.</p>
<p>I believe that the path to a settlement requires understanding how an avoidable strike would put both sides behind, while their competitors move forward.</p>
<p>And I keep on wondering what Walter Reuther would do – and whether Shawn Fain is doing that too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marick Masters is the director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University. The university has received contributions from the joint training funds from the UAW and the Big Three to support education in labor-management relations. These contributions were used strictly for this purpose.</span></em></p>Reuther was both ambitious and pragmatic, scoring many victories for autoworkers.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/2124322023-08-29T21:51:40Z2023-08-29T21:51:40ZFor Ontario teachers, arbitration is no substitute for the right to strike<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/for-ontario-teachers-arbitration-is-no-substitute-for-the-right-to-strike" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/public-high-school-teachers-union-ontario-1.6948090">recently made headlines</a> after reaching an agreement with the Ontario government to avoid the possibility of a strike in its current round of negotiations. </p>
<p>In short, the parties agreed to enter into binding interest arbitration to resolve any outstanding issues should they fail to reach a negotiated settlement <a href="https://www.osstf.on.ca/en-CA/news/osstf-feeso-to-hold-membership-vote-on-process-to-resolve-bargaining-with-ford-government.aspx">by Oct. 27, 2023</a>. OSSTF members will soon vote on whether to pursue this process.</p>
<p>On the surface, interest arbitration is appealing because it allows the parties to avoid a labour dispute and hands responsibility for resolving outstanding contentious issues to a neutral third party. </p>
<p>However, there are many reasons why trading the right to strike for binding interest arbitration is a minefield for unions — and why we as <a href="https://twitter.com/Prof_Savage/status/1695283811095818698?s=20">labour</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/stephross_mac/status/1695462096278827483?s=20">scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.rankandfile.ca/arbitration-tactic-a-mistake-says-osstf-member">some OSSTF members</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/malcolmcurc/status/1695601635584582109?s=20">and retirees</a> have been left scratching our heads at OSSTF’s decision. </p>
<h2>Outstanding bargaining issues</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/collective-bargaining#section-5">Interest arbitration</a> is a mechanism for resolving outstanding bargaining issues. It’s most commonly used in instances where essential workers like firefighters or nurses are legally denied the right to strike. Less often, unions and employers use interest arbitration to achieve a first contract or resolve a contentious strike. </p>
<p>Once the parties negotiate to impasse, a neutral third party — the arbitrator — is called in to settle the outstanding issues. The result is binding on both parties. </p>
<p>In the case of OSSTF’s recent agreement with the province, it had not bargained to impasse, let alone conducted a strike vote to test members’ resolve and try to change the employer’s position. </p>
<h2>Interest arbitration is no panacea</h2>
<p>Interest arbitration is seductive for unions given recent decisions that have awarded <a href="https://www.ona.org/wp-content/uploads/participating-hospitals-ona-2023-hospital-decision.pdf">major wage increases to Ontario nurses</a> <a href="https://ochu.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/OHA-OCHU-SEIU-Award48-1-1.pdf">and other health-care workers</a> to compensate for <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-bill-124-ontario-public-sector-wage-increase/">the effects of Bill 124</a>, which capped public sector wage increases at one per cent per year and has been deemed unconstitutional. </p>
<p>For workers whose <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/workers%E2%80%99-wages-haven%E2%80%99t-kept-rising-inflation-report">wages have fallen behind</a> over many years, the prospect of catching up without having to build for a potential strike is tantalizing.</p>
<h2>Demobilizes unions</h2>
<p>However, there are at least four reasons why prematurely agreeing to binding interest arbitration is highly problematic for unions. </p>
<p>First, it normalizes the idea that the right to strike is unnecessary. That kind of thinking demobilizes unions and renders members passive. Because the arbitrator’s decision is binding, members don’t get to vote on the final settlement and therefore become mere bystanders. In short, interest arbitration ignores the key to unions’ power — an organized and mobilized membership. </p>
<p>Second, reliance on interest arbitration can actually increase bargaining impasses by reducing the incentive to negotiate terms that both parties can live with. If a third party is going to decide what the contract says, why budge from one’s initial bargaining position? </p>
<p>Researchers call this the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23071347">“narcotic effect”</a> because both unions and management become dependent on interest arbitration to decide contract terms. The problem is that imposed settlements rarely resolve the underlying conflicts.</p>
<p>Interest arbitration is an inherently conservative process. There is no guarantee that wage increases in one sector will be reproduced in others. Furthermore, arbitration is a <a href="https://www.etfo.ca/news-publications/media-releases/joint-statement-aefo-oecta-etfo">poor mechanism for addressing deeper issues</a> like the lack of investment in public services, which underpins the real problems so many public sector workers face. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-high-schools-are-underfunded-and-turning-to-international-tuition-to-help-127753">Canada's high schools are underfunded and turning to international tuition to help</a>
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<h2>Inherently conservative process</h2>
<p>Third, while the current context may yield decent arbitration awards, <a href="https://www.cdhowe.org/public-policy-research/time-tweak-or-re-boot-assessing-interest-arbitration-process-canadian-industrial-relations">especially on wages</a> and benefits, the economic landscape is constantly changing. What may seem like a good tactic this time around may prove disadvantageous in the long term. Changing course in future rounds of bargaining may become difficult if leaders and members become invested in arbitration as the primary process for resolving contentious issues. </p>
<p>Finally, arbitration is based on comparisons. That means the quality of arbitration awards is dependent on the relative success of other unions at the bargaining table to set good wages, some of whom are forced to use the right to strike to reach settlements that meet their members’ needs. </p>
<p>In other words, good agreements for arbitrators to use as comparisons require someone leading the way. Unions that resort to interest arbitration by choice are essentially free riding on other unions that have preserved their right to strike to secure improved terms and conditions of work. </p>
<h2>Union bargaining power has increased</h2>
<p>The choice to opt for interest arbitration is even more perplexing given that the <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/unions-say-ontario-teachers-likely-won-t-have-contracts-before-school-year-citing-slow-pace-of-bargaining-1.6515694">conditions for unions</a> to win big gains at the bargaining table are better than they’ve been in decades. </p>
<p>Inflation generates a lot of sympathy for workers whose wages are not keeping pace. A tight labour market also gives workers increased leverage. Workers <a href="https://thebigstorypodcast.ca/2023/07/28/the-labour-movement-is-back-baby-or-is-it/">across the economy</a> are using their right to strike to get ahead. </p>
<p>Forfeiting the right to strike and choosing interest arbitration effectively undermines the bargaining position of other unions and helps fuel divide-and-conquer labour relations strategies. </p>
<h2>Giving up rights?</h2>
<p>In the case of the OSSTF, the Ontario government has already used its deal with the union to <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/ontario-teachers-reject-stephen-lecce-s-appeal-to-use-binding-arbitration-to-get-deals/article_cf846000-413a-5abb-9fb4-bd1ba3bffc5e.html?li_medium=politics&li_source=LI">pressure other education unions</a> to follow suit. </p>
<p>In recent years, unions have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cupe-strike-labour-board-ruling-expected-1.6642824#:%7E:text=Ontario%20schools%20are%20set%20to,and%20banned%20them%20from%20striking">won hard-fought battles</a> against governments’ attempts to strip away workers’ rights to bargain and strike. </p>
<p>After all this effort, voluntarily giving away these rights and turning over all the power to an arbitrator seems unthinkable. Anti-union governments don’t have to worry about restricting the right to strike if unions are simply willing to give up that right in exchange for the crutch of interest arbitration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Ross receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Savage receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Trading the right to strike for binding interest arbitration is a minefield for unions.Stephanie Ross, Associate Professor, School of Labour Studies, McMaster UniversityLarry Savage, Professor, Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2124182023-08-29T20:59:04Z2023-08-29T20:59:04ZTVO strike highlights the scourge of contract work in public service journalism<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/tvo-strike-highlights-the-scourge-of-contract-work-in-public-service-journalism" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/tvo-producers-content-creators-hit-the-picket-lines-in-first-strike-at-public-broadcaster/article_fd4fd063-21d4-57db-87d8-b6d95dab4b7c.html">Workers at TVO are on strike for the first time in the public broadcaster’s 53-year history</a>. </p>
<p>Amid the din of traffic outside TVO’s offices in Toronto, unionized journalists, producers and education workers hold picket signs declaring: “Fund TVO Like it Matters.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1693730576140747242"}"></div></p>
<p>TVO’s contract with the union, a branch of the Canadian Media Guild, expired in October. After months of negotiations, workers are striking to improve wages and to address precarious employment. </p>
<p>The union says that workers <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/cmg-members-at-tvo-in-legal-strike-position-on-friday-august-18-802546892.html">have received below-inflation wage increases since 2012</a>, including zero increases between 2012-2014. </p>
<p>I spoke to a producer who has worked at TVO’s flagship current affairs show, <em>The Agenda</em>, for 22 years and earns $74,000. </p>
<h2>Wages shrinking</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DanielKitts/status/1695548363922366865">In a video posted to social media</a>, digital journalist Daniel Kitts, who has worked at TVO for 25 years, says: “For the past 10 years we have tried to… support this organization by seeing our wages shrink basically every year thanks to inflation. And after 10 years, we just can’t do it again.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1695548363922366865"}"></div></p>
<p>Another crucial issue in the dispute is <a href="https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/labour-relations/tvo-workers-go-on-strike-as-contract-issues-continue/378985">temporary and precarious employment</a>, when workers are kept on perpetual contracts with no hope of their position becoming permanent. </p>
<p>TVO workers say these contracts prevent them from doing the kind of rigorous, civic journalism and current affairs programming that serves communities in Ontario. </p>
<p>In a news ecosystem where traditional advertising revenue is down, outlets chase clicks at the whims of platforms like Meta and X and disinformation circulates widely, the need for quality, fact-based public affairs programming is particularly urgent.</p>
<h2>The risks of precarious work</h2>
<p>In their <a href="https://pepso.ca/documents/precarity-penalty.pdf">2015 study</a> of precarious employment in southern Ontario, researchers found it has collective, cumulative effects on communities in what they call a precarity penalty. </p>
<p>People in precarious employment earn low incomes, face intermittent and insecure work, lack access to benefits and training and endure stress, social isolation and poor mental health. </p>
<p>Such pressures on individual lives shapes people’s participation in community life, and precarity becomes a burden borne by society at large. </p>
<p>Striking TVO workers are drawing attention to journalism’s precarity penalty: the consequences for robust journalism when the work of producing journalism is made precarious.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in jeans, a T-shirt and a ball cap hands a flyer to a passerby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.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">A striking TVO employee hands out flyers on the picket line outside of TVO offices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At issue at TVO is funding. <a href="https://tvo.me/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2021-22-TVO-ANNUAL-REPORT-ENG.pdf">TVO is funded</a> via a provincial Crown Corporation and reports to the Ministry of Education. It receives a base operating grant of $38.3 million annually, but funding hasn’t increased as costs and inflation have risen.</p>
<p>Rank-and-file workers are feeling the squeeze as <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/tvo-management-gets-double-digit-pay-increases-while-asking-unionized-employees-to-take-another-pay-cut-890131220.html">senior managers receive above-inflation raises</a>. <em>The Agenda</em> host Steve Paikin told CBC Ottawa that when he joined TVO 30 years ago, there were 650 people working at TVO. Now there are about 250. “I’m really nervous about the place being squeezed any further,” he said.</p>
<h2>TVO’s contract workers</h2>
<p><a href="https://tvo.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Multi-Year-Plan-2021-2024-AODA-English.pdf">The government wants to see TVO increase “self-generated revenue,</a>” including donations and sponsorships. But precarious employment is baked into this model, TVO union branch president Meredith Martin told me. </p>
<p>As money comes in for specific projects, workers are hired on contract. When the project ends, so do the contracts. No one is made permanent in such an unstable funding environment. </p>
<p>TVO wants the union to give up language that enables workers on contract for two years to become full-time employees, eligible for benefits and other protections. Martin has seen first-hand the problems the contract model brings to the workplace: high staff turnover, low morale and an inability for workers to invest in quality work. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A TVO sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.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">TVO signage is seen at Canada Square in Toronto. Almost 96 per cent of CMG’s members at TVO rejected an offer from the employer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In journalism, precarity is manifold. Insecure work prevents people from establishing themselves in an organization and accessing career supports. Precariously employed journalists can’t contribute meaningfully to teams, speak out against sexism and racism at work or enjoy professional autonomy. </p>
<p>Employment insecurity is linked to industrial precariousness, where technological and economic changes spur management to shrink journalists’ wages and job security. As profits decline and labour forces contract, fewer journalists are in secure positions and increasing numbers of workers are on contract or freelance.</p>
<h2>The impact on diverse communities</h2>
<p><a href="https://caj.ca/programs/diversity-survey/">Two successive annual surveys</a> by the Canadian Association of Journalists show that women, racialized, Indigenous, queer and trans journalists are concentrated in the most precarious positions, making it difficult to meaningfully diversify journalism in Canada. </p>
<p>Journalists, researchers and advocates have long been calling for increased racial and gender diversity in journalism, demanding that newsrooms represent the communities they report on. Precarity is an impediment to such diversity. </p>
<p>Public, non-profit outlets like TVO can and should become model employers, committed to producing journalism in the public interest and providing workers, particularly those from diverse communities, with the sustainable jobs necessary to do so. (The CBC is also <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/05/09/CBC-Temp-Workers/">under fire</a> for maintaining a permanent underclass of temporary workers). </p>
<p>TVO workers are part of a broader movement to protect journalism via unionization. Since 2015, <a href="https://culturalworkersorganize.org/digital-media-organizing-timeline/">more than 150 newsrooms</a> in Canada and the United States have organized unions.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1483827428145381388"}"></div></p>
<p>In my review of their contracts, I find many examples of language that converts contract workers into full-time permanent workers after a set period, usually 12 months. This type of language is becoming the industry standard, negotiated by worker-led bargaining committees to gain some stability in an unstable industry. </p>
<p>Although work in journalism has never been a safe bet, it’s now rife with deepening uncertainty. In this context, TVO workers’ strike for material security to do work in the public interest matters more than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Cohen has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Although work in journalism has never been a safe bet, it’s now rife with deepening uncertainty. The TVO strike aimed at job security is a matter of public interest.Nicole Cohen, Associate Professor, Communication, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106732023-08-24T12:34:25Z2023-08-24T12:34:25ZWaves of strikes rippling across the US seem big, but the total number of Americans walking off the job remains historically low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543806/original/file-20230821-29867-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C282%2C2946%2C1949&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in New York City in 1958.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/STRIKEWOMENGARMENTWORKERS/c439c0641fe5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=1950%20strike&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=46&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/labor-strikes-compare-unions-past/">More than 323,000 workers</a> – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, hotel cleaners and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/california-labor-strikes.html">during the first eight months of 2023</a>. Hundreds of thousands of the employees of <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">delivery giant UPS</a> would have gone on strike, too, had they not reached a last-minute agreement. And nearly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-workers-may-vote-strike-detroit-three-automakers-next-week-2023-08-15/">150,000 autoworkers</a> may go on a strike of historic proportions in mid-September if the United Autoworkers Union and General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler – don’t agree on a new contract soon.</p>
<p>This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">lull in U.S. strikes</a> and a <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/union-membership">decline in union membership</a> that began in the 1970s. Today’s strikes may seem unprecedented, especially if you’re under 50. While this wave constitutes a significant change following <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decades of unions’ losing ground</a>, it’s far from unprecedented.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=w6GUu_EAAAAJ">We’re sociologists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69FEXj0AAAAJ&hl=en">study the history of U.S. labor movements</a>. In our new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">Union Booms and Busts</a>,” we explore the reasons for swings in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">the share of working Americans in unions</a> between 1900 and 2015. </p>
<p>We see the rising number of strikes today as a sign that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers at a rally carrying strike signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.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">Maryam Rouillard puts her fist in the air on Aug. 8, 2023, while taking part in a one-day strike by Los Angeles municipal workers to protest contract negotiations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-hearse-on-5th-avenue-with-a-sign-that-reads-new-news-photo/1311461424?adppopup=true">Apu Gomes/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Millions on strike</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">number of U.S. workers who go on strike in a given year</a> varies greatly but generally follows broader trends. After World War II ended, through 1981, between 1 million and 4 million Americans went on strike annually. By 1990, that number had plummeted. In some years, it fell below 100,000.</p>
<p>Workers by that point were clearly on the defensive for several reasons. </p>
<p>One dramatic turning point was the showdown between President Ronald Reagan and the country’s air traffic controllers, which culminated in a 1981 strike by their union – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5604656/1981-strike-leaves-legacy-for-american-workers">Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization</a>. Like many public workers, air traffic controllers did not have the right to strike, but they called one anyway because of safety concerns and other reasons. Reagan depicted the union as disloyal and ordered that all of PATCO’s striking members be fired. The government turned to supervisors and military controllers as their replacements and <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">decertified the union</a>.</p>
<p>That episode sent a strong message to employers that permanently replacing striking workers in certain situations would be tolerated.</p>
<p>There were also many <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/labor-relations-striking-balance-budd/M9781260260502.html">court rulings and new laws</a> that favored big business over labor rights. These included the passage of so-called <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">right-to-work laws</a> that provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces – without requiring the payment of union dues. Many conservative states, like South Dakota and Mississippi, have these laws on the books, along with states with more liberal voters – such as Wisconsin.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/union-membership-drops-to-record-low-in-2022-00078525">union membership plunged</a> from <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47596.html">34.2% of the labor force in 1945</a> to around 10% in 2010, workers became less likely to go on strike.</p>
<p>Wages kept up with productivity gains when unions were stronger than they are today. Wages increased 91.3% as productivity grew by 96.7% between 1948 and 1973. That changed once union membership began to tumble. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">Wages stagnated</a> from 1973 to 2013, rising only 9.2% even as productivity grew by 74.4%.</p>
<p><iframe id="euMoy" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/euMoy/8/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Prime conditions</h2>
<p>In general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398203500402">strikes grow more common when economic conditions change</a> in ways that empower workers. That’s especially true with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-47d74791145f0224280ffe908b6e820a">tight labor markets</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-wholesale-federal-reserve-interest-rates-consumers-1838b302c99045749b0597853886d32c">high inflation</a> seen in the U.S. in recent years.</p>
<p>When there are fewer candidates available for every open job and prices are rising, workers become bolder in their demands for higher wages and benefits.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/800649">Political and legal factors</a> can play a role, too. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/">New Deal enhanced unions’ ability to organize</a>. During World War II, unions agreed to a no-strike pledge – although some workers continued to go on strike.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">workers who went on strike peaked in 1946</a>, a year after the war ended. Conditions were ripe for labor actions at that point for several reasons. The economy was no longer so dedicated to supplying the military, pro-union New Deal legislation was still intact and <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/podcasts/best-my-ability-podcast/season-2-archive/episode-5-strike-wave">wartime strike restrictions</a> were lifted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Reagan’s crushing of the PATCO strike gave employers a green light to permanently replace striking workers in <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes">situations in which doing that was legal</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, as we describe in our book, employers can take many steps to discourage strikes. But labor organizers can sometimes overcome management’s resistance with creative strategies.</p>
<h2>New economic equations</h2>
<p>Between 1983 and 2022, the share of U.S. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">workers who belonged to unions fell by half, from 20.1%</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/19/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people=">10.1%</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t reverse that decline, but it did change the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-job-vacancies-pay-raises-wage-war-74d1689d573e298be32f3848fcc88f46">balance of power between employers and workers</a> in other ways.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">great resignation</a>,” a surge in the number of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic, now seems to be over, or at least cooling down. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm">unemployed people for every job opening</a> reached 4.9 in April 2020, plummeted to 0.5 in December 2021, and has remained low ever since. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many workers have become more dissatisfied with their wages. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">strikes by teachers</a> that ramped up in 2018 responded to that frustration. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA">U.S. inflation, which soared to 8% in 2022</a>, has eroded workers’ purchasing power while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">company profits</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">economic inequality</a> have continued to soar. </p>
<p>Technological breakthroughs that leave workers behind are also contributing to today’s strikes, as they did in other periods.</p>
<p>We’ve studied the role technology played in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">printers’ strikes</a> of the 1890s following the introduction of the linotype machine, which reduced the need for skilled workers, and the <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/dock/1971_strike_history.shtml">longshoremen strike of 1971</a>, which was spurred by a drastic workforce reduction brought about by the <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-history-of-containerization-in-the-shipping-industry/">introduction of shipping containers</a> to transport cargo.</p>
<p>Those are among countless precedents for what’s happening now with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-actors-strike-ca3e3eddc910f1e52d618e5e3c394554">actors and screenwriters</a>. Their strikes hinge on the financial implications of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/residuals-hollywood-strike-actors-writers-7c32f386c910a11db4324875d99dc366">streaming in film and television</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">artificial intelligence in the production</a> of movies and shows.</p>
<p>Working conditions, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">health and safety concerns and time off</a>, have also been at the root of many recent strikes.</p>
<p>Health care workers, for example, are going on strike over safe <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nurses-strike-new-jersey-394eb774eea0add0a60c272c5b7819ac">staffing levels</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/railroad-paid-sick-time-negotiations-norfolk-southern-70327831f881dcf86a43e05d22a5bdd5">rail workers</a> voted to strike over sick days and time off, they but were blocked from walking off the job by a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/">U.S. Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s signature</a>.</p>
<p>Time and again, when the conditions have been right, U.S. workers have gone on strike and won. Sometimes more strikes have followed, in waves that can transform workers’ lives. But it’s too early to know how big this wave will become.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stepan-Norris received funding from the National Science Foundation and the University of California.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Kerrissey previously received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for data collection.</span></em></p>Many of the reasons for strikes now – low compensation, technological change, job insecurity and safety concerns – mirror the motives that workers had for walking off the job in decades past.Judith Stepan-Norris, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, IrvineJasmine Kerrissey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Director of the Labor Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098192023-07-20T12:31:46Z2023-07-20T12:31:46ZUPS impasse with union could deliver a costly strike, disrupting brick-and-mortar businesses as well as e-commerce<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538363/original/file-20230719-19-vsufa7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5514%2C3689&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Placards are part and parcel of a protest.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UPSLaborTalks/80443caf79fb48a894d4acfd6de53333/photo?Query=UPS%20teamsters&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=67&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Brittainy Newman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Talks between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and UPS over a new contract <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/business/ups-teamsters-negotiations/index.html">fell apart on July 5, 2023</a>. The union and the shipping and logistics company are <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ups-teamsters-talks-collapse">blaming each other for the collapse</a>, which occurred a few weeks after <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/06/teamsters-authorize-strike-at-ups/">97% of UPS’s Teamsters voted to strike</a> if the Teamsters and UPS don’t reach an agreement by midnight on July 31.</em></p>
<p><em>Without a deal in place, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-strike-teamsters-biden-delivery-cb586d2f6160a92cda9318d6290ac8ea">more than 300,000 Teamsters will stop working</a> on Aug. 1. It would mark the delivery service’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X9902400106">first strike since 1997</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g_BdG-cAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Jason Miller</a>, a supply chain scholar at Michigan State University, to explain how likely it is that this will happen and what to expect if it does.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A uniformed employee sits in the driver's seat of a truck with UPS written on the side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538368/original/file-20230719-25-2rc536.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">Upward of 300,000 employees could take part in a strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UPSLaborTalks/8d7eac1a06f94afc932a2cecab27a173/photo?Query=UPS%20teamsters&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=67&currentItemNo=28">AP Photo/Michael Dwyer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the reasons for this impending strike?</h2>
<p>Before the talks collapsed, both sides had been negotiating extensively on a new five-year agreement that <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/07/11/ups-strike-2023-impact/70400086007/">would cover about 340,000 unionized UPS workers</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fleetowner.com/operations/article/21269359/freightmarket-ripples-ahead-of-possible-ups-strike">The delivery company has agreed to some of the Teamsters’ demands</a>, pledging to:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>End a two-tiered wage system in which part-time workers earn an average of about US$5 per hour less than full-time workers;</p></li>
<li><p>Make <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/15-year-battle-martin-luther-king-jr-day">Martin Luther King Jr. Day</a>, the third Monday of January, a paid holiday;</p></li>
<li><p>Stop requiring UPS employees to work <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-strike-labor-contract-teamsters-3438edf86cb006a1685e29822399a4d9">overtime hours on their days off</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>Add fans and install <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/06/teamsters-secure-air-conditioning-for-ups-fleet-in-major-tentative-deal/">air conditioning in many trucks</a> to improve cooling.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The primary remaining sticking points concern <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBCOvertime/status/1678505073641390080?">part-time workers</a>. The Teamsters dispute UPS’s claim that part-time workers earn an average of $20 per hour. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien instead says they’re paid “<a href="https://twitter.com/Teamsters/status/1678799645336543233">poverty wages</a>.”</p>
<p>The Teamsters further want part-time workers to have earlier access to health insurance coverage and pension plans and a clearer pathway to full-time employment. The union also seeks to resolve safety and health concerns and “better pay for all workers,” as well as obtaining “<a href="https://teamster.org/2023/06/ups-pleads-to-keep-bargaining-with-more-money-teamsters-demand-more-progress/">stronger protections against managerial harassment</a>.”</p>
<p>The impasse comes after two years in which UPS posted record profits. The company cleared <a href="https://investors.ups.com/sec-filings/annual-filings/content/0001090727-23-000006/0001090727-23-000006.pdf">$12.9 billion and $11.5 billion</a>, respectively, in 2021 and 2022. The company <a href="https://investors.ups.com/sec-filings/annual-filings/content/0001090727-20-000005/0001090727-20-000005.pdf">nearly tripled its net income</a> from the levels seen in 2018 and 2019 of $4.8 billion and $4.4 billion.</p>
<p>The Teamsters argue that these record profits mean <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/07/after-marathon-sessions-ups-negotiations-collapse/">UPS can afford to pay higher wages</a>.</p>
<h2>What should consumers expect?</h2>
<p>If unionized UPS workers do go on strike, many U.S. consumers will surely fear delays in the delivery of their online purchases. In my view, that’s a reasonable concern, given that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/07/business/ups-strike-retail-shippers.html">UPS handles roughly 25%</a> of all U.S. package deliveries. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/US/9708/20/ups.update.early/">1997 strike, which lasted 16 days</a>, took place when e-commerce was in its infancy. The Census Bureau only began to track that slice of the economy in 1999, when <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ECOMPCTSA">online shopping amounted to about 0.6% of all retail sales</a>. Today, consumers spend about 15% of their shopping dollars on e-commerce purchases.</p>
<p>If a strike were to happen, UPS competitors, including FexEx Ground and the United States Postal Service, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jason-miller-32110325_supplychain-supplychainmanagement-ecommerce-activity-7084504099454390272-3iwR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop">would likely be able to handle about 20%</a> of UPS’s deliveries because the industry currently has some excess capacity. </p>
<p>That’s due to delivery <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES4349200007?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&include_graphs=true">workers clocking fewer hours per week</a> today compared to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES4349200034?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&include_graphs=true">Parcel delivery demand peaked in 2021</a>, when millions of Americans were still social distancing. </p>
<p>If a prolonged strike happens, UPS could lose up to <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/consultant-strike-could-cost-ups-30-of-diverted-volume">30% of its business</a>, experts warn, as <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fedex-advises-ups-shippers-to-get-on-board-now">customers switch to rival services</a>.</p>
<p>The risk of losing market share is leading many industry experts to believe that if a strike were to occur, <a href="https://www.fleetowner.com/operations/article/21269359/freightmarket-ripples-ahead-of-possible-ups-strike">it wouldn’t last long</a>.</p>
<h2>What about businesses?</h2>
<p>Roughly 57.3% of the packages UPS delivers <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tough-quarter-starts-the-year-for-ups">are shipped straight to consumers</a>. The rest go to retailers and other businesses.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=g_BdG-cAAAAJ">my years of researching</a> transportation operations and supply chain disruptions, I believe Americans should recognize that the impact of a UPS strike would stretch far beyond delayed delivery of everything from pet food to tennis rackets that they buy online.</p>
<p>A UPS strike could disrupt the availability of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/07/11/ups-strike-2023-impact/70400086007/">spare parts for cars</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1187354600/ups-workers-could-be-on-course-for-a-historic-strike-within-weeks">wholesale medical supplies</a>, just to name a few essentials. Consumers will also find it harder to get clothing and shoes in stores, as retail locations are typically replenished by parcel carriers. </p>
<p>The supply chain for manufacturing computer and electronics products would probably be disrupted too, according to <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2017/econ/cfs/historical-datasets.html">my analysis of data</a> from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics that <a href="https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cfs/technical-documentation/methodology/2017cfsmethodology.pdf">tracks how different industries transport products to their customers</a>. Farmers and construction companies trying to get spare parts for heavy equipment would see delays in those shipments, which might result in downtime that costs tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.</p>
<p>Consequently, a strike would leave many businesses scrambling to fulfill customers’ orders, which may force them to spend more money on higher-priced air freight shipping. </p>
<p>Even a 10-day strike could <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/economy/ups-strike-economic-impact/index.html">cost the U.S. economy an estimated $7.1 billion</a> , according to <a href="https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/potential-ups-strike-could-be-costliest-in-a-century/">Anderson Economic Group</a> – a research firm – making it potentially the costliest strike in U.S. history. These costs stem from the 340,000 striking workers losing an estimated $1.1 billion in wages and UPS losing $816 million in earnings. The balance of this estimate would result from the disruptions incurred by UPS customers. </p>
<h2>What do you think will happen?</h2>
<p>Unlike the threatened <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">railroad strikes of 2022</a>, there is no system in place for the federal government to prevent a UPS strike. On that occasion, Congress had the option of intervening, but a deal was reached before the government had to step in.</p>
<p>However, it seems likely that there <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-strike-teamsters-biden-delivery-cb586d2f6160a92cda9318d6290ac8ea">will be calls for the White House</a> to get both parties back to the negotiating table.</p>
<p>Given that both the Teamsters and UPS have an incentive to not see the company lose customers to rival shipping operations, I believe that they may reach a deal soon enough to avoid a costly and disruptive strike. Consistent with this, UPS announced on July 19, 2023, that it and the Teamsters will <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ups-teamsters-to-return-to-table">return to the negotiating table</a> before their July 31 deadline.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Miller 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>Talks between the the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and company bosses have broken down. A supply chain expert explores what could happen next.Jason Miller, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098282023-07-17T19:34:33Z2023-07-17T19:34:33ZHere’s how the Hollywood actors’ strike will impact the Canadian film industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537874/original/file-20230717-236884-qp5o4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C0%2C5573%2C3732&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Picketers carry signs outside Paramount in Times Square on July 17, 2023, in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/heres-how-the-hollywood-actors-strike-will-impact-the-canadian-film-industry" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Hollywood actors <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/hollywood-actors-to-begin-historic-strike-at-midnight-after-studio-talks-break-down-1.6905349">went on strike on July 14</a>, joining film and television writers <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23696617/writers-strike-wga-2023-explained-residuals-streaming-ai">who have been on the picket lines since May</a>. It’s the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/actors-strike-why.html">first time actors and writers have picketed together since 1960</a>, when Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild.</p>
<p>Following failed talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced the strike at a press conference on July 13.</p>
<p>At the heart of the negotiations between the union and the guild <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jul/14/the-hollywood-actors-strike-everything-you-need-to-know">are two key issues</a>: residual payments in the streaming era and the ownership of an actor’s likeness if it’s reproduced by artificial intelligence. The union is calling for fairer pay splits and tighter AI regulations over these issues.</p>
<p>This strike is a watershed moment for the entertainment industry, marking a turning point for the future of labour in the arts. But it will also have widespread impacts on the film and television industry beyond the United States, and Canada is bracing for impact.</p>
<h2>‘Cataclysmic’ issues at stake</h2>
<p>The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists <a href="https://www.actra.ca/news-release/news-you-can-use/2023/07/actra-stands-in-solidarity-with-sag-aftra/">released a statement last week in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA</a>: “[U.S. actors’] issues are our issues and performers deserve respect and fair compensation for the value they bring to every production.”</p>
<p>These issues are “cataclysmic,” according to Canadian actor and producer Julian De Zotti. De Zotti and I discussed these issues as part of a greater conversation on the future of entertainment <a href="https://www.artscapedanielslaunchpad.com/ctrl-alt-disrupt/">in the ongoing CTRL ALT DISRUPT series</a>, organized by Artscape Daniels Launchpad and the City of Toronto’s Creative Technology Office.</p>
<p>He says the issues being negotiated are existential for creators the world over: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We are at a seismic inflection point in the industry, as a massive technological shift is changing how working and middle class artists, actors, writers, craftspeople can make a sustainable living in the entertainment industry.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman crowd of people wearing SAG-AFTRA shirts hold their fists up" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537885/original/file-20230717-228004-r0vcf2.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">SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher attends a press conference announcing a strike by The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on July, 13, 2023, in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be clear, it’s not the technology itself creators are taking issue with. When it comes to AI, many film industry professionals <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2023/02/24/how-ai-and-the-cloud-are-erasing-the-borders-in-making-movies-and-tv-shows/">are already using tools</a> like ChatGPT and Midjourney to help flesh out the background for scripts or develop visual worlds and imagery for pitch decks.</p>
<p>De Zotti, who has won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Web Program or Series for the past two years, is already integrating AI tools into his practice. He is not afraid of new technology, but rather, how it might be misused. </p>
<h2>An existential threat</h2>
<p>AI poses a threat for actors in particular because their livelihoods depend on their identity. There need to be specific guardrails and parameters established that protect artists, their creations and their image. They must have a say in how their work and image are used and receive fair compensation for it.</p>
<p>Technology advances quickly, sometimes outpacing our ability to fully comprehend its repercussions before adopting it. The strike offers the opportunity to press pause on the otherwise unbridled adoption of disruptive AI technology. </p>
<p>“This can’t be like social media where the technology came too fast and there were no clear guidelines on its use, and now it’s completely out of control,” says De Zotti.</p>
<p>Instead of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/are-you-ready-to-go-back-to-the-office-1.6437043/stronger-government-regulation-of-social-media-companies-could-improve-free-speech-says-expert-1.6437583">scrambling to play regulatory catch-up after damage has been done</a>, considerations need to be made at the outset to avoid damaging consequences, intended or not.</p>
<h2>What the strike means for Canada</h2>
<p>During the strike, service production, which <a href="https://www.ontariocreates.ca/research/industry-profile/ip-filmtv">represents a majority of the $11.69 billion annual work done in Canada</a>, will come to a halt. All American productions — from big budget blockbusters like Star Trek, which shoots in Toronto, to indie feature films using SAG actors — will be affected. </p>
<p>This will, in turn, have a direct effect on the <a href="https://madeinca.ca/film-and-tv-industry-statistics-canada">244,000 people who work in the film and television industry</a> in this country. But it might also open up a different business model, that, as De Zotti points out, “doesn’t rely on you to package your show or movie with stars to get it made.” </p>
<p>While the streaming issue under negotiation is centred around residuals and compensation, Canadian content creators face additional struggles. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-online-streaming-act-will-support-canadian-content-201862">How the Online Streaming Act will support Canadian content</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Streaming companies have set up shop in Canada for a few years now, promising to make shows led by Canadians. However, De Zotti says this has not been the case. “It’s been a mirage. <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/industr/modern/myth.htm">Bill C-11</a> is supposed to change all that, but that is still yet to be seen.”</p>
<p>However, if the strike lingers, perhaps markets outside of Canada will look to acquire Canadian content, as is already the case with the CW, which <a href="https://www.mikehughes.tv/2023/05/12/cws-solution-for-summer-and-fall-o-canada/">turned to Canadian content to fill its fall schedule</a>.</p>
<h2>Is this Canada’s moment?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A protest sign that says 'SAG-AFTRA on Strike'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537561/original/file-20230714-36081-f52ks8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Striking writers and actors take part in a rally outside Netflix studio in Los Angeles on July 14.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps this strike is a moment for Canada to rise to the occasion; while the Canadian entertainment industry can’t compete with the sheer scale or spending power of Hollywood, it is in this environment of massive change that we shine as scrappy, creative disruptors. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.nfb.ca/directors/norman-mclaren/">Norman McLaren’s experimental work with the NFB</a>, through the <a href="https://macleans.ca/culture/movies/a-documentary-like-no-other-documentary">rise of interactive documentaries</a>, to the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/21/18234980/fortnite-marshmello-concert-viewer-numbers">explosion of game-based virtual concerts</a>, Canada has always been seen as an innovator in entertainment.</p>
<p>As for the strike itself, its outcome will surely set a precedent. Whatever guidelines the WGA and SAG establish with the studios will be used as a template when it’s time for Canadian unions to negotiate. </p>
<p>The reality is, AI and streaming are not technologies of tomorrow; both are here to stay. As the dust settles south of the border, we have the chance to not just sit back and wait, but to lead by example. </p>
<p>We have the opportunity to not only create unimagined new forms of storytelling, but also experiment with fairer business models rooted in transparent data and more equitable ways of using the powerful tools that threaten to upend the industry of yesterday.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramona Pringle has received funding from the Canadian Media Fund, Ontario Creates and the Bell Fund. She is affiliated with the City of Toronto’s Film Television and Digital Media Board, Artscape Daniels Launchpad, and Interactive Ontario.</span></em></p>The Hollywood actors’ strike is a watershed moment for the entertainment industry, marking a turning point for the future of labour in the arts.Ramona Pringle, Director, Creative Innovation Studio; Associate Professor, RTA School of Media, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060272023-07-17T15:06:18Z2023-07-17T15:06:18ZThey Eat Our Sweat - new book exposes daily struggles of transport workers in Lagos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535262/original/file-20230703-266873-aa70gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A minibus driver and an agbero exchange blows at Ojota, Lagos. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Daniel E. Agbiboa’s book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/they-eat-our-sweat-9780198861546?cc=us&lang=en&">They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria</a> explores the world of drivers of minibuses (danfo) and motorcycles (okada) in Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria. <a href="https://wcfia.harvard.edu/people/daniel-e-agbiboa">Agbiboa</a> is assistant professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University. His research interests include the informal economy, urban change, mobility and youth politics. </p>
<p>The book describes the everyday interactions between the drivers, their conductors, union members regulating the garages through which they pass daily, and police officers. The drivers work 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, but go home without much revenue after paying daily “fees” or “dues” to bus owners, police officers and union members. </p>
<p>To gather materials for the book, Agbiboa worked as a conductor in a minibus for several months. He witnessed everyday forms of exploitation of these drivers by the police and touts. One driver summed it up: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I work tirelessly each day, while the ‘baboons’ (touts and police) stand in the roundabout and just chop (eat) my sweat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Agbiboa reveals the micro dynamics of corruption and the drivers’ obligation to pay street-level bureaucrats from the National Union of Road Transport Workers and police. </p>
<p>His book is very welcome as he explores in detail the everyday survival of minibus and okada transport workers. Like many informal workers, transport operators have no fixed income, no days off and no social protection. And, as elsewhere on the continent, drivers have to speed to make ends meet. A central argument of the book is that corruption levels are high on the road.</p>
<p>My view, as a scholar of <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/histoire/en/researcher/Laurent%20Fourchard/76183.html">Nigerian history and political sociology</a>, is that the book’s solid empirical base makes it an important study of transport working conditions in the country. Agbiboa usefully questions the distinction – recently established by critical scholars – between “capitalist owners” (of minibuses) and “proletarian workers” (who have only their labour to sell) in Africa’s cities. In Lagos, he suggests, the workers have the potential to earn more money than the owners. </p>
<p>The author also places Lagos in a larger conversation about informal transport in Africa’s cities, moving beyond any exceptional character of Lagos. He rightly insists there is order beyond the apparent chaos in African cities.</p>
<p>The book also documents the efforts of some transport associations to challenge state laws which deprive workers of their revenues. In an attempt to promote Lagos as a “world class city”, the <a href="https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2012/09/04/lagos-traffic-law-okada-riders-vow-resistance/">2012 Lagos State Law</a> banned motorbike riders from operating on the most important roads of the state and wealthy neighbourhoods. <a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2012/12/13/okada-riders-loss-battle-against-lagos-traffic-law/">Okada attempted to resist but eventually lost</a>. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-okada-motorcycles-have-a-bad-image-but-banning-them-solves-nothing-154765">saga</a> revealed the imbalance of power and the official narrative that associated motorbike drivers with crime, danger and disorder.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-okada-motorcycles-have-a-bad-image-but-banning-them-solves-nothing-154765">Nigeria's okada motorcycles have a bad image, but banning them solves nothing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>. </p>
<h2>Extortion and complicity</h2>
<p>Agbiboa suggests the daily encounters between <em>agbero</em> (the agents who collect fees from drivers for the transport union), drivers and police agents are marked by extortion and complicity. </p>
<p>The book asserts complicity between <em>agbero</em> and police agents and never between <em>agbero</em> and drivers. My own observations in several motor parks in Lagos suggest, however, that there isn’t always complicity between <em>agbero</em> and police, and that complicity between <em>agbero</em> and drivers is very common. Most <em>agbero</em> and drivers work together daily in the same garage for years, sometimes for decades. They know each other and develop various forms of sociability that could not be reduced to violent exploitation. </p>
<p>To a large extent, the book presents the drivers’ perspective, more than that of union members, whose voices are rarely heard. Most drivers are not members of the <a href="https://web.facebook.com/nurtwabuja/?_rdc=1&_rdr">National Union of Road Transport Workers</a>, but former drivers are often union members. </p>
<p>The union is powerful in regulating transport and plays a key role in electoral politics, two dimensions that remain to be explored in more detailed empirical works. </p>
<p>The book presents the union mainly as a criminal organisation. The author defends the hypothesis of a predatory union-state alliance that “eats the sweat” of drivers. This view has merit but it probably needs further explanation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02255189.2022.2132924">My own research suggests</a> there are more ambivalent relationships between union members, state officials, police and military officers at the grassroots level. Union members are often in conflict with the police while negotiating with police officers for the release of their drivers from police stations or jails. None of them want the drivers working under their authority to be arrested, and many of them try to protect them against police extortion in order to keep business flowing.</p>
<p>Agbiboa makes a welcome distinction between <em>agbero</em> identified with a specific garage or motorpark and “area boys”, or “delinquents” associated with a particular neighbourhood. <em>Agbero</em> do not want to be associated with crime: they think of themselves as workers. Still, <em>agbero</em> are criminalised in the book. They are the easy target of public criticism. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537269/original/file-20230713-23-fn0yq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&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 book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/they-eat-our-sweat-9780198861546?cc=us&lang=en&">Oxford University Press</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><em>Agbero</em> seen as outlaws</h2>
<p>Drivers insist that <em>agbero</em> are making easy money from their work but, as my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02255189.2022.2132924">research</a> has found, <em>agbero</em> are often in the same precarious conditions as transport workers themselves. Their leaders impose on them a daily revenue target to be taken from the drivers. Many of them hardly make a living from their work. </p>
<p>In my view, the <em>agbero</em> has become the new figure of a long history of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4100568">criminalisation of poor young urban men</a>. Transport in Nigeria could be better understood if <em>agbero</em> were analysed as the least powerful members of the union working for the benefit of more powerful and better connected members of society: union bureaucrats, government officials, politicians and law enforcement agents who have a common interest in keeping this revenue system intact. </p>
<p>These remarks aside, Agbiboa’s book is the most detailed and accurate account of Nigeria’s road transport system so far.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurent Fourchard 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>A new book focuses on the politics of road transport, the everyday corruption and the hard-living world of transport workers in Lagos, Nigeria.Laurent Fourchard, Research Fellow, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098242023-07-14T19:12:44Z2023-07-14T19:12:44ZHollywood on the picket line – 5 unsung films that put America’s union history on the silver screen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537548/original/file-20230714-19-zejzwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C34%2C3859%2C2549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actors Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh were among those who walked out of the premiere of 'Oppenheimer.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-cast-of-oppenheimer-including-british-actress-emily-news-photo/1531859433?adppopup=true">Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some of Hollywood’s top stars are <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-actors-writers-strike-1da6262b2506d64822201d53e5d76c43">joining screenwriters on the picket line</a> after the main U.S. actors union voted to take part in an ongoing strike.</p>
<p>SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 150,000 screen and stage actors, announced on July 13, 2023, that its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/actors-strike-why.html">members would go on strike</a>. </p>
<p>In so doing, they join members of the Writers Guild of America who have been on strike for several weeks. </p>
<p>Battles between Hollywood unions and the studios have <a href="https://laist.com/news/la-history/hollywood-strike-1945-unions-iatse-bloody-friday">taken place since the 1940s</a>. But this is the first time since the Eisenhower administration that the two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time. The action – sparked by a long-running dispute over pay and greater protection against use of artificial intelligence and the rise of streaming services like Netflix – has shut down productions and become increasingly acrimonious. One Hollywood source <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/studios-allegedly-wont-end-strike-til-writers-start-losing-their-apartments">told a reporter</a> that the studios want these strikes to “drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” </p>
<p>The strikes come at a time when polls suggest <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">unions are more popular in the U.S. than at any time since 1965</a>, and the labor movement is experiencing a resurgence of organizing.</p>
<p>Since the mid-1900s, Hollywood studios have depicted the collective efforts of working people to improve their lives and gain a voice in their workplaces and the larger society with both sympathy and hostility. Independent producers, who gained a foothold starting in the 1970s, have generally been friendlier toward workers and their unions. </p>
<p>Some of the most well-known labor movies champion the struggle of the everyday worker: “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027977/">Modern Times</a>,” released in 1936, stars Charlie Chaplin going crazy due to his job on an assembly line. It features the famous image of Chaplin caught in the gears of factory machinery. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032551/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Grapes of Wrath</a>,” a 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, tells the story of sharecropper Tom Joad’s radicalization after his family and other migrant workers experience destitute conditions in California’s growing fields and overcrowded migrant camps. </p>
<p>1979’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079638/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Norma Rae</a>” is based on the life of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/us/15sutton.html">Crystal Lee Sutton</a>, who worked in a J.P. Stevens mill in North Carolina. The textile worker and single mom inspires her fellow workers to overcome their racial animus and work together to vote in a union. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bread and Roses</a>,” a 2000 film about low-wage janitors in Los Angeles, is based on the Service Employees International Union’s <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">Justice for Janitors</a> movement.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZdvEGPt4s0Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In an iconic scene from ‘Modern Times,’ Charlie Chaplin gets caught in the gears of factory machinery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s also an anti-labor strain of Hollywood history, particularly during <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153964/the-second-red-scare-and-the-unmaking-of-the-new-deal-left">the post-World War II Red Scare</a>, when studios purged left-wing writers, directors and actors through <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/hollywoods-red-scare-spread-stigma-association">an industrywide blacklist</a>. Red Scare-era releases such as 1952’s “Big Jim McLain” and the 1954 film “On the Waterfront” often depicted unions as corrupt or infiltrated by communist subversives.</p>
<p>When I teach labor history, I’ve used films to supplement books and articles. I’ve found that students more easily grasp the human dimensions of workers’ lives and struggles when they are depicted on the screen. </p>
<p>Here are five unsung labor movies, all based on real-life events, that, in my view, deserve more attention. </p>
<h2>1. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078008/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_6">Northern Lights</a>’ (1978)</h2>
<p>This is a fictionalized account of a fascinating but little-known political movement: <a href="https://www.history.nd.gov/ndhistory/npl.html">the Non-Partisan League</a>, which organized farmers in the upper Midwest in the early 1900s. </p>
<p>During this period, Midwestern farmers worked long hours to harvest grain that they were then forced to sell for low prices to elevators, while paying high prices to the big railroad companies and banks. Economic insecurity was a part of life, and foreclosures were routine. </p>
<p>The film follows Ray Sorenson, a young farmer influenced by socialist ideas who leaves his North Dakota farm to become a Non-Partisan League organizer. In his beat-up Model T, he travels the back roads, talking to farmers in their fields or around the potbellied stoves of country stores. He eventually persuades skeptical farmers that electing NPL candidates could get the government to create cooperative grain elevators, state-chartered banks with farmers as stockholders, and limits on the prices that railroads can charge farmers to haul their wheat. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NGMMmD7ty5c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Northern Lights’ is based on an early-20th-century farmer-led political uprising in the Midwest.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1916, the Non-Partisan League did, in fact, elect farmer <a href="https://www.history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/governors12.html">Lynn Frazier</a> as governor of North Dakota with 79% of the vote. Two years later, the NPL won control of both houses of the state legislature and created the North Dakota Mill, still the only state-owned flour mill, and the <a href="https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/">The Bank of North Dakota</a>, which remains the nation’s only government-owned general-service bank.</p>
<h2>2. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033533/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Devil and Miss Jones</a>’ (1941)</h2>
<p>In this screwball comedy with a pro-union twist, Charles Coburn plays John P. Merrick, a fictional New York City department store owner.</p>
<p>After his employees hang him in effigy, the tycoon goes undercover to ferret out the agitators of a union drive led by a store clerk in the shoe department and a union organizer. </p>
<p>As he learns more about their lives, Merrick grows sympathetic to his workers – and even falls in love with one of his employees – none of whom know his true identity. As the workers prepare to go on strike, and even picket his house, Merrick reveals that he owns the store and agrees to their demands over pay and hours – and even marries the employee he’s fallen for. </p>
<p>The film was likely inspired by <a href="http://msr-archives.rutgers.edu/archives/Issue%2016/essays/Opler.htm">the 1937 sit-down strikes</a> by employees of New York City’s department stores. </p>
<h2>3. 'Salt of the Earth’ (1954)</h2>
<p>Decades ahead of its time, this story of New Mexico mine workers deals with issues of racism, sexism and class.</p>
<p>After a mine accident, the Mexican-American workers decide to strike. They demand better safety standards and equal treatment, since white miners are allowed to work in pairs, while Mexican ones are forced to work alone. The strikers expect the women to stay at home, cook and take care of the children. But when the company gets an injunction to end the men’s protest, the women step up and maintain the picket lines, earning greater respect from the men.</p>
<p>Made at the height of the Red Scare, the film’s writer, producer and director <a href="https://www.highonfilms.com/salt-of-the-earth-1954-essay/">had been blacklisted</a> for their leftist sympathies, so the film was sponsored by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, not a Hollywood studio. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002095/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Will Geer</a>, a blacklisted actor who later portrayed Grandpa Walton on the TV drama “The Waltons,” played the repressive sheriff. Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas played the leader of the wives. The other characters were portrayed by real miners and their wives who participated in the strike against <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/empire-zinc-strike/">the Empire Zinc Company</a>, which served as the inspiration for the film. </p>
<p>The film itself was blacklisted, and no major theater chain would show it, but has since become a cult favorite among union activists and on college campuses.</p>
<h2>4. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280377/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">10,000 Black Men Named George</a>’ (2002)</h2>
<p>Andre Braugher stars as <a href="https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-people/asa-philip-randolph">A. Philip Randolph</a>, who organized the <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/great-depression/brotherhood-of-sleeping-car-porters-win-over-pullman-company/">Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters</a>, the first Black-run union. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2009/05/08/103933268/pullman-porters-creating-a-black-middle-class">Being a porter on a Pullman railroad car</a> was one of the few jobs open to Black men. But wages were low, travel was constant and trains’ white passengers patronized the porters by calling all of them “George,” after <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/george-m-pullman.htm">George Pullman</a>, the mogul who owned the company. </p>
<p>The company hired thugs to intimidate the porters, but Randolph and his top lieutenants persisted. They began their crusade in 1925 but didn’t get the company to sign a contract with the union until 1937, <a href="http://www.pennfedbmwe.org/Docs/reference/RLA_Simplified.html">thanks to a New Deal law</a> that gave railroad workers the right to unionize. Randolph became American’s leading civil rights organizer during the 1940s and 1950s and orchestrated the 1963 March on Washington. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black men stand on a stage holding an American flag and a union flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters display their banner at a 1955 ceremony celebrating the organization’s 30th anniversary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fight-or-be-slaves-members-of-the-brotherhood-of-sleeping-news-photo/515296680?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. 'North Country’ (2005)</h2>
<p>Charlize Theron portrays Josey Aimes, a desperate single mom who flees her abusive husband, returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota, moves in with her parents and takes a job at an iron mine. </p>
<p>There, she is constantly groped, insulted and bullied by the male workers. She complains to the company managers, who don’t take her seriously. The male-dominated union claims there’s nothing they can do. Aimes sues the company, which, after a dramatic courtroom scene, is forced to settle with her and other women. </p>
<p>With stellar performances by Theron, Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson, “North Country” is based on <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/real-women-north-country">a groundbreaking lawsuit</a> brought by female miners at Minnesota’s Eveleth Mines in 1975 that helped make sexual harassment a violation of workers’ rights.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article that was <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-unsung-films-that-dramatize-americas-rich-labor-history-188442">first
published</a> on The Conversation on Aug. 22, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209824/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dreier 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>As actors join screenwriters in a strike that has shut down movie productions, a labor historian looks back at union action on the silver screen.Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.