tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/labor-rights-38590/articlesLabor rights – The Conversation2024-03-25T12:40:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2256112024-03-25T12:40:09Z2024-03-25T12:40:09ZAmazon, SpaceX and other companies are arguing the government agency that has protected labor rights since 1935 is actually unconstitutional<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582234/original/file-20240315-26-ku55bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=76%2C35%2C2919%2C2092&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed in 1933 the law that led to the National Labor Relations Board's emergence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FDRSignsWagnerPeyserAct1933/61439bda58874be9b582a59e2875c561/photo?Query=fdr%20wagner%20act&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3175/Amazon_complaint.pdf?1711137053">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3174/Space_X_complaint.pdf?1711136921">SpaceX</a>, <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3177/Starbucks_Brief.pdf?1711327299">Starbucks</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board">Trader Joe’s have all responded</a> to allegations that they have violated labor laws with the same bold argument. The <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/">National Labor Relations Board</a>, they assert in several ongoing legal proceedings, is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/business/economy/amazon-labor-nlrb.html">unconstitutional</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3174/Space_X_complaint.pdf?1711136921">SpaceX, for example, says</a> that the NLRB is engaging in “an unlawful attempt … to subject Space X to an administrative proceeding whose structure violates Article II, the Fifth Amendment, and the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.”</p>
<p>If these companies prevail, the entire process for holding union elections and for prosecuting employers who break labor laws – in place since the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/national-labor-relations-act">days of the New Deal</a> – could collapse. That would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board">leave U.S. workers more vulnerable to exploitation</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/301/1/">The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the board</a> nearly a century ago, soon after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law that created the NLRB and made clear that workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively. Justices have also rejected similar arguments in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/295/602/#tab-opinion-1934749">cases involving other agencies</a>.</p>
<p>As a law professor who <a href="https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kate-andrias">researches labor law and constitutional law</a> and a former labor organizer, I am deeply concerned, but not surprised, by these attacks on the federal agency that has protected U.S. workers’ right to organize unions and bargain collectively with their employers <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/national_labor_relations_act_nlra">since the 1930s</a>.</p>
<p>These corporations seem to believe they will find a sympathetic audience before the conservative justices that occupy six of the Supreme Court’s nine seats. In a series of prior cases, the conservative justices have already <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-1530">weakened administrative agencies</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-285">cut back on workers’ rights</a>.</p>
<h2>Growing support for unions</h2>
<p>The corporate attack on the NLRB also seems to be a response to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.aspx">growing support for unions among Americans</a>.</p>
<p>Workers at the companies that are challenging the NLRB’s constitutionality have all begun to organize unions in recent years, with numerous, high-profile, union-organizing wins. Workers across numerous sectors, including auto, education, health care and Hollywood, have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/briefing/uaw-strike.html">recently held successful strikes</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/jennifer-abruzzo-national-labor-relations-board/">NLRB has been more assertive in prosecuting employers</a> for violating workers’ rights, and it has been revising rules in ways that make it easier for workers to organize.</p>
<p>For example, it has made it possible for <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/national-labor-relations-board-issues-final-rule-to-restore-fair-and">the unionization process to move faster</a> and has sought to <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-general-counsel-launches-new-10j-injunction-initiative-when-employers">quickly reinstate workers</a> who are illegally fired for organizing unions, rather than waiting years for litigation to play out.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in t-shirts that say 'Starbucks Workers United' t-shirts and face masks jump with joy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583871/original/file-20240324-26-xwd6re.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">In 2021, these Buffalo, N.Y., Starbucks employees were the first to win a union election at one of the chain’s stores.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/StarbucksUnion/f154ff4352bb4ba3b2b5838817b164dd/photo?Query=starbucks%20union&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=188&currentItemNo=64">AP Photo/Joshua Bessex</a></span>
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<h2>The Supreme Court and big business</h2>
<p>This is not the first time that big business has tried to use constitutional law arguments in an effort to <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol118/iss4/3/">stop union organizing and limit workers’ rights</a>.</p>
<p>From the 1890s to the 1930s, during what is known as the “<a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/198us45">Lochner era</a>,” corporations argued that laws protecting workers’ rights, including the right to organize unions or be paid a minimum wage, violated their “freedom to contract” and exceeded Congress’ power under the Constitution.</p>
<p>Back then, the Supreme Court routinely sided with business.</p>
<p>It struck down hundreds of laws, including <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/261us525">minimum wage laws</a>, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/198us45">overtime laws</a> and <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/keating-owen-child-labor-act">laws prohibiting child labor</a>. It prohibited strikes, including in the <a href="https://www.history.com/news/labor-day-pullman-railway-strike-origins">railroad</a> and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/259/344/">mining</a> industries. It allowed <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/221us418">labor leaders to be jailed</a>.</p>
<p>These rulings helped corporations grow wealthier and more powerful.</p>
<p>Only after <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/320-the-turbulent-years">mass uprisings by over 1 million workers</a>, economic distress wrought by the Great Depression and overwhelming popular support for the New Deal did the Supreme Court finally change course, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/300us379">recognizing that it had made a mistake</a>.</p>
<p>During the New Deal, the justices ruled that Congress has the power under the Constitution to pass minimum labor standards and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/301us1">to create agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board</a>, to protect workers and consumers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The nine members of the Supreme Court, as of 2024, seated and standing in a group." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582236/original/file-20240315-26-3abjp0.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">Six of the the Supreme Court’s nine members are conservatives, leading to many pro-business rulings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-supreme-court-associate-justice-sonia-news-photo/1431393388?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Letting agencies make decisions</h2>
<p>Now, nearly 100 years later, the NLRB’s foes contend that the labor board violates the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/separation_of_powers">separation of powers</a> – the constitutional principle that the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government have distinct powers – because it mixes executive and judicial functions.</p>
<p>They also argue that the board is unconstitutional because presidents cannot fire the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are">NLRB’s members or administrative law judges</a> whenever they want.</p>
<p>And opponents of the NLRB claim that the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/administrative_law_judge_(alj)">use of administrative law judges</a> – jurists who preside over and adjudicate cases regarding alleged violations of the law – violates the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_jury_trial">constitutional right to a jury trial</a>. </p>
<p>But the Supreme Court has long permitted all of these features, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/301us1">not only for the NLRB</a> but for <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/295us602">other government agencies</a> as well.</p>
<p>And for good reason.</p>
<p>No provision of the Constitution prohibits Congress from designing government agencies in this way. And Congress believed that these design choices would help the agency function well.</p>
<p>For example, by prohibiting presidents from replacing all of the NLRB’s administrative law judges for any reason or no reason at all, Congress sought to ensure independence of those judges.</p>
<p>Having each violation of law litigated before a federal jury, rather than administrative law judges deciding cases, could take a lot longer to resolve cases.</p>
<h2>Assessing what’s at stake</h2>
<p>If these corporations prevail with their constitutional challenges, the NLRB will no longer be able to function.</p>
<p>Currently, it can be <a href="https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/rebuilding-worker-voice-in-todays-economy">very difficult for workers to organize unions</a>, partly because of insufficient penalties and protections in labor law. But if the corporations win, there will no longer be an agency in place to safeguard workers’ rights to organize unions and to negotiate fair contracts with their employers.</p>
<p>Indeed, this threat goes beyond labor rights.</p>
<p>If the NLRB is found to violate the Constitution, other government agencies could be at risk as well, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. In my view, that would endanger investors, voters and consumers – all Americans.</p>
<p>There is reason to believe the Supreme Court could side with big business if a lawsuit challenging the board’s constitutionality reaches it.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court in its current configuration is <a href="https://minnesotalawreview.org/article/a-century-of-business-in-the-supreme-court-1920-2020/">more pro-business than it has been in a century</a>. The justices who make up its conservative majority have shown that they are willing to overrule long-standing labor precedents through decisions that have <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-1466">reduced union funding</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-107">restricted workers’ access to unions</a>.</p>
<p>The conservative justices have also indicated that they may limit the powers of <a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/11/supreme-court-appears-ready-deal-another-blow-federal-agencies-administrative-powers/392348/">administrative agencies beyond the NLRB</a>. Most notably, the conservative majority on the court recently crafted a rule known as the “<a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/today/what-critics-get-wrong-and-right-about-the-supreme-courts-new-major-questions-doctrine/">major questions</a>” doctrine, which says Congress must set particularly clear rules when it authorizes agencies to regulate on matters of political or economic significance.</p>
<p>Using this doctrine, the court has overturned a Biden administration regulation designed to <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-1530">protect the environment</a> and has rejected its initial <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/22-506">student loan forgiveness program</a>.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is hearing several other cases this year that threaten administrative agencies, including one that would allow courts to give <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/01/supreme-court-likely-to-discard-chevron/">less deference to reasonable agency rules</a> and one that <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/securities-and-exchange-commission-v-jarkesy/">challenges the use of administrative law judges</a> by the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p>
<h2>Seeing room for optimism</h2>
<p>There is no way to know for certain how the Supreme Court will rule on a case concerning the constitutionality of the NLRB or other federal agencies. There may not be enough votes to overturn years of well-established precedent, even among the conservative justices.</p>
<p>And on labor rights more generally, there is <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol118/iss4/3/">reason for optimism</a>.</p>
<p>Workers are organizing in greater numbers than they have in decades. History teaches that when there is sufficient popular support for unions and workers’ rights, and sufficient mobilization among workers, the <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374532376/thewillofthepeople">Supreme Court sometimes backs off</a> and corporations give up their fight against workers’ rights. </p>
<p>Indeed, even Starbucks recently agreed <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/starbucks-workers-union-collective-bargaining-litigation-labor-relations-landmark-moment">to begin negotiating with its workers</a> after years of <a href="https://www.nrn.com/news/labor-board-claims-starbucks-refusing-negotiate-144-unionized-cafes">illegally – according to the NLRB – refusing to bargain</a> with them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Earlier in her career, Kate Andrias served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as Associate Counsel to President Barack Obama, and as an organizer with the Service Employees International Union. She frequently provides advice on policy initiatives to legislators and workers’ rights organizations and works on related litigation. </span></em></p>Nearly a century after the National Labor Relations Board’s creation, big corporations are arguing that it violates the US Constitution.Kate Andrias, Professor of Law, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244962024-03-14T12:42:05Z2024-03-14T12:42:05ZEmployees have a right to express support for Black Lives Matter while they’re on the job, according to a historic labor board decision<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581413/original/file-20240312-24-pix1iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=149%2C183%2C4387%2C2788&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The aftershocks of George Floyd's death are still reverberating for Home Depot.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mourners-in-home-depot-aprons-wait-to-view-the-casket-of-news-photo/1218632854?adppopup=true">Godofredo A. Vásquez-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-employees-black-lives-matter-action-at-home-depot-was">Home Depot store violated labor law</a> when it disciplined Antonio Morales, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Feb. 21, 2024.</p>
<p>Morales, a Home Depot employee in the Minneapolis area, had drawn the letters BLM on a work apron and refused to remove them. BLM stands for the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0016241/">Black Lives Matter movement</a>, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism aimed at Black people. Morales ultimately quit because of pressure to end the use of BLM messaging.</p>
<p>The NLRB has now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/business/home-depot-blm-nlrb-ruling.html">ordered Home Depot to rehire Morales</a> based on the legal right U.S. employees have to engage in “<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/employee-rights">concerted activity</a>” for the purpose of “mutual aid or protection.”</p>
<p>As a legal scholar who has <a href="https://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/find-people/faculty-profiles/michael-z-green">studied issues of race in the workplace</a> for more than 20 years, I believe the Home Depot decision establishes an important precedent for workers who express broad concerns about systemic racism.</p>
<p>This decision indicates that employees have a right to demonstrate their support for the Black Lives Matter movement on the job if they are seeking to improve their own working conditions with respect to racial discrimination. And this right persists even if the messaging arguably has political connotations that some workers or customers might disagree with. </p>
<h2>Right to display slogans</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are">National Labor Relations Board</a> is the federal agency that conducts elections when employees seek to be represented by a union. It also prosecutes and adjudicates complaints filed against employers and unions based upon unfair labor practices as defined by the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations Act</a>. </p>
<p>Workers have the right to display slogans related to working conditions when they’re on the job under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/157">Section 7 of that law</a>, which was enacted in 1935. Section 7 “protects the rights of employees to wear and distribute items such as buttons, pins, stickers, t-shirts, flyers, or other items displaying a message relating to terms and conditions of employment, unionization, and other protected matters.”</p>
<p>In this <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4583c6ebac">Home Depot case</a>, the NLRB reviewed a preliminary decision issued in 2022 by <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45837af63d">Paul Bogas</a>, an NLRB administrative law judge. Bogas found that Home Depot’s ban on manifestations of support for the Black Lives Matter movement didn’t violate labor law.</p>
<p>The NLRB disagreed with the decision by Bogas in a 3-1 decision that cited a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1977/77-453">1978 Supreme Court precedent</a>.</p>
<p>In that case, Eastex Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, the court found that workers distributing materials related to their terms and conditions of employment are protected by Section 7 when there is a reasonable and direct connection to the advancement of mutual aid and protection in the workplace.</p>
<p>That ruling held that this protection exists even when political messages may be involved in the workers’ communications. “Moreover, what may be viewed as political in one context can be viewed quite differently in another,” the Supreme Court held.</p>
<p>At the Home Depot in question, Morales and other employees had previously discussed concerns about racial misconduct by a supervisor and two separate incidents of destroying a display of Black History Month materials the workers had created to celebrate Black culture.</p>
<p>Employees had a right to express their support for BLM messaging in the workplace because they had already objected to working conditions based upon racial concerns, the NLRB’s majority ruled.</p>
<p>One of the NLRB’s four members, <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/bio/marvin-e-kaplan">Marvin Kaplan</a>, <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/3135/Board_Decision-HOME_DEPOT_USA.pdf?1710272577">dissented, in part, from the majority</a> based on his different view about the purpose of Morales’ display of the BLM messaging. Morales was expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement’s “goal of combating police violence against Black individuals – not with improving terms and conditions of employment,” Kaplan wrote.</p>
<h2>Discussing racial justice at work</h2>
<p>Morales’ show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the workplace was hardly an outlier.</p>
<p>Many Black Americans began to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/17/george-floyd-protests-black-lives-matter-employees-corporate-america-racism/3195685001/">speak out about racism and discrimination</a> by discussing BLM in their workplaces amid the widespread protests that followed <a href="https://theconversation.com/pain-of-police-killings-ripples-outward-to-traumatize-black-people-and-communities-across-us-159624">George Floyd’s murder by police officers on May 25, 2020</a>, in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>A year after Floyd was killed, a poll found that 68% of Americans thought that employees “<a href="https://www.paradigmiq.com/blog/nearly-7-in-10-americans-think-racial-injustice-is-problem-and-believe-they-should-be-able-to-talk-about-it-at-work/">should be able to discuss racial justice issues at work</a>.”</p>
<p>Employees who wanted to show their support for BLM at work have in recent years met resistance from other employers besides Home Depot, <a href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/diversity-inclusion-grocery/627933/">including the Publix</a> and <a href="https://www.kuow.org/stories/grocery-store-workers-union-wins-case-for-black-lives-matter-buttons">Fred Meyer supermarket chains</a>.</p>
<p>Some companies have said their bans on workers displaying BLM insignia were intended to <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/black-lives-matter-logos-in-the-workplace-divide-employers-workers-and-customers/">prevent disruptive responses</a> by other workers and customers who may not agree with the movement’s message. </p>
<h2>Mixed decisions</h2>
<p>Legal decisions about this issue have been mixed so far.</p>
<p>A court found that <a href="https://casetext.com/case/amalgamated-transit-union-local-85-v-port-auth-of-allegheny-cnty-2">a Pennsylvania government agency violated the First Amendment</a> when it prohibited workers from wearing face masks emblazoned with BLM messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/business/whole-foods-black-lives-matter.html">Whole Foods has prevailed against workers</a> in similar cases. An <a href="https://www.aseonline.org/News-Events/ASE-News/Press-Releases/nlrb-board-overrules-its-administrative-judges-to-hold-in-favor-of-over-riding-dress-rules-for-worker-blm-wear">NLRB administrative law judge</a> found that its employees had worn BLM insignia merely as a political statement <a href="https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/employment-law-compliance/court-dismisses-claims-whole-foods-black-lives-matter-masks">unrelated to their working conditions</a>.</p>
<p>That preliminary decision is now in question after the NLRB’s final ruling about the same issue in the Home Depot dispute.</p>
<p>Whole Foods workers asserted in a separate legal challenge that their employer’s ban on wearing BLM insignia <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/appeals-court-rejects-whole-foods-workers-discrimination-claim-dress-code-crackdown-blm-protests">represented racial discrimination under federal law</a>. In that case, the court found that the employees had failed to prove that the ban had a racial motivation.</p>
<p>Whole Foods was instead seeking to stop expression of a “politically charged” and “controversial message by employees in its stores,” according to the court.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People stand in front of a Whole Foods with painted signs depicting a woman in a Black Lives Matter face mask and another one with a Black person's face without a mask." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581411/original/file-20240312-18-s5qhb2.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">Whole Foods employees who were dismissed from their shift for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks conduct a protest in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/adam-hermon-left-and-abdulai-barry-stand-in-front-of-whole-news-photo/1227707669?adppopup=true">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One interesting aspect of these cases is the apparent contradictions involved.</p>
<p>After Floyd’s death, many <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/corporate-america-weighs-protests-racism-companies-struggle-diverse/story?id=71077049">big companies proclaimed their commitment to fight racism</a> and promised to do a better job of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. </p>
<p><a href="https://corporate.homedepot.com/news/diversity-equity-inclusion/message-craig-menear-racial-equality-justice-all">Home Depot</a>, for example, expressed its “anguish over the senseless killing of George Floyd” and “other unarmed Black men and women in our country.” The company explained how it had established worker programs “to facilitate internal town halls to share experiences and create better understanding.” </p>
<p>Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/amazon-donates-10-million-to-organizations-supporting-justice-and-equity">made a similar statement</a>, along with a pledge to donate US$10 million to “organizations that are working to bring about social justice and improve the lives of Black and African Americans.”</p>
<h2>Possible aftermath</h2>
<p>To be sure, this NLRB decision isn’t the final word on this issue, because <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d4583c8e109">Home Depot has filed an appeal</a>.</p>
<p>Regardless of how the courts respond, the NLRB’s decision is historic. The labor panel has established that a worker’s support for Black Lives Matter in the workplace isn’t merely an expression of their political beliefs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Z. Green 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>Racism can be a workplace issue, even at Home Depot.Michael Z. Green, Professor of Law and Director, Workplace Law Program, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225922024-03-06T13:35:06Z2024-03-06T13:35:06ZEmotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579064/original/file-20240229-20-1y9mr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8333%2C8308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How would you feel if your workplace was tracking how you feel?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/surveillance-young-female-character-royalty-free-illustration/1200880011">nadia_bormotova/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/emotional-ai/book251642">Emotion artificial intelligence</a> uses <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/emotional-ai/book251642">biological signals</a> such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. It is used in contexts both mundane, like entertainment, and high stakes, like the workplace, hiring and health care.</p>
<p>A wide range of industries <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/nemesysco-reports-increased-interest-for-its-voice-analytics-technology-for-remote-employee-wellness-monitoring-301036444.html">already use emotion AI</a>, including call centers, finance, banking, nursing and caregiving. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/the-future-of-employee-monitoring">Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI</a> aiming to infer employees’ internal states, a practice that <a href="https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/emotion-detection-and-recognition-edr-market">grew during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice.</p>
<p>Scholars have raised concerns about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930">emotion AI’s scientific validity</a> and its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445939">reliance on contested theories about emotion</a>. They have also highlighted emotion AI’s potential for <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300264630/atlas-of-ai/">invading privacy</a> and exhibiting <a href="https://theconversation.com/emotion-reading-tech-fails-the-racial-bias-test-108404">racial</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2103.11436">gender</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221109550">disability</a> bias. </p>
<p>Some employers use the technology <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579543">as though it were flawless</a>, while some scholars seek to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2017.8025197">reduce its bias and improve its validity</a>, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3927300">discredit it altogether</a> or suggest <a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/201912/ai-now-calls-for-ban-on-affect-recognition-as-market-expected-to-surge-to-90b-by-2024">banning emotion AI</a>, at least until more is known about its implications.</p>
<p>I study the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ju-VqbUAAAAJ">social implications of technology</a>. I believe that it is crucial to examine emotion AI’s implications for people subjected to it, such as workers – especially those marginalized by their race, gender or disability status.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sXvYC9_ktVw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Can AI actually read your emotions? Not exactly.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Workers’ concerns</h2>
<p>To understand where emotion AI use in the workplace is going, my colleague <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Karen-L-Boyd-2198141312">Karen Boyd</a> and I set out to examine <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579528">inventors’ conceptions</a> of emotion AI in the workplace. We analyzed patent applications that proposed emotion AI technologies for the workplace. Purported benefits claimed by patent applicants included assessing and supporting employee well-being, ensuring workplace safety, increasing productivity and aiding in decision-making, such as making promotions, firing employees and assigning tasks. </p>
<p>We wondered what workers think about these technologies. Would they also perceive these benefits? For example, would workers find it beneficial for employers to provide well-being support to them?</p>
<p>My collaborators <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=8XW-v0AAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Shanley Corvite</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=B28WGTsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Kat Roemmich</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Tillie-Ilana-Rosenberg-2249183666">Tillie Ilana Rosenberg</a> and I conducted a survey partly representative of the U.S. population and partly oversampled for people of color, trans and nonbinary people and people living with mental illness. These groups may be more likely to experience harm from emotion AI. Our study had 289 participants from the representative sample and 106 participants from the oversample. We found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3579600">32% of respondents reported experiencing or expecting no benefit to them</a> from emotion AI use, whether current or anticipated, in their workplace. </p>
<p>While some workers noted potential benefits of emotion AI use in the workplace like increased well-being support and workplace safety, mirroring benefits claimed in patent applications, all also expressed concerns. They were concerned about harm to their well-being and privacy, harm to their work performance and employment status, and bias and mental health stigma against them.</p>
<p>For example, 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions.</p>
<h2>Participants’ voices</h2>
<p>One participant who had multiple health conditions said: “The awareness that I am being analyzed would ironically have a negative effect on my mental health.” This means that despite emotion AI’s claimed goals to infer and improve workers’ well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. Indeed, other work by my colleagues Roemmich, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zg29qGEAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Florian Schaub</a> and I suggests that emotion AI-induced privacy loss can span a range of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3782222">privacy harms</a>, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580950">psychological, autonomy, economic, relationship, physical and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: “They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I’m not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I’m not working enough.”</p>
<p>Participants in the study also mentioned the potential for exacerbated power imbalances and said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace, pointing to how emotion AI use could potentially intensify already existing tensions in the employer-worker relationship. For instance, a respondent said: “The amount of control that employers already have over employees suggests there would be few checks on how this information would be used. Any ‘consent’ [by] employees is largely illusory in this context.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mzLrtld_oek?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Emotion AI is just one way companies monitor employees.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lastly, participants noted potential harms, such as emotion AI’s technical inaccuracies potentially creating false impressions about workers, and emotion AI creating and perpetuating bias and stigma against workers. In describing these concerns, participants highlighted their fear of employers relying on inaccurate and biased emotion AI systems, particularly against people of color, women and trans individuals. </p>
<p>For example, one participant said: “Who is deciding what expressions ‘look violent,’ and how can one determine people as a threat just from the look on their face? A system can read faces, sure, but not minds. I just cannot see how this could actually be anything but destructive to minorities in the workplace.”</p>
<p>Participants noted that they would either refuse to work at a place that uses emotion AI – an option not available to many – or engage in behaviors to make emotion AI read them favorably to protect their privacy. One participant said: “I would exert a massive amount of energy masking even when alone in my office, which would make me very distracted and unproductive,” pointing to how emotion AI use would impose additional emotional labor on workers.</p>
<h2>Worth the harm?</h2>
<p>These findings indicate that emotion AI exacerbates existing challenges experienced by workers in the workplace, despite proponents claiming emotion AI helps solve these problems.</p>
<p>If emotion AI does work as claimed and measures what it claims to measure, and even if issues with bias are addressed in the future, there are still harms experienced by workers, such as the additional emotional labor and loss of privacy. </p>
<p>If these technologies do not measure what they claim or they are biased, then people are at the mercy of algorithms deemed to be valid and reliable when they are not. Workers would still need to expend the effort to try to reduce the chances of being misread by the algorithm, or to engage in emotional displays that would read favorably to the algorithm. </p>
<p>Either way, these systems function as <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/panopticon">panopticon</a>-like technologies, creating privacy harms and feelings of being watched.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Work reported here was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) award 2020872 and CAREER award 2236674. </span></em></p>Loss of privacy is just the beginning. Workers are worried about biased AI and the need to perform the ‘right’ expressions and body language for the algorithms.Nazanin Andalibi, Assistant Professor of Information, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233072024-03-01T13:36:06Z2024-03-01T13:36:06ZRemembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit park honors labor and environmental history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579009/original/file-20240229-25-snzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Dearborn policeman knocked unconscious was the first casualty of the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/35955/rec/1">Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University/Detroit News Burckhardt.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The intersection of Fort Street and Oakwood Boulevard in southwest Detroit today functions mostly as a thoroughfare for trucks and commuters. </p>
<p>However, as you sit idling at the stoplight waiting to cross the bridge over the Rouge River, you might glance to the side and see something unexpected in this heavily industrialized area: A sculpture of weathered steel reaches toward the sky alongside a spray of flowers and waves of grasses and people fishing. </p>
<p>This inconspicuous corner, now the home of the <a href="https://www.motorcities.org/fortstreet">Fort Street Bridge Park</a>, has several stories to tell: of a river, a region, a historic conflict and an ongoing struggle. </p>
<p>If you pull over, you’ll enter a place that attempts to pull together threads of history, environment and sustainable redevelopment.</p>
<p>Signs explain why this sculpture and park are here: to honor the memory of <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hunger-march-ford/">protesters who met on this very spot on March 7, 1932</a>, before marching up Miller Road to the massive Ford Rouge River Complex located in the adjacent city of Dearborn. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=K9xPsDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociology professor</a>, I have a strong interest in how the history of labor and industrial pollution have influenced Detroit. </p>
<p>I’m also interested in the potential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0765-7">environmental restoration</a> or “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">green reparations</a>” to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">offer a new way forward</a>.</p>
<p>To understand this potential future, we must first recognize and honor the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An iron sculpture commemorates industry and sits as the centerpiece of the Ford Street Bridge Park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fort Street Bridge Park is located along the banks of the Rouge River in southwest Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Draus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>14 demands</h2>
<p>In their book “<a href="https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story#:%7E:text=Extensively%20researched%2C%20yet%20highly%20readable,conflict%20from%20the%20workers'%20perspective.">Labor’s Untold Story</a>,” published in 1955, journalist Richard Boyer and historian Herbert Morais quote a contemporary account of the Hunger March: </p>
<p><em>It was early, it was cold when the first of the unemployed Ford workers (many of whom had been laid off the day before) arrived at Baby Creek Bridge. They were a small gray group and they stood slapping their sides, warding off the cold, and wondering if they alone would come.</em></p>
<p>Others soon joined them: Black and white, men and women, immigrants and American-born. They united to deliver a list of 14 demands to the auto tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, whose US$5 daily wage for his workers was once considered revolutionary. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Police with bats follow Hunger March marchers on March 7, 1932." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunger March protesters demanded better pay and working conditions at the Ford Rouge plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/37798/rec/1">Detroit News Staff via Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the marchers’ demands: jobs for laid-off workers, a seven-hour workday without a pay reduction, two 15-minute rest periods a day, an end to discrimination against Black workers and the right to organize. </p>
<p>This crowd of several thousand marched up the road on one of the coldest days of winter. They were greeted at the Dearborn border with clouds of tear gas, jets of cold water and a shower of bullets. </p>
<p>It was then that the Ford Hunger March became the Ford Massacre. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HFEskpjPbfE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Detroit Workers News Special 1932: Ford Massacre via Workers Film & Photo League International.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The seeds of a labor movement</h2>
<p>Beth Tompkins Bates, in her book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469613857/the-making-of-black-detroit-in-the-age-of-henry-ford/">The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford</a>,” wrote that “The response of the Ford Motor Company on that day shot holes in the myth that Ford cared about his workers, that he was different from other businessmen.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of a young man with wavy hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Joe Bussell, killed by Ford Servicemen during the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit. Bussell’s relatives contributed to the Fort Street Bridge Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7269">Walter P. Reuther Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of the day, four marchers lay dead, while many others were injured and hospitalized. A fifth would die months later of his wounds. </p>
<p>More than 30,000 people showed up for the dead marchers’ funerals. The violent reactions of Ford security and Dearborn police during the march were widely condemned. </p>
<p>In an effort to address the stain on its public image, the Ford family first commissioned then expanded a major work by <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/detroit-industry-murals-detroit-institute-of-arts.htm">Mexican muralist Diego Rivera</a> that was to become the centerpiece of the Detroit Institute of Arts, known as the Detroit Industry Mural. Rivera, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X0800678X">a known communist</a>, depicted both ruthless efficiency and the racialized inequality of the industrial process. </p>
<p>Ford’s battle against unions was ultimately a failure. Five years after the Hunger March, the so-called “<a href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/ex/exhibits/battle.html">Battle of the Overpass</a>” led to the organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers. </p>
<p>The Ford Hunger March, long forgotten by many, is now <a href="https://www.workers.org/2022/03/62190/">acknowledged as an important catalyst</a> in the growth of the union movement. </p>
<h2>Struggle for sustainability and justice</h2>
<p>The fight for sustainability and environmental justice is another major theme of the park, which chronicles the history of the Rouge River, including the day in 1969 when the <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2019/10/rouge-river-fire-anniversary-great-lakes-moment/">oily water infamously caught fire</a>. </p>
<p>The hellish image of burning rivers helped motivate the signing of the <a href="https://www.boem.gov/air-quality-act-1967-or-clean-air-act-caa">Clean Air</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act">Clean Water acts</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/history">the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency</a>. </p>
<p>The air and water in and around Detroit are <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/05/once-beset-industrial-pollution-rouge-river-slow-path-recovery/">much cleaner today</a> than they were 1969. But this doesn’t change the fact that the area where the park sits bears a disproportionate burden of the pollution generated by the region’s industrial production, which includes cement plants, gypsum and aggregates processors, salt mining and asphalt storage, as well as a steel mill and petroleum refinery.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.marathonpetroleum.com/content/documents/Citizenship/2018/Sustainability_Report_10_21.pdf">donor to the park</a> is Marathon Petroleum Corporation whose Detroit Refinery occupies the adjoining neighborhood. Though Marathon has invested in the development of green spaces on its own property, the refinery has also expanded in recent years, <a href="https://wdi-publishing.com/product/marathon-petroleum-and-southwest-detroit-the-intersection-of-community-and-environment/">further degrading the local environment</a>.</p>
<p>Research shows that workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101502">benefit from unionization</a> in myriad ways, not only directly but indirectly. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/2023s-historic-hollywood-and-uaw-strikes-arent-labors-whole-story-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remained-relatively-low-219903">recent labor victories</a> by the UAW, Hollywood writers and other organizers stand in stark contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">long-term erosion of union membership</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit serves to remind us of the complexities of history and how apparent progress in one area may be followed by a setback somewhere else. It also represents how the spirit of community, unbroken, keeps pushing for something better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Draus is affiliated with Friends of the Rouge and Downriver Delta CDC, two nonprofit organizations involved with the Fort Street Bridge Park. He is also the facilitator of the Fort-Rouge Gateway (FRoG) Partnership, a coalition of representatives from nonprofit, community-based, academic and industry that is focused on the sustainable redevelopment of the industrial Rouge region. </span></em></p>On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions, sparking America’s labor movement. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.Paul Draus, Professor of Sociology; Director, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210812024-02-13T13:23:15Z2024-02-13T13:23:15ZWhy is free time still so elusive?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574720/original/file-20240209-18-ge59pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5946%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Massive gains in productivity haven't led to more time free from work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/time-flies-conceptual-image-royalty-free-image/1743874416?adppopup=true">J Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There have been massive gains in productivity over the past century. </p>
<p>So why are people still working so hard for so long? </p>
<p>Output per worker <a href="https://stacker.com/business-economy/how-us-labor-productivity-has-changed-1950">increased by almost 300% between 1950 and 2018</a> in the U.S. The standard American workweek, meanwhile, has remained unchanged, at about 40 hours. </p>
<p>This paradox is especially notable in the U.S., where the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm">average work year is 1,767 hours compared with 1,354 in Germany</a>, a difference largely due to Americans’ <a href="https://www.justworks.com/blog/average-vacation-days-by-country#which-country-has-the-least-vacation-days-how-the-us-compares">lack of vacation time</a>.</p>
<p>Some might argue that Americans are just more hardworking. But shouldn’t more productive work be rewarded with more time free from work? </p>
<p>This is the central theme of my new book, “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479813087/free-time/">Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal</a>.” </p>
<h2>Keynes misses the mark</h2>
<p>Many economists <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/business/9806schor-overworked.html">see the status quo mostly as a choice</a>: People would simply rather have more money. So they prioritize work over free time. </p>
<p>However, in the past, many economists assumed that people’s need for more stuff would eventually be met. At that point, they would choose more free time. </p>
<p>In fact, one of the most famous economists of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes, <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/files/content/upload/Intro_and_Section_I.pdf">confidently predicted in 1930</a> that within a century, the normal workweek would decrease to 15 hours. Yet Americans in their prime working age are still on the job 41.7 hours per week. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man with white mustache and thinning hair sits for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574715/original/file-20240209-24-kbpzmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Maynard Keynes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-economist-and-financier-john-maynard-keynes-news-photo/640460459?adppopup=true">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why was Keynes wrong?</p>
<p>Obviously, people’s needs or wants were not fully met. In the first half of the 20th century, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393">advertising shifted</a> in ways that emphasized emotions over utility, making consumers feel like they needed to buy more stuff; <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-planned-obsolescence/">planned obsolescence</a> shortened how long products remained functional or fashionable, spurring more frequent purchases; and new, exciting – but costly – goods and services kept consumerism churning. </p>
<p>So workers continued to labor for long hours to earn enough money to spend. </p>
<p>Furthermore, as wages rose, the opportunity cost of time spent away from work also grew. This made more free time less economically appealing. In a consumption-saturated society, time spent neither producing nor consuming goods increasingly appeared as wasted time. </p>
<p>Interest in slower, cheaper activities – reading a book, meeting a friend to catch up over coffee – started to seem less important than buying a pickup truck or spending an hour at the casino, pursuits that demand disposable income.</p>
<h2>Forced labor</h2>
<p>It’s still important to consider whether there’s even any choice to be made. </p>
<p>Almost everyone who works 40 hours a week or more does so because they have to. There are bills to pay, health insurance coverage to maintain and retirement to squirrel away money for. Some jobs are more precarious than others, and many workers even forego <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211209-why-its-so-hard-for-some-workers-to-ask-for-time-off">earned vacation time for fear of losing promotions</a>.</p>
<p>This hardly makes for a free choice.</p>
<p>But the 40-hour week isn’t the result of a personal calculation of costs and benefits. Rather, it’s the result of a hard-fought political battle that culminated in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938">Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938</a>, which established the standard 40-hour workweek, along with a minimum wage. </p>
<p>Pressed by a labor movement <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">that was far more powerful than today’s</a>, the government implemented a range of progressive economic policies during the 1930s to help the nation emerge from the Great Depression.</p>
<p>Many government officials viewed setting a standard workweek as a way to curtail exploitation and unfair competition among employers, who would otherwise be motivated to push their employees to work for as long as possible. It was an emergency measure, not a choice of more time over more personal income. Nor was it a step toward the progressive reduction of hours worked, as Keynes had envisioned. </p>
<p>In fact, it was hardly a radical measure.</p>
<p>Labor leaders had initially proposed a 30-hour week, which government officials resoundingly rejected. Even New Deal liberals saw a shortening of working hours as a <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/books/work-without-end">potential threat to economic growth</a>. </p>
<p>So the 40-hour week ended up as the compromise, and the standard hasn’t been updated since.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young women raise their fists and smile. Two of them hold a sign reading 'SIT-DOWN STRIKE - HELP US WIN 40 HOUR WEEK.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574714/original/file-20240209-24-2ol17u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woolworth’s employees strike for a 40-hour workweek in 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/female-employees-of-woolworths-holding-a-sign-indicating-news-photo/140427674?adppopup=true">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For most Americans, this was an acceptable trade-off. They might be working long hours, but they could afford television sets, cars and homes in the suburbs. Many families could live on the wages of the full-time work of the father, making the 40-hour week seem reasonable, since the mother had time to care for the family and home. </p>
<p>But this consensus has long since been undermined. Since the 1970s, inflation-adjusted <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">wages haven’t risen with economic growth</a>. In many households that include married or partnered couples, a single wage earner has been replaced by two earners, both of whom find themselves working at least 40 hours per week.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if the 40-hour week has been replaced by an 80-hour week – at least in <a href="https://gitnux.org/two-income-families-statistics/">terms of hours worked per household</a>. </p>
<p>Who has time to raise kids? Who can afford them? It’s no wonder <a href="https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children">the birth rate has declined</a>.</p>
<h2>Separating economic growth from well-being</h2>
<p>For decades, the amount of work we do has been talked about as “just the way things are” – an inevitability, almost. It doesn’t seem possible for society to take a different tack and, like flipping a switch, work less.</p>
<p>To me, this resignation points to a need to reconsider the social contracts of the past. Most Americans will not abandon their work ethic and their insistence that most people work. Fair enough. </p>
<p>Many people prefer working over having vast stores of free time, and that’s OK. And there’s still immense value in work that doesn’t produce a paycheck – caregiving and volunteering, for example.</p>
<p>But reducing the standard workweek, perhaps by transitioning to a four-day week, could ease stress for overworked families.</p>
<p>These changes require political action, not just individuals making the personal choice to arrive at a better work-life balance. And yet a national reduction in the standard workweek seems almost impossible. Congress can’t even <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/politics/inflation-reduction-children-families/index.html">pass legislation for paid family leave</a> or guaranteed vacation time.</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that elected leaders continue to insist that well-being be measured mostly by economic growth, and when the U.S. media breathlessly reports quarterly economic growth data, with increases deemed “good” and decreases deemed “bad.” </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t free time and its benefits be included in the equation? Why aren’t figures on the social costs of unlimited growth publicized? Does it even matter that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-dow-jones-industrial-average-is-back-these-are-the-stocks-driving-it-to-new-highs-a7d01b17">the Dow Jones Industrial Average</a> has doubled in less than a decade when economic security is so fragile and <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4162682-americas-in-a-united-state-of-stress-and-disillusionment/">so many people are overstressed</a>?</p>
<p>The idea that stratospheric increases in productivity can allow for more time for life is not simply a romantic or sentimental idea. Keynes viewed it as entirely reasonable.</p>
<p>Opportunities like the one that led to the 40-hour workweek in the 1930s rarely appear. But some sort of paradigm shift is urgently needed.</p>
<p>Something has to give.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Cross 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>In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that within a century, the normal workweek would decrease to 15 hours. Why was he wrong?Gary Cross, Distinguished Professor of Modern History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205322024-01-05T13:46:53Z2024-01-05T13:46:53ZWhy does Claudine Gay still work at Harvard after being forced to resign as its president? She’s got tenure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567952/original/file-20240104-19-mhl9wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=195%2C0%2C5465%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, speaks as former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill listens during a House hearing in December 2023 − before they both resigned.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressEducationCollegesAntisemitism/fbb72e215baa4326943637b44c623e52/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=495&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/claudine-gay-resign-harvard/">Harvard University President Claudine Gay</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/opinion/claudine-gay-harvard-president.html">resigned on Jan. 2, 2024</a>, less than one month after University of Pennsylvania President <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/12/penn-president-liz-magill-resigns">Liz Magill stepped down</a>. They called it quits amid uproar among conservative lawmakers and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-universities-owe-their-big-donors-less-than-you-might-think-explain-2-nonprofit-law-experts-219902">several major donors</a> regarding what they saw as Gay’s and Magill’s underwhelming responses to antisemitism on their campuses. In Gay’s case, there were also <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/harvard-presidents-resignation-highlights-new-conservative-weapon-against-colleges-plagiarism/3234455/">accusation of plagiarism</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Some members of the public have been surprised to see that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvard-president-claudine-gay-resigns-841575b89bcdc062cdf979e647a2539e">both Gay</a> and <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/university-of-pennsylvania-president-liz-magill-resigns-amid-firestorm-over-house-testimony/">Magill remain employed</a> by their universities as professors and researchers. Ray Gibney, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EQEoODAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">a management scholar</a> who studies labor relations, explains why university presidents with tenure can remain on faculty and resume their teaching jobs after they leave or lose their administrative positions.</em></p>
<h2>What does having tenure mean?</h2>
<p>Tenure, as the American Association of University Professors defines it, is “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/issues/tenure">an indefinite appointment</a>” that protects academic jobs. Obtaining it is hard and takes years. Universities can fire a tenured professors only <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/what-is-tenure/">for cause</a> or under what the association calls “extraordinary circumstances” – such as if their school experiences a financial crisis or their department gets eliminated.</p>
<p>Tenure is <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-tenure-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters-162325">university specific</a>. If a tenured professor gets hired by another school, they lose those protections unless their new academic institution grants them again.</p>
<p>Scholars who serve as the president, provost or deans have different responsibilities than regular faculty. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether an administrator comes from a traditional academic background or a nontraditional background such as business or politics, the <a href="https://gbirnlaw.com/blog/no-tenure-no-contract-the-importance-of-tenure-and-retreat-rights-for-college-and-university-presidents-part-1/#:%7E:text=A%20prime%20example%20of%20the,a%20grant%20of%20academic%20tenure.">employment offer usually includes</a> a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/09/should-nonacademics-who-become-college-presidents-also-get-tenured-faculty-positions">tenured faculty position</a>.</p>
<p>University presidents serve at the pleasure of their institution’s board of trustees. The board can revoke their administrative role. But revoking a scholar’s tenure and the job security that goes with it requires a formal process and investigation.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol91/iss1/4/">universities rarely end tenure</a>, even when they find evidence that a tenured professor is incompetent. </p>
<h2>Does it matter that Gay and Magill stepped down instead of being fired?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.harvard.edu/blog/2024/01/02/statement-from-the-harvard-corporation-president-gay/">Gay</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/liz-magill/index.html">Magill</a> both resigned as president of their universities. Because neither quit their faculty jobs, they remain employed by Harvard and Penn, respectively.</p>
<p>Whether administrators quit or are fired has little bearing on whether they can hang on to their tenured faculty position. When administrators are fired it can justify an investigation of whether there’s cause for their dismissal as tenured faculty too. But it’s not a guarantee.</p>
<p>To remove either from the faculty roles, the university-specific process of revocation of tenure would need to be initiated. Every college and university defines its own reasons for tenure revocation, with moral turpitude and excessive absenteeism common <a href="https://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=14">grounds for dismissal</a>.</p>
<h2>What might happen to their salaries and other compensation?</h2>
<p>University administrators generally do not teach classes. The culture of the academy is to provide administrators who are returning to faculty ranks with a short period – typically one semester – to review and update course teaching materials to get ready to teach again.</p>
<p>During this time period, they are often paid their administrator salaries. However, compensation is usually adjusted back to comparable faculty salaries upon their <a href="https://dc.swosu.edu/aij/vol3/iss2/8">return to faculty ranks</a>. </p>
<p>Neither former president’s salary has been made public, since they were both recent hires and those details are typically released with a significant delay. Gay, according to media reports, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-money-college-university-presidents-214953719.html">earns at least US$880,000 a year</a>. <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/education/liz-magill-university-pennsylvania-contract-severance-20231214.html">Magill’s predecessor made $1.56 million</a>, plus millions more in deferred compensation.</p>
<h2>What’s the purpose of tenure?</h2>
<p>It’s primarily supposed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X06009125">foster academic research</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/707211">academic freedom</a>. Once granted tenure, professors and other faculty members may feel more free to research topics that might not be politically popular or that their superior might not approve.</p>
<p>Having tenure also makes it easier for professors to discuss sensitive but appropriate topics with their students without fear of reprisal. </p>
<h2>What would it take for them to be fired?</h2>
<p>Firing any tenured faculty member is a lengthy process.</p>
<p>Even if it doesn’t involve a professor who got caught up in a contentious news cycle, the school would <a href="https://catalog.upenn.edu/faculty-handbook/ii/ii-e/">form a committee</a> to evaluate any possible charges. The process can take <a href="https://www.psucollegian.com/news/campus/penn-state-aaup-chapter-releases-statement-regarding-firing-process-against-penn-state-professor/article_a15eeaba-74c5-11ec-b265-ff940de6a9a3.html">months</a> or <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/ward-churchills-return-to-cu-boulder-9008153">years</a>.</p>
<p>Given the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/business/harvard-president-claudine-gay-plagiarism/index.html">allegations of plagarism</a> in Gay’s case, she would appear to be in a more precarious situation, but by no means would her dismissal be guaranteed.</p>
<h2>What’s changing with tenure?</h2>
<p>The share of <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/aaup-releases-first-study-on-tenure-since-2004-revealing-major-changes-in-faculty-career-tracks/">nontenured faculty is growing quickly</a>. Those professors and lecturers, who outnumber professors with tenure on U.S. campuses, generally teach more courses and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X221142618">earn less money</a>.</p>
<p>This creates a double incentive for universities, which essentially get more labor at a cheaper price. This arrangement can leave academics scrambling with little notice due to a <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/end-faculty-tenure-and-transformation-higher-education">lack of job security</a>.</p>
<p>Tenure, for now, is keeping Gay and Magill on the payrolls of Harvard and Penn. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that proceedings will be initiated to dismiss either for cause.</p>
<p>I’m anticipating <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/erosion-support-education-and-tenure-iowa">a resurgence</a> in the calls to do away with tenure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barring evidence of moral turpitude or excessive absenteeism, former administrators are very hard to force out.Ray Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135352024-01-03T13:46:21Z2024-01-03T13:46:21ZWorkers in their teens and early 20s are more likely to get hurt than older employees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565551/original/file-20231213-23-vn4jgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=149%2C223%2C2777%2C1763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some teens get tendinitis from scooping ice cream.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/morgan-jackson-18-of-scarborough-scoops-ice-cream-while-news-photo/958440620?adppopup=true">Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think about your first job. Maybe it was delivering pizza, bagging groceries, busing tables or doing landscaping work. Did you get enough training to avoid potential injuries? Chances are, you didn’t – and your boss or supervisor <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2018.12.003">just told you to get to work</a>.</p>
<p>Employing young people helps them in many ways. They can learn a trade, develop job skills, become more responsible and earn money. But there’s danger, too: Americans between 15 and 24 years old are up to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6935a3">2.3 times more likely</a> to get injured on the job than workers who are 25 and over.</p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf">398 workers under 25</a> died after getting injured on the job. </p>
<p>In my research about the unique <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cI_ixlIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">occupational safety hazards young workers face</a>, I’ve identified <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-014-9565-9">three common causes of this susceptibility to injury</a>: their lack of experience, developing bodies and brains, and reluctance to speak up. </p>
<h2>Physical and cognitive limitations</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/class-of-2023-young-people-see-better-job-opportunities/">19 million young people employed</a> today make up <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-summary.htm">approximately 13% of the U.S. workforce</a>. </p>
<p>Work is more dangerous for young people because they’ve simply had less time to become aware of many common workplace hazards than their older co-workers.</p>
<p>And yet this problem isn’t typically addressed during onboarding: Even those who have been trained to do a specific job may not be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2018.12.003,%20https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.10304">taught ways to avoid common injuries</a>. These include tendinitis from scooping ice cream for hours on end, burns from operating a deep fryer, lacerations from sharp objects, and slips, trips and falls.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/">bodies and brains continue to develop</a> well into adulthood – up to age 25. This can make some tasks riskier before that point for the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf">55% of individuals between the ages of 16 and 24</a> who work.</p>
<p>For example, workers in their teens and early 20s may be smaller and weaker than older workers. Furthermore, some safety equipment, such as gloves and masks, may not properly fit.</p>
<p>In addition to physical changes that occur during adolescence, <a href="https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/933-the-adolescent-brain-a-second-window-of-opportunity-a-compendium.html">the brain is</a> also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.04.012">developing and restructuring into early adulthood</a>. The frontal cortex, which is used for decision-making and helps you to think before you act, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3177">continues to develop into adulthood and can lead to risky behaviors</a>.</p>
<p>Young people are inclined to seek approval and respect, which influences their decision-making. </p>
<p>They also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2010.08.007">engage in risky behaviors</a> both on and off the job that may affect their performance at work. </p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0847-0">many young workers are reluctant to speak up</a> if they have concerns, or to ask questions if they don’t know what to do, because they don’t want to lose respect from their boss or supervisor. To avoid appearing unqualified, they may not want to admit that they need help. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Baskin-Robbins shop in a strip mall with its trademark pink branding." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563427/original/file-20231204-29-26qjf9.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">Like many Americans, President Barack Obama scooped ice cream in his youth. He was employed at this Honolulu Baskin-Robbins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaFirstJob/626981cdb54c4a11aefeb5a48e487ce5/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20(category:a%20OR%20%20category:i)%20AND%20%20(teen%20jobs)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=81&currentItemNo=34">AP Photo/Marco Garcia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Weaker protections in some states</h2>
<p>Despite these inherent risks, <a href="https://theconversation.com/states-are-weakening-their-child-labor-restrictions-nearly-8-decades-after-the-us-government-took-kids-out-of-the-workforce-205175">Arkansas, Iowa and other states have recently weakened labor laws</a>, loosening restrictions about the kinds of work teens can do and increasing the number of hours they can work. </p>
<p>This is happening at a time when the number of child labor violations are rising and more children are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html">dying or getting injured</a>, especially when they do tasks that <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20230217-1">violate federal labor laws</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/16-old-worker-killed-meat-203946508.html">Duvan Tomas Perez</a>, for example, died on the job while cleaning machinery in the Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in August 2023. Perez was 16. So was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-boy-dies-sawmill-child-labor-8ae0c9fc09b9355dd7f12640eaefff2d">Michael Schuls</a>, who died in June 2023 while attempting to unjam a wood-stacking machine at Florence Hardwoods, a Wisconsin lumber company. <a href="https://www.kake.com/story/49078450/16yearold-boy-dies-in-workplace-accident-at-kansas-cityarea-landfill">Will Hampton</a>, another 16-year-old, also died that month in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, while working at a landfill.</p>
<p>Teachers at a Nebraska middle school figured out that students who had trouble staying awake at school were working night shifts at a slaughterhouse, doing dangerous cleaning work that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department">caused chemical burns</a>.</p>
<p>Enacted in 1938, the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/compliance-assistance/handy-reference-guide-flsa">Fair Labor Standards Act</a> established federal standards to ensure workplace safety for workers under 18 and bars employers from interfering with their educational opportunities. This law sets 14 as a minimum age for formal employment, restricts when and how many hours children may work, and outlines the type of work children may safely perform. </p>
<p>Some of the new state labor laws <a href="https://www.iowadivisionoflabor.gov/child-labor">allow children to work in more dangerous jobs</a> and limit their employers’ liability for <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/">injury, illness or even death on the job</a>.</p>
<p>When state labor laws are less restrictive than the federal law, however, the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/youthrules/young-workers">federal standards apply</a>.</p>
<p>The federal government is also ramping up enforcement efforts. The <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20230727">Labor Department found 4,474 children employed in violation</a> of federal child labor laws between Oct. 1, 2022, and July 20, 2023. Employers, including McDonald’s and Sonic fast-food franchisees, owed more than $6.6 million in penalties as a result.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iyT2rT2t2T0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In an interview with “60 Minutes,” a Labor Department investigator relayed how the government determined that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. employed more than 100 children in violation of child labor laws.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3 steps employers can take</h2>
<p>In addition to following the law, I believe that employers and supervisors need to address the unique risks to young workers by <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare4030055">taking these necessary steps</a>: </p>
<p>• Provide training on how to do tasks safely and supervise young workers until key tasks have been mastered. Training should not only occur right before a new employee gets ready for their first shift, but whenever new tasks are assigned, when there is a new hazard in the workplace, and after an injury or near miss occurs in the workplace. </p>
<p>• Model safe behaviors. Remember that young workers often learn by watching their bosses and co-workers, whose actions can reinforce safety expectations and build a <a href="https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/culture-safety">culture of safety</a>. </p>
<p>• Take into account a worker’s abilities when assigning tasks, and check in on them regularly, especially when switching tasks. Ask open-ended questions, such as, “What are the steps you are going to take when you do this task?” as opposed to questions that can be answered with a yes or no, like, “Do you know how to do this task?” Be sure to let workers know how to report concerns and who they can talk to if they have questions about workplace procedures and policies. </p>
<p>These strategies are easy to implement and cost little to follow.</p>
<p>And they surely make it safer for workers in their teens and early 20s to gain the valuable work experience they want and need, while helping their employers to maintain safe, productive workplaces that nurture the workers our <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/productiveaging/default.html">economy will increasingly depend upon</a> in the years ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Rohlman receives funding from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. </span></em></p>Better training and supervision make younger workers less vulnerable to injuries.Diane Rohlman, Associate Dean for Research, Professor and Endowed Chair of Rural Safety and Health, University of IowaLicensed 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>
<figcaption>
<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>
</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/9/" 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 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/2164322023-10-29T15:04:03Z2023-10-29T15:04:03ZUnited Auto Workers union hails strike-ending deals with automakers that would raise top assembly-plant hourly pay to more than $40 as ‘record contracts’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556147/original/file-20231026-29-8u6y4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C2838%2C1684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 46,000 autoworkers gradually went on strike starting in mid-September.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-vehicle-sits-on-a-ford-dealerships-lot-on-october-03-news-photo/1715478064?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers union agreed on a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-reaches-tentative-deal-uaw-131907642.html">tentative new contract with General Motors on Oct. 30, 2023</a>, days after landing similar deals <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-strikes-ford-general-motors-stellantis-08a81503d72e44d4efa40549f684d5a2">with Ford Motor Co.</a> on Oct. 25 and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">Stellantis, the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America</a>, on Oct. 28. The pending agreements have halted the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">industry’s longest strike in 25 years</a>. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">began on Sept. 15</a>, when the UAW’s prior contracts with all three automakers expired, and lasted more than six weeks. After gradually ramping up, the strike eventually included about 46,000 workers – roughly one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the three companies.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/25/ford-confirms-tentative-agreement-with-uaw.html">Ford released a statement in which it said it was “pleased</a>” to have reached a deal and “focused on restarting Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.” <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2023/10/28/stellantis-strike-uaw-deal/71360452007/">Stellantis</a>, likewise, looks forward to “resuming operations,” as one of its executives said in a statement. General Motors initially made no public statements.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of labor and business issues</a>, to explain what’s in these contracts and their significance.</em></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1717337144572662025"}"></div></p>
<h2>What are the terms of the contract?</h2>
<p>According to several media reports and the union’s own announcements, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5">Ford’s tentative labor agreement</a> includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4½ years, as well as the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance the UAW lost in 2009.</p>
<p>In addition, the tentative agreements also will convert many temporary workers to full-time status, higher pay for temps, the right to go on strike over plant closures and significant increases in contributions to retirement plans.</p>
<p>By the end of the period covered by the Ford, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/business/economy/gm-uaw-contract-deal.html">GM</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">and Stellantis contracts</a>, the top worker wage at assembly plants will be <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/auto-workers-stellantis-reach-tentative-deal/7331209.html">more than US$40 an hour</a>. All three contracts will <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">expire on April 30, 2028</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">The Stellantis deal</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">according to UAW officials</a>, is similar to the one reached with Ford in other ways – as, reportedly, is the one that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/27/gm-uaw-labor-talks.html">UAW agreed upon with GM</a>. </p>
<p>The Stellantis agreement also has provisions regarding specific North American plants, including the plant Stellantis had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-outline-tentative-deal-reopen-stellantis-illinois-plant-sources-2023-10-28/">idled earlier in 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois</a>, the UAW said. Stellantis has promised to add 5,000 new jobs at Belvidere and other factories over the next four years, in stark contrast to its previous intention to cut that many jobs during the same period, UAW President <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Shawn Fain said on Oct. 28</a>.</p>
<p>The Ford contract, likewise, calls for <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2023/10/29/uaw-ford-tentative-agreement-details-highlighter/71368266007/">more than $8 billion in investments in factories</a> and other facilities, according to the UAW.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="UAW members, some holding their children aloft, attend a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW members attended a rally in support of the labor union’s strike on Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-attend-a-rally-in-support-of-the-labor-union-strike-news-photo/1712273041?adppopup=true">Jim Vondruska/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why did workers feel the strike was necessary, and did they achieve their aims?</h2>
<p>The workers knew that the companies had enjoyed <a href="https://www.cbs58.com/news/auto-sales-are-falling-but-profits-are-surging-welcome-to-the-new-normal">big profits</a> over the past several years. GM, for example, earned <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/14/automakers-production-levels-decrease-profits">$10 billion in profits in 2021</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-co-auto-industry-detroit-business-97a5db2a4e15c45915aae123e0b3d9cb">$14.5 billion in 2022</a>.</p>
<p>After having made <a href="https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/uaw-workers-set-to-strike-seek-to-regain-concessions-lost-after-2008-recession">major economic concessions</a> to help the companies survive the Great Recession, stiff international competition and the <a href="https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/its-official-gm-files-for-bankruptcy-a-1508">2009 bankruptcies of GM</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/apr/30/chrysler-verge-bankruptcy-talks-collapse">and Chrysler</a> – before the latter became a division of Stellantis – UAW members believed they deserved what they’re calling a “record contract” for having contributed to “record profits.”</p>
<p>“The days of low-wage, unstable jobs at the Big Three are coming to an end,” <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Fain said on Oct. 28</a>. “The days of the Big Three walking away from the American working class, destroying our communities, are coming to an end.”</p>
<p>To forge its militant strategy, the union tore a page from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-strike-if-it-happens-should-channel-the-legacy-of-walter-reuther-who-led-the-union-at-the-peak-of-its-power-212324">playbook of labor leader Walter Reuther</a>, who led the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970. Reuther believed that workers deserved a fair share of corporate abundance – just like shareholders and customers.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The UAW released the full details of the Ford contract to all of its members who are Ford workers on Oct. 29, after its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/26/23933553/ford-uaw-tentative-agreement-2023-contract-highlights-gm-stellantis">leaders had signed off</a> on it. Rank-and-file members now have to ratify the deal for it to go into effect.</p>
<p>The same process will happen with Stellantis on Nov. 2. The separate deal the UAW negotiated with GM will also require ratification.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the autoworkers who went on strike will be returning to their jobs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1718394875253514341"}"></div></p>
<h2>How will this affect the automakers’ bottom line?</h2>
<p>Some analysts have estimated that Ford’s contract, if ratified, would add <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-uaw-reach-tentative-deal-235436345.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">$1.5 billion to the company’s annual labor costs</a>. Ford itself estimated that this could add up to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5?mod=business_lead_story">$900 in labor costs to each vehicle</a> rolling off its assembly lines. Ford has also estimated that the strike cost it about $1.3 billion in pretax profits.</p>
<p>To put these numbers into perspective, <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/26/third-quarter-2023-financial-results.html">Ford generated slightly more than $130 billion in revenue</a> in the first three quarters of 2023, and <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-motor-co-f-q3-221158213.html">almost $5 billion in profits</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">Stellantis</a> has not yet made public what it believes the strike has cost the company.</p>
<p>General Motors has said that the strike is costing the company more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/gm-uaw-tentative-agreement-labor-strike.html">$800 million</a>.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Oct. 30, after GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly with the purview of the university.</span></em></p>Rank-and-file union members employed by the automakers have to ratify the new contracts before they become official.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115912023-10-20T12:27:13Z2023-10-20T12:27:13ZA memorial in Yiddish, Italian and English tells the stories of Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims − testament not only to tragedy but to immigrant women’s fight to remake labor laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554421/original/file-20231017-27-ejzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5582%2C3710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Victims' names engraved in a metal overhang, part of the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, are reflected in mirroring panels along the sidewalk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Triangle%20Shirtwaist%20Memorial/d4e18df9d4384eab9925fac331f75255?Query=triangle%20shirtwaist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=42&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 10-story Brown Building, site of one of the deadliest workplace disasters in United States history, stands one block east of Washington Square Park in New York City. Despite three bronze plaques noting its significance, it has long been easy to pass by without further thought.</p>
<p>On March 25, 1911, however, thousands of New Yorkers gathered outside what was then known as the Asch Building, home of <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/150.html#screen">the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory</a>. Drawn by <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/newspapersMagazines/nyt_032611.html">a brief but raging inferno</a>, they bore horrified witness to dozens of factory workers with no way to escape gathering on the ninth-floor window sills, desperately jumping, and smashing onto the sidewalks far below.</p>
<p>Horse-drawn fire crews <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/146.html#screen">responded within minutes</a> to reports of the fire, which broke out on a Saturday afternoon at closing time, and it took only a half-hour to douse the flames. But the fire had had its way.</p>
<p>One hundred and forty-six people lost their lives. Most of those who died worked on the ninth floor, where safety measures consisted of little more than pails of water, despite the potential fire bomb around them: overflowing bins of discarded cloth and lint, combined with tissue-paper patterns hung across the ceiling. Locked doors, an inadequate fire escape and other fire code violations meant many workers could find no way out except the windows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man looking from a few feet away at dead bodies crumpled on a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trapped behind locked doors, some workers saw no escape but the windows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/policeman-stands-in-the-street-observing-charred-rubble-and-news-photo/3112343?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Firemen were left to stack the lifeless bodies <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/151.html#screen">on the sidewalk</a>. The vast majority were girls or young women: meagerly paid laborers, and most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants.</p>
<p>On Oct. 11, 2023, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition <a href="https://apnews.com/article/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-memorial-6696231893baecf72da373ebd3a94680">dedicated a striking memorial</a> at the site of this tragedy. The initial installation features a stainless steel ribbon extending in two parallel strands along the ground floor, displaying victims’ names and survivors’ testimony, written in their native languages: English, Yiddish and Italian. Over the next few months, another gently twisting ribbon traveling from the window sill of the ninth floor to the ground level and back up again will be added.</p>
<p>The memorial offers a bold and graceful reminder not only of the fire but of its imprint on the world we inhabit today.</p>
<p>When I asked the students in my history class at the University of Michigan if they had heard of the Triangle fire, I was shocked to see almost all raise their hands. Many were familiar with how the disaster inspired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033177379/labor-day-history-triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-patco-strike">the growth of labor activism</a> and worker protections. Few of them, however, had thought about the central role of American Jewish women, <a href="https://ssw.umich.edu/faculty/profiles/tenure-track/kargold">the focus of my research</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of a crowd of women in long coats, holding banners that say 'We mourn our loss.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators from Local 25 and the United Hebrew Trades of New York mourn fire victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-mourn-for-the-deaths-of-victims-of-the-news-photo/642536674?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tense 2 years</h2>
<p>Only two years before the fire, a walkout over working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had sparked a series of labor actions that culminated in the <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">Uprising of the 20,000</a>, the largest <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/275.html#screen">American women’s strike</a> ever. </p>
<p>That disciplined activism was led by a small cadre of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography-clara-lemlich">young Jewish immigrant working-class women</a>. Years earlier, they had essentially created a branch of their own – Local 25 – within the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Their example led to a surge of strikes nationwide and forced the labor movement to finally take the needs of unskilled workers and women workers seriously.</p>
<p><a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/142.html#screen">The Triangle bosses</a> and other owners hired thugs to assault strike leaders and picketers. The police likewise felt free <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635910/common-sense-and-a-little-fire-second-edition/">to beat the picketers</a>, which only abated when upper-class partners in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/286.html#screen">Women’s Trade Union League joined the picket lines</a> – raising fear among the police that they might be striking society matrons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of formally dressed women around a dining table decorated with plants and candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Suffragettes and socialites attend a dinner held by Mrs. Martin Littleton in support of the striking workers, circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-physician-anna-howard-shaw-leader-of-the-womens-news-photo/1393779912?adppopup=true">Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Triangle Factory was among the 339 shops that “<a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">settled” with the union</a> in February 1910, with concessions that included higher wages, a 52-hour week, four paid holidays per year and a promise to no longer discriminate against union members. </p>
<p>The strikers’ <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">call for better safety standards</a>, however, <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">had been ignored</a> by the male union representatives and owners who had worked out the settlement. </p>
<h2>Moral force</h2>
<p>Local 25 grew from a few hundred to 10,000 members over the course <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909#pid-18206">of the 1909-10 strike</a>. That organizing prowess would be seen again in the wave of protest and indignation that followed the 1911 fire.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">unions’ strength</a> could be seen in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/184.html#screen">funeral march</a> that accompanied the fire’s seven unidentified victims to a municipal burying ground, as a crowd of 400,000 assembled to march or <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/187.html#screen">watch the procession</a>.</p>
<p>The power of the <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">activists’ moral indignation</a> emerged in full force
at a memorial meeting held a few days later. Workers grew restive as wealthy philanthropists, city officials and liberal reformers promised investigatory commissions – which they feared would mean little real change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up formal portrait of a woman with dark hair in a black and white photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminist and union labor activist Rose Schneiderman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-feminist-and-labor-union-leader-rose-news-photo/461192915?adppopup=true">Interim Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">Rose Schneiderman</a>, one of the working-class <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/221.html">immigrant labor activists</a> who had helped organize the 1909 strike, was also on the platform. <a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">Reformer Frances Perkins</a>, who would soon become a close ally, noted Schneiderman trembling over <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">the loss of comrades, friends and co-workers</a>.</p>
<p>Schneiderman took the podium, excoriating the industry’s brutality and focusing on the unrealized power of the workers themselves. “I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies,” <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/115844?lang=bi">she declared</a>, “if I were to come here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public – and we have found you wanting.”</p>
<p>“I know from experience it is up to the working class to save themselves,” Schneiderman told the audience.</p>
<h2>Birth of the New Deal</h2>
<p>Yet the working class ended up needing allies like Perkins, who was instrumental in establishing a citizens’ Committee on Safety, and then <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart07">a legislative Factory Investigating Commission</a> as well.</p>
<p>On the day of the fire, Perkins had been enjoying tea at a friend’s house on Washington Square and rushed toward the commotion across the park, arriving on the scene to see bodies falling from the sky. That scene and Schneiderman’s speech <a href="https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/FrancesPerkinsLecture.html">left an indelible impression on her</a> – as they did on many New Yorkers. </p>
<p>For several reasons, including public outcry about the fire, this was the moment when New York City’s political machine began to shift its focus and <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">address workers’ needs</a>. Schneiderman and other activists worked with Perkins on investigations that led to the overhaul of <a href="https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/exhibits/industrialization">New York’s safety and labor laws</a>, such as <a href="https://bklyn.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-hearing-about-t/91238764/?locale=en-US">a 54-hour maximum work week</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men hold posters printed with black and white photographs of women as they stand on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<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>A memorial at the site of the 1911 fire remembers those who died; a cadre of young Jewish women helped push for change in the wake of the tragedy.Karla Goldman, Professor of Social Work and Judaic Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084232023-09-22T12:29:56Z2023-09-22T12:29:56ZBiases against Black-sounding first names can lead to discrimination in hiring, especially when employers make decisions in a hurry − new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549130/original/file-20230919-23-y3ipbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C116%2C5301%2C2563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What role will race play in determining who gets the job?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/everyones-grabbed-their-easiest-prep-tool-royalty-free-image/1174452924?phrase=hiring+job+candidates&adppopup=true">Cecilie_Arcurs/E+ via Getty Image</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Because names are among the first things you learn about someone, they can influence first impressions. </p>
<p>That this is particularly true for names associated with Black people came to light in 2004 with the release of a study that found employers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561">seeing identical resumes</a> were 50% more likely to call back an applicant with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/2020/top-20-whitest-blackest-names/story?id=2470131">stereotypical white names like Emily or Greg</a> versus applicants with names like Jamal or Lakisha.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WJe3b0UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">behavioral economist who researches discrimination in labor markets</a>. In a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4490163">study based on a hiring experiment</a> I conducted with another economist, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=vyGCfDoAAAAJ">Rulof Burger</a>, we found that participants systematically discriminated against job candidates with names they associated with Black people, especially when put under time pressure. We also found that white people who oppose affirmative action discriminated more than other people against job candidates with distinctly Black names, whether or not they had to make rushed decisions.</p>
<h2>Detecting racial biases</h2>
<p>To conduct this study, we recruited 1,500 people from all 50 U.S. states in 2022 to participate in an online experiment on <a href="https://prolific.com">Prolific</a>, a survey platform. The group was nationally representative in terms of race and ethnicity, age and gender.</p>
<p>We first collected data on their beliefs about the race and ethnicity, education, productivity and personality traits of people with six names picked from a pool of 2,400 workers whom we hired in an early stage of our experiment for a transcription task. Data from these individual responses made it possible for us to categorize how they perceived the candidates.</p>
<p>We found that the names of workers perceived as Black, such as Shanice or Terell, were more likely to elicit negative presumptions, such as being less educated, productive, trustworthy and reliable, than people with either white-sounding names, such as Melanie or Adam, or racially ambiguous names, such as Krystal or Jackson.</p>
<p>We were specifically studying discrimination against Black people, so we did not include names in this experiment that are frequently associated with Hispanics or Asians. </p>
<p>Participants were next presented with pairs of names and were told they could earn money for selecting the worker who was more productive in the transcription task. The chance that they would choose job candidates they perceived to be white because of their names was almost twice as high than if they thought the candidates to be Black. This tendency to discriminate against people with Black-sounding names was greatest among men, people over 55, whites and conservatives.</p>
<p>Educational attainment, the level of racial diversity in the participants’ ZIP codes or whether they had personally hired anyone before didn’t influence their apparent biases. </p>
<p><iframe id="cju7c" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cju7c/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Rushing can cause more discriminatory behavior</h2>
<p>Most real-world hiring managers spend <a href="https://careers.workopolis.com/advice/employers-view-resumes-for-fewer-than-11-seconds">less than 10 seconds</a> reviewing each resume during the initial screening stage. To keep up that swift pace, they may resort to using mental shortcuts – including racial stereotypes – to assess job applications.</p>
<p>We found that requiring the study participants to select a worker within only 2 seconds led them to be 25% more likely to discriminate against candidates with names they perceived as Black-sounding. Similar patterns of biased decision-making under time pressure have been documented in the context of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1006">police shootings</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146512445807">medical decisions</a>.</p>
<p>However, making decisions more slowly is not a panacea. </p>
<p>We found that the most important factor for whether more deliberate decisions reduce discrimination was a participant’s view on <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/affirmative_action">affirmative action</a> – the consideration of race in a workforce or student body to ensure that their share of people of color is roughly proportionate to the general public or a local community. </p>
<p>White participants who opposed affirmative action were more than twice as likely to select an applicant with a white-sounding name compared with applicants perceived as Black – whether or not they had to make the simulated hiring decision in a hurry.</p>
<p>By contrast, giving white participants who favor affirmative action unlimited time to choose a name from the hiring list reduced discrimination against the job candidates with names they perceived as Black-sounding by almost half. The data showed that this decline had to do with people basing their decision more on their perceptions of a worker’s performance, rather than relying on mental shortcuts based on their perceived race.</p>
<p>We assessed the participants’ views on affirmative action by doing a survey at the end of this experiment.</p>
<h2>Discrimination hasn’t gone away</h2>
<p>A study published in 2021 <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w29053">suggested that hiring discrimination</a> based on Black-souding names had declined, although discriminatory practices remained high in some customer-facing lines of work, such as auto sales or retail. </p>
<p>Other research has suggested that once people learn more about someone, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/722093">discriminatory influence that a name might have</a> begins to fade. Yet, other studies have indicated that racial biases can make the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20231114">interactions needed for this learning process less likely</a>. For example, racial biases may lead employers to refrain from interviewing – or hiring – a job candidate of color in the first place.</p>
<p>There is ample evidence that people of color face discrimination in many important domains beyond employment, including finding <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160213">housing</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhac029">obtaining loans</a>.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that slowing down the initial assessment of applicants can be a first step toward reducing this type of discrimination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Abel 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>People who object to affirmative action were more likely to discriminate against job candidates with Black-sounding names than those who supported it, whether or not they had to rush.Martin Abel, Assistant Professor of Economics, Bowdoin CollegeLicensed 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/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/2106712023-08-18T12:39:44Z2023-08-18T12:39:44ZTipping etiquette and norms are in flux − here’s how you can avoid feeling flustered or ripped off<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542867/original/file-20230815-23-mw6txd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=298%2C54%2C5743%2C3841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Digital payment methods may automatically prompt you to leave a gratuity.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TippingFatigue/11bc6c8b9388484fa0dbf543db35dc47/photo?Query=tip%20fatigue&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=5&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tipping has gotten more complicated – and awkward – in North America.</p>
<p>The ever-growing list of situations in which you might be invited to tip includes <a href="https://haveyourselfatime.com/smoothie-king-tipping-etiquette/">buying a smoothie</a>, <a href="https://bestlifeonline.com/places-you-should-never-tip/">paying an electrician</a>, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/should-you-tip-your-flight-attendant-it-all-depends-on-the-airline-2019-01-08">getting a beer from a flight attendant</a> and <a href="https://support.actblue.com/donors/about-actblue/what-are-actblue-tips-for/">making a political donation</a>. </p>
<p>Should you always tip when someone suggests it? If yes, how do you calculate the right amount? And if you don’t, are you being stingy?</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iU_D4EwAAAAJ&hl=en">marketing professors</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=s5S9eAoAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">specialize in customer interactions</a>, we’re researching how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705231166742">digital payment technologies have changed how and when customers tip</a>. Our research suggests that asking for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1094670519900553">tips before service</a> and <a href="https://www.msi.org/working-papers/whos-in-control-how-default-tip-levels-influence-customer-response/">suggesting tip amounts that are too high</a> can frustrate customers and be bad for business.</p>
<h2>What’s new</h2>
<p>U.S. customers historically tipped people they assumed were earning most of their <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=465942">income via tips</a>, such as restaurant servers earning less than the minimum wage. In the early 2010s, a wide range of businesses started processing purchases with iPads and other digital payment systems. These systems often prompted customers to tip for <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3022182/how-square-registers-ui-guilts-you-into-leaving-tips">services that were not previously tipped</a>.</p>
<p>Today’s tip requests are often not connected to the salary and service norms that used to determine <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/01/technology-pandemic-economy-gratuity-tipping-etiquette-square/672658/">when and how people tip</a>.</p>
<p>Customers in the past nearly always paid tips after receiving a service, such as at the conclusion of a restaurant meal, after getting a haircut or once a pizza was delivered. That timing could reward high-quality service and give workers an incentive to provide it. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/customers-hate-tipping-before-theyre-served-and-asking-makes-them-less-likely-to-return-132078">becoming more common</a> for tips to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/payment-apps-asking-for-specific-tips-before-service-annoy-the-heck-out-of-users-but-still-generate-bigger-gratuities-180083">requested beforehand</a>. And new tipping technology may even <a href="https://abc7news.com/amazon-fresh-tipping-tip-delivery-driver-automatic/13325771/">automatically add tips</a>.</p>
<h2>Tip creep and tipflation</h2>
<p>The prevalence of digital payment devices has made it easier to ask customers for a tip. That helps explain why <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/business/dollar3-tip-on-a-dollar4-cup-of-coffee-gratuities-grow-automatically.html">tip requests are creeping</a> into new kinds of services.</p>
<p>Customers now routinely see menus of suggested default options – often well above 20% of what they owe. The amounts have risen from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089587173/the-land-of-the-fee-2021">10% or less in the 1950s</a> to 15% around the year 2000 to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/14/is-25percent-the-new-20percent-how-much-to-tip-in-a-post-pandemic-world.html">20% or higher today</a>. This increase is sometimes called <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tipping-backlash-inflation-who-should-get-tipped/">tipflation</a> – the expectation of ever-higher tip amounts. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22446361/pandemic-gratuity-covid-service-work">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, which hastened the adoption of digital payments and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0886368721999135">increased sympathy for service workers</a>, amplified both tip creep and tipflation.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soda fountain attendant serving young woman in a black and white photo taken in the 1950s" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542872/original/file-20230815-17-m69ndx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tips used to be smaller.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/soda-fountain-attendant-serving-young-woman-royalty-free-image/53271877?phrase=tip+restaurant+service+black+and+white&adppopup=true">George Marks/Retrofile RF via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tipping has always been a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1187275511/tipping-minimum-wage-tips-tip-screen">vital source of income</a> for workers in historically tipped services, like restaurants, where the tipped minimum wage can be as low as <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped">US$2.13 an hour</a>. Tip creep and tipflation are now further supplementing the income of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/business/economy/tipped-wage-subminimum.html">many low-wage service workers</a>.</p>
<p>Notably, tipping primarily benefits some of these workers, such as waiters, but not others, such as cooks and dishwashers. To ensure that all employees were paid fair wages, some restaurants banned tipping and increased prices, but this movement toward no-tipping services has <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/the-limitations-of-american-restaurants-no-tipping-experiment">largely fizzled out</a>.</p>
<p>So, to increase employee wages without raising prices, more employers are succumbing to the temptations of tip creep and tipflation. However, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/american-tipping-system-makes-no-sense/600865/">many customers are frustrated</a> because they feel they are being asked for too high of a tip, too often. And, as our research emphasizes, tipping now seems to be more coercive, less generous and often completely dissociated from service quality. </p>
<p>While digital tipping can be an easy way for customers to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/dining/tipping-gratuity-restaurants.html">help workers or express their gratitude</a> for good service, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/briefing/tipping-confusion-food-delivery-apps.html?searchResultPosition=2">many Americans feel uncertain</a> about what to do when asked for a tip.</p>
<h2>3 questions to always ask</h2>
<p>Here are some questions you can ask yourself when faced with almost any tipping decision. </p>
<p><strong>1. Should I tip?</strong></p>
<p>It’s generally up to you to decide whether you will tip and how much.</p>
<p>To avoid being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670519900553">pressured into tipping when you don’t want to</a>, establish your own norms for different services. That will make you less likely to be surprised by an unexpected or high-pressure tip request. Many customers do pay tips in those situations but get upset.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tip jar full of dollar bills with a 'thank you' written on a strip of tape adhered to it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542871/original/file-20230815-26-1zfy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sometimes it’s best to chip in with a little cash.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/glass-tip-jar-at-checkout-counter-royalty-free-image/1324730309?adppopup=true">Catherine McQueen/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We advise you to always tip when there’s a clear tradition of doing so: dining at full-service restaurants or ordering a drink at a bar, traveling by taxi, having meals delivered to your door and getting a haircut.</p>
<p>We also recommend tipping employees you believe are being paid less than a fair wage. Though it can be difficult to determine whether employees are underpaid, learning whether your state or city <a href="https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/?gclid=CjwKCAjw5_GmBhBIEiwA5QSMxAJ3gRSsi_Jz-Ny8ZacR8aM7pW0FmaCazBhvhq0vzZtzSpDM63s-wBoCOX4QAvD_BwE#/min_wage/New%20Jersey">guarantees a minimum wage</a> that’s well above the federal requirement can help.</p>
<p>For many tipped services, quality varies widely. In these situations, you can use tips to reward better service, if you pay after receiving it; or you can give workers a tip beforehand as an incentive to treat you well.</p>
<p>Likewise, pay a tip if you’re likely to use the service again. You will earn a reputation as a good or bad tipper, and employees will treat you accordingly.</p>
<p>There’s a wide range of services that may or may not require a tip. These include quick-service cafes and takeout, where customers order at a counter rather than being waited on at a table. You will need to decide what to do in those situations on a case-by-case basis. <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2014/05/should-you-tip-your-barista">Tipping a barista</a> who has skillfully prepared your fancy latte makes more sense to us than tipping a worker who rings up a can of soda.</p>
<p>In many instances, paying and tipping in cash makes the most sense because you can avoid coercive technology and ensure that the employee who helped you directly receives the tip. That way, the employee will know you appreciate their service, and you can be fairly certain that their employer is not somehow <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-would-pocket-workers-tips-under-trump-administrations-proposed-tip-stealing-rule/">swiping their tip money</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A card reader tablet with tip options that are for $1, $2 and $3, custom or no tip" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542868/original/file-20230815-25-uwuvhj.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">When is it OK to just say no?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TippingFatigue/e26fc772b27c4a76a60d20c4f041c58d/photo?Query=tip%20fatigue&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=5&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>2. How much?</strong></p>
<p>This question is especially important when preservice tips are requested. If service quality may vary based on your response, for example with food delivery, food trucks, bars and restaurants, we suggest tipping the middle or high default tip amount, which will often be around 20%, or a flat dollar amount that is the rough equivalent. That approach will avoid the possibility of getting poor service. Of course, this can result in frustration if service doesn’t meet your expectations.</p>
<p>An alternative strategy is to tip the lowest recommended option, which is often close to 10%, then add an additional cash tip if the service is good. While using this strategy risks bad service, it’s a wise way to go if you plan to be a repeat customer.</p>
<p><strong>3. Can I skip it this time?</strong></p>
<p>If a tip request comes as a surprise, that usually means there is no norm you’re familiar with for that service. We recommend that you don’t tip in that situation, despite the social pressure. If you wind up tipping anyway, we recommend either not returning to the business or writing a polite but critical review online describing your uncomfortable experience.</p>
<p>We don’t believe there’s a reason to feel guilty leaving no tip or a low tip when you are using a service that is not traditionally tipped or where service quality is not affected by the tip amount, such as when making a donation or <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/27/woman-asked-to-tip-while-online-shopping/">ordering an office chair from an internet retailer</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, tipping is voluntary, which makes it a personal choice.</p>
<p>But whether you tip or not, you should always treat service workers well, especially tipped service workers. They are often exposed to the worst customer behaviors, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/11/business/tipping-sexual-harassment.html">including harassment</a>, which is never appropriate – no matter how much a customer tips.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tipping seems to be more coercive and less tied to service quality these days.Nathan B. Warren, Assistant Professor of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business SchoolSara Hanson, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096712023-08-14T12:24:30Z2023-08-14T12:24:30ZUnderpaid and overlooked, migrant labor provides backbone of Maryland Eastern Shore’s local economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542223/original/file-20230810-21-m3fgd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=858%2C125%2C4701%2C2742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A migrant worker picks crabs in Hoopers Island, Maryland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrant-worker-eleazar-rubio-picks-crabs-at-old-saltys-news-photo/1020689092?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every summer, people flock to Maryland to eat blue crabs. Named for their brilliant sapphire-colored claws, blue crab is one of <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/crab.html">the most iconic species</a> in the Chesapeake Bay. The scientific name for blue crabs, <em>Callinectes sapidus</em>, means “beautiful savory swimmer.” </p>
<p>In restaurants and at home, diners pile steamed and seasoned blue crabs in the middle of a table covered in paper. Then, using small mallets, knives, bare hands and fingers, they break open the hard shells and extract the juicy meat from inside. </p>
<p>It is a messy experience, especially with <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/what-is-old-bay-seasoning">Old Bay seasoning</a> and beer known locally as <a href="https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/421">Natty Bohs</a>, one that is quintessentially Maryland.</p>
<p>Though many people know firsthand how difficult it is to pick and clean crab meat, they often don’t realize how crab is processed when it is sold in stores already picked and cleaned. Most people also may not know that crab picking is a livelihood for many, mainly poor, women.</p>
<p>For generations, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/food-drink/bs-fo-crisfield-crab-pickers-20220516-ndghx7pz5jdqhpiya3ip4mca6i-story.html">African American women</a> from Maryland’s rural, maritime communities labored for crab houses on the Eastern Shore. </p>
<p>Today, fewer than 10 crab houses are left on the Shore. The workforce consists of mainly female migrant workers from Mexico who do the grueling job of picking crab for eight to nine hours a day, from late spring to early fall. They make on average of US$2.50 to $4.00 for every pound of crabmeat they pick. </p>
<p>That pay is roughly one-tenth to one-twelfth of the wholesale price of one pound – or about a half of a kilogram – of the seafood they pick, which is $35 to $44. In comparison, the Maryland minimum wage is $13.25 an hour, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.</p>
<h2>Rise of immigration in rural America</h2>
<p>Over <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/essential-role-immigrants-us-food-supply-chain">2.1 million</a> migrants and immigrants work in jobs growing and processing food in the United States, playing an essential role in feeding Americans. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/thurkas.cfm">anthropologist and global health researcher</a>, my work has shown that they are part of an increasing trend in rural America. Since 1990, immigrants have been moving to small towns and rural regions at unprecedented rates, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">accounting for 37%</a> of the overall rural population growth from 2000-2018.</p>
<p>Some rural counties, like Stewart County in Georgia and Franklin County in Alabama, have experienced growth rates of over <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/hispanic-population-by-county/">1,000% in their foreign-born population</a>, which have boosted their local economies and mitigated rural population decline.</p>
<p>Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore, for instance, has experienced a rapid rise in immigration since 2000. From 2010 to 2019, migration was the primary source of population growth, with the foreign-born population <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674179/landscapes-of-care/">increasing by 90%</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man dumps out a basket full of crabs onto a table where two women are standing with small carving knives." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.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 migrant worker dumps out a bushel of crabs to be picked and cleaned by two other migrant workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrant-worker-francisco-nava-dumps-out-a-bushel-of-crabs-news-photo/1020689210?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many immigrants come to this region to find work in agriculture, poultry and seafood processing. Some come directly from Mexico, Central America and Haiti.</p>
<p>Typically, farmworkers have temporary visas and arrive in late spring and early summer and stay through the growing season. Migrant Mexican women who work in crab processing also follow the same seasonal employment pattern. Others, like those working in poultry processing plants, have settled here more permanently, either as undocumented or permanent residents.</p>
<h2>At risk of exploitation and injury</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/migrant-health">Immigrant workers</a> in rural regions work dangerous jobs and are exposed to pollution, deplorable living conditions and limited safety training.</p>
<p>Additionally, immigrant workers are among the lowest paid and <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/fact-sheet/health-coverage-and-care-of-immigrants/">lack access</a> to health information, preventive care and medical treatment. Dry skin, cuts, scrapes, rashes, chronic pain and broken bones are common among immigrants who work in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072536/">agriculture</a>, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/poultry-processing-workers-incur-a-high-rate-of-nonfatal-workplace-injuries-and-illnesses.htm">poultry</a> and <a href="https://cdmigrante.org/breaking-the-shell/">seafood processing</a>.</p>
<p>These workers also suffer from numerous <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674179/landscapes-of-care/">invisible injuries</a> such as discrimination, verbal harassment and physical exploitation.</p>
<h2>Challenges to rural health</h2>
<p>Despite the daily risk of harm, migrant workers in rural regions have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/migrantfarmworkers/index.html">limited access to health care</a> and rely on mobile clinics, local health departments and community health centers. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A lump of crab meat is on top of a fish filet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.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 hearty portion of crabmeat is served atop a fillet of rockfish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hearty-portion-of-crab-imperial-is-served-atop-a-fillet-of-news-photo/1141676503?adppopup=true">Edwin Remsberg/VW PICS/UIG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But these <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10217862/">facilities are not equipped</a> to handle specialty care or emergencies. Nor are many of them easily accessible due to location or hours of operation. In addition, many workers cannot afford to miss work or are afraid to tell their supervisors that they need care. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.aha.org/system/files/2019-02/rural-report-2019.pdf">avoid health providers</a> altogether because they are not treated well or feel misunderstood.</p>
<h2>Essential but undervalued</h2>
<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, the notion of “essential” workers became part of the nation’s vocabulary as a way to describe people required to continue in-person work under lockdown conditions. They included food industry workers. </p>
<p>The pandemic <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/what-has-been-the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-immigrants-an-update-on-recent-evidence-65cfc31c/">exposed the disproportionate numbers</a> of immigrant workers in the agriculture, poultry and seafood industries in rural America. </p>
<p>It also revealed how policies enacted during the pandemic to protect public health and essential workers did little to prevent people from working in dangerous workplace conditions without adequate safeguards.</p>
<p>Unable to self-quarantine at home, many <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888537/">food production workers</a> got sick or even died as a result of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047223165/immigrants-push-for-better-working-conditions-that-were-made-worse-by-the-pandem">working in crowded conditions</a> without personal protective equipment and adequate ventilation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="As the sun sets in the background, a young man on a boat pulls in a net from the water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young waterman pulls in a crab trap as the Sun sets behind him in Dundalk, Md.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-waterman-pulls-in-crab-trap-as-the-sun-rises-behind-news-photo/1141676388?adppopup=true">Edwin Remsberg/VW PICS/UIG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many ways, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/chicken-factory-tyson-arkansas-food-workers-coronavirus">COVID-19 pandemic</a> demonstrated <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ruralhealth/about.html">the long-standing crisis</a> of health care for immigrants in rural America. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">despite evidence</a> that close to 2.5 million foreign-born people live and work in rural America, very little information exists on these people’s health. </p>
<p>This inattention by lawmakers is harmful and dangerous because it leaves health care providers and social workers with little understanding of immigrant experiences in small towns and sparsely populated rural communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thurka Sangaramoorthy receives funding from The National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>With more than 2 million migrant workers finding food processing jobs in rural America, their struggle to find adequate health care remains elusive.Thurka Sangaramoorthy, Professor of Anthropology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100372023-08-07T12:41:03Z2023-08-07T12:41:03ZUS autoworkers may wage a historic strike against Detroit’s 3 biggest automakers − with wages at EV battery plants a key roadblock to agreement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538558/original/file-20230720-19-obsn7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C139%2C2236%2C1850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain speaks with General Motors workers on July 12, 2023, in Detroit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain-speaks-with-and-news-photo/1528218013?adppopup=true">Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union, which represents nearly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/stellantis-samsung-battery-plant-uaw/index.html">150,000 employees of companies that manufacture U.S.-made vehicles</a>, has been engaged since July 2023 in the labor negotiations it undergoes every four years with the three main unionized automakers.</p>
<p>By late August, it still wasn’t clear that the UAW would agree to a new contract with <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigthree.asp">Ford, General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the automaker that manufactures Chrysler and 13 other vehicle brands – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-will-open-contract-talks-with-detroit-three-automakers-2023-07-10/">by their impending deadline</a>. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-union-wage-increase-jobs-bank-b8370b11bd692191d9ee3080001ef358">contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14</a>.</p>
<p>The union’s leaders skipped the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/07/13/uaw-detroit-three-handshake-tradition-shawn-fain/70407842007/">traditional handshake ceremonies</a> it usually holds with these automakers, which are often called the Big Three or Detroit Three. The union instead held grassroots photo-ops: UAW leaders greeted rank-and-file members at one Ford, one GM and one Stellantis factory. On Aug. 25, the UAW announced that <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of its members had authorized a strike</a> “if the Big Three refuse to reach a fair deal.” It’s a major milestone.</p>
<p>I’m a labor scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>. Given that the UAW is <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">making major demands</a> at a time of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/strikes-2023-summer-unions/">rising union assertiveness and ambition</a>, I believe it’s reasonable to wonder whether U.S. automakers will be the next industry to face a strike.</p>
<p>In 2023, there have been <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/emmys-postponed-due-writer-actor-strikes-rcna96803">strikes by screenwriters, actors</a>, <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/us-healthcare-workers-walk-off-the-job-7-strikes-in-2023.html">health care workers</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-los-angeles-hotel-strike-ff26bbef8cbf37c82469a446ff29f919">hotel staff</a>, as well as vigorous organizing by workers for <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/reform-caucus-rises-sues-elections-amazon-labor-union">warehouse and delivery services</a> at <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/amazon-teamsters-rolling-pickets-hit-facilities-nationwide">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">UPS</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/fedex-pilots-union-vote/index.html">FedEx</a>.</p>
<h2>Strike could stall Detroit GM, Ford and Stellantis</h2>
<p>All three automakers with expiring contracts have amassed nearly <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">US$250 billion in reported profits</a> in their North American operations over the past decade.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">UAW leaders have pledged</a> to garner what they see as their members’ fair share of those profits through higher wages and stronger job security.</p>
<p>The UAW’s newly elected president, Shawn Fain, frequently denounces corporate greed and has proclaimed the union’s willingness to go on strike. In the past, the union has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/automobiles/auto-strikes-history.html">held strikes against one automaker at a time</a>, most recently in <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/25/20930350/gm-workers-vote-end-strike">2019 against GM</a>. </p>
<p>That could change this time.</p>
<p>“The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-president-says-union-prepared-strike-detroit-three-2023-07-11/">Big Three is our strike target</a>,” Fain has said. “And whether or not there’s a strike, it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.” </p>
<p>The UAW has said it has <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/06/21/bank-of-america-analysts-expect-uaw-strike-during-auto-talks-this-year/70343417007/">more than $825 million</a> in its strike fund to <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">help workers make do</a> without pay should they walk off the job. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man carries a 'UAW on strike' picket sign, enveloped in an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Autoworker Ray Dota picketed outside the shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Sept. 23, 2019, during the most recent UAW strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ray-dota-of-austintown-oh-pickets-outside-the-shuttered-news-photo/1178903811?adppopup=true">Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fain’s leadership</h2>
<p>Fain has declared that the union will no longer maintain the somewhat cozy relationship with the Big Three that <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">led to major concessions</a> in the past.</p>
<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">union’s other new leaders also</a> are affiliated with the UAW’s <a href="https://uawd.org/about/">Unite All Workers for Democracy</a> caucus, which launched a successful campaign to require the direct election of the union’s top officials in 2022, with runoff elections held in 2023. They want to prevent a recurrence of a massive scandal that resulted in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">federal prosecution</a> of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">UAW leaders from 2017 to 2022</a>.</p>
<p>Two former UAW international presidents were sentenced to time in prison after being convicted of embezzling union funds. The new slate of leaders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">assumed control of the UAW under court supervision</a> in March 2023.</p>
<h2>Seeking equal pay for EV workers</h2>
<p>As part of their bolder strategy, the <a href="https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-samsung-sdi-build-3b-ev-battery-plant-us">UAW’s new leaders have criticized the joint ventures</a> between the three automakers and foreign-based electric battery producers.</p>
<p>They want to see Ford, GM and Stellantis paying UAW-level wages and benefits at all joint-venture operated plants in the U.S. making batteries for their EVs. Today, workers at the joint-venture factories earn far less than their <a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">counterparts who produce vehicles that run on fossil fuels</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electrek.co/2022/12/09/gms-ultium-battery-plant-votes-overwhelmingly-to-unionize-with-uaw/">UAW has succeeded in organizing one of these joint ventures</a>, Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio. But pay for workers at the former General Motors plant, which is now a joint EV battery venture between GM and LG Energy, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/auto-union-harshly-criticizes-us-ford-joint-venture-battery-loan-2023-06-23/">starts at just $16.50 per hour</a>. In 2019, the year that GM ended car assembly at that factory, workers <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/28/auto-workers-union-and-sanders-blast-gm-for-wages-at-us-battery-plant.html">earned $32 per hour</a>. </p>
<p>The UAW has several other objectives, which <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">Fain first announced in a Facebook live meeting</a> on Aug. 1, 2023.</p>
<p>They include greater job security <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-seeks-double-digit-pay-hikes-detroit-three-contract-talks-2023-08-01/">and steep wage increases</a> for UAW-represented workers covered by the union’s contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis.</p>
<p>Among other things, it also seeks to end the two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007, under which new hires make much less than veteran workers, and the restoration of cost-of-living allowances, which the UAW also conceded in 2007 to help the companies stay afloat during the Great Recession.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc12.com/news/business/uaw-president-lays-out-list-of-demands-for-big-three-automakers/article_3e76b288-3130-11ee-861e-2365c42aa592.html">Other UAW goals include</a> resuming company-paid retiree health care benefits, adding more paid time off and limiting the use of temporary employees. Fain also says he wants <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_4x-seTCvc&ab_channel=CBSNews">workweeks scaled down to 32 hours, from its current 40</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1686494700331728906"}"></div></p>
<h2>Smaller ranks</h2>
<p>Union membership in the auto manufacturing industry has <a href="https://www.unionstats.com">shrunk from nearly 60% in 1983 to under 16% in 2022</a>. Nonunion competitors with U.S. locations include foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, as well as domestic-based EV rivals Tesla and Rivian.</p>
<p>In 1970, GM employed more than 400,000 workers. In 2001, the Big Three combined employed 408,000. Today, a total of only 146,000 people work for those companies – <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/uaw-show-list-economic-demands-automakers-week-seek-101925455">57,000 at Ford, 46,000 at GM and 43,OOO at Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>The Big Three’s share of the U.S. automotive market has <a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20090601/OEM/306019739/detroit-3-domestic-brands-u-s-market-share-history">declined to about 40% from more than 90%</a> in <a href="https://datacenter.autonews.com/data-center/market-reports">the mid-1960s</a>.</p>
<p>But the UAW’s negotiations also directly affect the economic livelihood of the millions who work for the Big Three’s suppliers and in communities dependent on the <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/posts/press-release/new-data-on-economic-impact">$1 trillion the auto industry contributes to the U.S. economy</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, many union and nonunion employers monitor the wages and benefits of UAW-represented workforces as they set compensation for their own employees. When union members get raises and better benefits, many employers of nonunion autoworkers mirror those changes – <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-and-well-being/">raising pay too</a>. </p>
<p>The shift to electric vehicles poses several related challenges to the UAW.</p>
<p>First, it requires less labor than producing vehicles that burn fossil fuels, which means <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2658797703">EV manufacturing generates fewer jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Second, autoworkers employed at joint-venture EV-battery factories have to be organized by the UAW on a case-by-case basis. That can prove especially difficult at plants located in such states as Kentucky, Tennessee or Georgia – where unions have <a href="https://www.unionstats.com/">lower membership rates</a>.</p>
<p>Third, <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-median-earnings-81-percent-us-average">nonunion electric vehicle companies like Tesla</a> and <a href="https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2022-12-16/why-the-uaw-is-so-hungry-for-a-unionization-win-at-rivian">Rivian generally pay their production workers less</a> than the Detroit Three.</p>
<h2>What the automakers say</h2>
<p>Ford, GM and Stellantis have noted that they have invested heavily in U.S.-based factories to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007">preserve UAW-represented jobs</a>. Also, the Big Three point out that they have shared their North American profits in sizable annual payments to their workers.</p>
<p>In 2022, for example, the Detroit Three combined made profit-sharing payments that averaged <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/02/ford-uaw-hourly-workers-2022-profit-sharing/69865970007/">$36,686 per worker</a>. In addition, the companies pay higher wages and provide more benefits to U.S. autoworkers than foreign automakers, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/business/uaw-contract-talks.html">Toyota and Honda, or domestic EV producers</a>.</p>
<p>Ford CEO Jim Farley and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/07/12/gm-reuss-uaw-contract-talks-detroit-automakers/70401953007/">GM President Mark Ruess have published op-eds</a> in the Detroit Free Press praising their workers and expressing their commitments to do right by them.</p>
<p>“We share common goals” with the UAW, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007/">Farley wrote in late June</a>. Both sides want to reach “a new deal that allows us to stay ahead of the changing industry landscape, protecting good-paying jobs in the U.S.”</p>
<p>But both executives have emphasized their need to be competitive.</p>
<p>After seeing the UAW’s demands, GM criticized their “breadth and scope” and said they “would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team.” The <a href="https://www.gmnegotiations2023.com/public/us/en/negotiations/home/negotiation-updates.html">automaker also reiterated</a> its openness to what it called a “fair agreement” and to raise wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very modern-looking concept-car truck beneath the Ram automotive brand name." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stellantis’ Ram 1500 Revolution battery-electric concept pickup truck was on display in January 2023 at a trade show in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stellantis-ram-1500-revolution-battery-electric-concept-news-photo/1454496551?adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What may happen during a UAW strike</h2>
<p>Halting production for even one big automaker during a strike would directly harm thousands of workers and cost the company money in terms of lost sales and production. Strikers would lose out on wages that would only be partially offset by the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">striker benefits of $500 per week</a>. </p>
<p>And any strike could further disrupt supply chains that have not fully recovered from the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters that have sharply <a href="https://www.cargroup.org/auto-supply-chain-update/">curtailed vehicle production</a> since 2020.</p>
<p>Financial losses can be immense for automotive companies when their workers walk off the job. The 40-day <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">strike in 2019 cost GM a reported $3.6 billion</a>. </p>
<p>A weekslong strike would also jeopardize the UAW’s struggle to rebuild its image <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">following a string of corruption scandals</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that it’s up to both the corporate and labor leaders involved to avoid what could turn out to be a costly miscalculation.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Aug. 25, 2023, to report the strike vote.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As Director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University, Marick Masters received funding from the joint training centers operated by the UAW with Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler. Representatives of these organizations served on the external advisory board of <a href="mailto:Labor@Wayne">Labor@Wayne</a>. All money was channeled through Wayne State University for educational purposes.</span></em></p>A strike would shake up the auto industry, even though both the union’s ranks and the share of the US automotive market controlled by GM, Ford and Stellantis have been shrinking for decades.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104312023-07-25T21:12:18Z2023-07-25T21:12:18ZUPS and Teamsters agree on new contract, averting costly strike that could have delayed deliveries for consumers and retailers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539360/original/file-20230725-15-oa13ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C359%2C2892%2C1612&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teamsters employed by UPS practiced holding rallies ahead of the strike that wasn't.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UPSLabor/9040f6dc60c648d4b1690781df068879/photo?Query=UPS&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=25001&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union and UPS have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">agreed on a new five-year contract</a> that boosts wages and guarantees more air conditioning in drivers’ trucks. The deal, struck on July 25, 2023, came <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-strike-teamsters-biden-delivery-cb586d2f6160a92cda9318d6290ac8ea">one week before an Aug. 1 deadline</a> that the Teamsters had set for the threatened strike – which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X9902400106">would have been the first by UPS workers since 1997</a>. The union announced on Aug. 22 that <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/08/teamsters-ratify-historic-ups-contract/">86.3% of its members had voted to approve</a> the contract, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-contract-union-voting-b104ca459ddb810f2018c68046d063ed">ratifying it</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 what happened and to sum up the significance of this deal, which is keeping 300,000 workers on the job.</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">Millions of Americans depend on UPS drivers to deliver their packages.</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’s in this contract?</h2>
<p>UPS has agreed to:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Increase <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">starting hourly pay for part-time workers to US$21</a>, up from $16.20.</p></li>
<li><p>Raise the hourly pay of existing part-time and full-time workers by <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/breaking-ups-teamsters-reach-tentative-contract">$2.75 in 2023 and $7.50 more</a> over the next five years.</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>
<li><p>Create another <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/breaking-ups-teamsters-reach-tentative-contract">7,500 full-time Teamster jobs</a> and <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/07/weve-changed-the-game-teamsters-win-historic-ups-contract/">fill 22,500 open positions</a>.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Teamsters General President <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ups-teamsters-reach-agreement-on-new-contract-a134c910">Sean O'Brien hailed the agreement as a victory</a>. “This contract sets a new standard in the labor movement and raises the bar for all workers,” he said.</p>
<h2>What does this deal say about the supply chain and labor?</h2>
<p>This deal further reinforces the strong bargaining position of unions representing workers in the logistics sector – not just in the U.S. but also in <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/western-canada-port-strike-ends-after-deal-reached-tentative-four-year-contract_20230713.html">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/breaking-ups-teamsters-reach-tentative-contract">Europe</a> and elsewhere.</p>
<p>U.S. shipping could still be disrupted amid one of the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE">tightest labor markets in decades</a>, since UPS rival <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/fedex-pilots-union-vote/index.html">FedEx recently had its 5,200</a> <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fedex-pilots-reject-new-labor-deal">pilots reject a new labor agreement</a>.</p>
<p>That said, TForce Freight – formerly UPS Freight – reached its own new five-year contract with the Teamsters <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tforce-teamsters-reach-tentative-5-year-contract">earlier in July</a>, as did competitor <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/teamsters-at-abf-freight-ratify-new-labor-deal">ABF Freight</a>. Unionized pilots at <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/01/delta-pilots-new-contract-big-raises.html">Delta Airlines</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/19/american-airlines-pilots-reach-preliminary-labor-agreement-.html">American Airlines</a> also recently agreed to new contracts with large raises – a 34% boost, in Delta’s case. </p>
<p>My view is that UPS was more willing to accept the Teamsters’ demands because current economic conditions favor labor. In addition, the company realized that a strike could have cost it substantial market share, up to <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/consultant-strike-could-cost-ups-30-of-diverted-volume">30% of volume by one estimate</a>. Combined with the company’s <a href="https://investors.ups.com/sec-filings/annual-filings/content/0001090727-23-000006/0001090727-23-000006.pdf">recent high profits</a>, it was not in UPS management’s interests to let a strike proceed. </p>
<h2>What would have happened had there been a strike?</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, the impact of a UPS strike would have stretched far beyond delayed delivery of everything from pet food to tennis rackets that U.S. consumers buy online.</p>
<p>A UPS strike could have disrupted 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 would also have found it harder to get clothing and shoes in stores, as retail locations are typically replenished by parcel carriers. </p>
<p>Even a 10-day strike could have <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 research firm <a href="https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/potential-ups-strike-could-be-costliest-in-a-century/">Anderson Economic Group</a>. That would have made 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>
<p><em>This article was updated on Aug. 22, 2023. Portions of it appeared in a prior article published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-impasse-with-union-could-deliver-a-costly-strike-disrupting-brick-and-mortar-businesses-as-well-as-e-commerce-209819">July 20, 2023</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210431/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>The strike would have been the first for the parcel delivery giant since 1997.Jason Miller, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, Michigan State UniversityLicensed 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/2098002023-07-20T01:37:09Z2023-07-20T01:37:09ZHow Ronald Reagan led the 1960 actors’ strike – and then became an anti-union president<p>Production on US film and television sets has ground to a halt as Hollywood actors have joined writers in walking off sets. At issue are residuals (or royalties), streaming services and the use of artificial intelligence. </p>
<p>The last time there was a “double strike” was 1960, when future United States President Ronald Reagan was head of the powerful Screen Actors Guild (SAG). </p>
<p>Reagan made his film debut in 1937. He was a <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/ronald-reagan/ronald-reagans-filmography">quintessential B-movie star</a> of the Hollywood Golden Age, acting in low-budget “<a href="https://pictureshowman.com/b-movies-a-brief-history/">second feature</a>” movies. </p>
<p>Over his career he churned out over 50 films, appearing in Westerns, thrillers, war films and romantic comedies, as well as famously co-starring with a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bedtime_for_bonzo">monkey called Bonzo</a>.</p>
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<p>In the 1930s and 1940s, Reagan was a self-proclaimed “<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/think-again-how-classical-liberalism-morphed-into-new-deal-liberalism/">New Deal Liberal</a>” and a proud supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Reagan became a SAG member within a month of moving to Hollywood. In 1941, his then wife Jane Wyman, a member of the union’s board of directors, suggested him for a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2001/02/04/rehearsals-for-a-lead-role/f5494abc-70ef-4e42-abc9-a6992f1812f5/">vacancy</a> on the board. </p>
<p>Reagan was nominated for the SAG presidency by movie star Gene Kelly. He would go on to serve two stints as union head, from 1947–1952 and 1959–1960. </p>
<p>The year he first became SAG president he was part of the <a href="https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/fifties/essays/anti-communism-1950s">Second Red Scare</a>, an anticommunist witch hunt that saw Americans fired, jailed and blacklisted over accusations of communist affiliation. </p>
<p>Hollywood – seen as rife with communist activity – was targeted amid fears it might produce socialist propaganda. </p>
<p>Reagan was fiercely anti-communist. In 1947, he appeared as a <a href="https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6458">“friendly” witness</a> for Congress, blaming industrial unrest and strikes in Hollywood on “subversive” elements. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/reagans-personal-spying-machine.html">Classified documents</a> subsequently revealed Reagan was a confidential informant for the FBI. When he became president of SAG he provided FBI agents with dozens of actor’s files. </p>
<h2>Leading the strike</h2>
<p>Much like today, in the early 1950s a major issue facing Hollywood actors were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/07/15/actors-strike-what-are-residuals/">residuals</a>. During his first tenure as SAG president, Reagan was lauded within the industry when he helped secure the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/11/what-reagan-did-for-hollywood/248391/">first residual payments</a> for television actors. </p>
<p>With movie attendance plummeting and films increasingly aired on television, film actors also wanted residuals. They faced strong opposition from the movie studios. </p>
<p>In 1959, after negotiations ground to a halt, Reagan was asked to return as SAG president. He called for a strike in February 1960.</p>
<p>Actors walked off sets in March, joining the Writers Guild of America, which had been on strike since early January 1960. The actors’ strike lasted six weeks, paling in comparison to the 21-week writers’ strike.</p>
<p>Reagan ultimately won an agreement that residuals would be paid to actors for films produced from 1960. He also won a lump sum payment for the union of US$2.65 million, used to create SAG’s first pension and health plan for members. </p>
<p>Reagan was <a href="https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/sag-strike-1960-wga-janet-leigh-tony-curtis-ronald-reagan-1235672266/">cheered by SAG members</a> when the deal was ratified. It was approved by an overwhelming majority of members, although some Golden Age stars saw it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/25/movies/rooney-sues-on-sale-of-films-to-tv.html">as a betrayal</a>. </p>
<p>Reagan resigned from the SAG presidency two months after the strike concluded. Unbeknown to most in the industry, he had a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/reagan-9781838606671/">significant conflict of interest</a>, working as both an actor and a producer. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/actors-are-demanding-that-hollywood-catch-up-with-technological-changes-in-a-sequel-to-a-1960-strike-209829">Actors are demanding that Hollywood catch up with technological changes in a sequel to a 1960 strike</a>
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<h2>A shift to the right</h2>
<p>While Reagan had been a registered Democrat, over the course of the 1950s his ideological views moved rightward. </p>
<p>He saw no tension between these beliefs and his role leading the 1960 strike, exhibiting the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/05/16/ronald_reagans_fdr_side_what_todays_conservatives_and_liberals_get_wrong_about_the_gipper/">flexible</a> <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/understanding-two-sides-reagan-polarizing-political-icon-pragmatic-president">pragmatism</a> scholars later identified with his time in the White House.</p>
<p>In the 1964 presidential election, he campaigned vigorously for Republican Barry Goldwater, a staunch conservative rejected by <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1964-republican-convention-revolution-from-the-right-915921/">party moderates</a>. </p>
<p>Goldwater opposed taxation and the social welfare state, voted against the Civil Rights Act on libertarian grounds, and viewed nuclear weapons as part of tactical warfare. Lyndon Johnson, his opponent, summarised the views of Democrats and many Republicans when he <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LBJLibrary/photos/a.384969278779/10154290274663780/?type=3">jibed of Goldwater</a>, “In your guts you know he’s nuts”. Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide. </p>
<p>Yet 1964 proved to be the beginning, rather than the end, of the modern American right. </p>
<p>One of Reagan’s televised fundraising speeches for Goldwater, titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY">A Time for Choosing</a>, catapulted him onto the national stage as the new conservative heir apparent. </p>
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<p>Despite having no political experience, Reagan was approached by a group of influential businessmen to run as the Republican candidate for Governor of California. His last acting roles were in 1965.</p>
<p>Reagan’s conservative gubernatorial campaign was <a href="https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/229317">sharply critical</a> of the counterculture and student protests, emphasising law and order. He won decisively and served two terms, from 1967–1975. </p>
<h2>An anti-union president</h2>
<p>From the mid-1970s, Reagan had his eyes firmly set on the White House. He articulated a politics that incorporated economic conservatism, hawkish anticommunism and moral traditionalism, including <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QQ92DwAAQBAJ&printsec=copyright&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">opposition to legal abortion</a>. He also described “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/21/archives/reagan-enters-campaign-seeks-a-curb-on-spending-reagan-enters.html">big labor</a>” as a major problem for the US.</p>
<p>Reagan’s polish, charisma and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2011/02/03/reagan_dallek_image/">sunny optimism</a> made once politically extreme views palatable and attractive to ordinary Americans.</p>
<p>After a hard fought but failed bid for the Republican nomination in 1976, Reagan won the 1980 presidential election, easily defeating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter.</p>
<p>After leading the actors’ strike 21 years earlier, in August 1981, in office just six months, Reagan <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">fired 11,500 striking air traffic controllers</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">In 1981 Reagan fired 11,500 striking air traffic controllers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/10008189">University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>He barred them from working in their old jobs or anywhere in the Federal Aviation Administration for the rest of their lives. His administration also formally decertified their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO).</p>
<p>Reagan’s response to the PATCO strike was unprecedented in the post-World War II period. It had a <a href="https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-867;jsessionid=51A297086BF186FC34EB2C26D45835D8">chilling effect</a> on the fortunes of unions and working conditions, contributing to ongoing wage stagnation and the loss of various forms of leave and entitlements.</p>
<p>Reagan is the only union leader to serve as US President. Paradoxically, he was also one of the most aggressively anti-union presidents of the 20th century.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-reagans-notions-of-a-good-society-resonate-with-trump-supporters-today-149584">How Reagan's notions of a 'good society' resonate with Trump supporters today</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prudence Flowers has received funding from the South Australian Department of Human Services. She is a member of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.</span></em></p>Reagan is the only union leader to serve as US President. Paradoxically, he was also one of the most aggressively anti-union presidents of the 20th century.Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098292023-07-17T18:11:17Z2023-07-17T18:11:17ZActors are demanding that Hollywood catch up with technological changes in a sequel to a 1960 strike<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537614/original/file-20230716-27-9mlmg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2139%2C207%2C6507%2C4459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As this picket sign says: lights, cameras, no action.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actors-in-the-sag-aftra-union-join-the-already-striking-wga-news-photo/1532806617?adppopup=true">Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/movie-stars-to-strike-friday-in-hollywoods-biggest-labor-fight-in-decades">first time since 1960, actors</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-exploitation-of-hollywoods-writers-is-just-another-symptom-of-digital-feudalism-204984">screenwriters are on strike</a> at the same time.</p>
<p>As with <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">many of the other strikes that have rippled</a> across the United States over the past three years, this walkout is over demands for better pay and restrictions on their <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/labor-unions-fight-against-ai-is-nothing-new/">employers’ use of technology</a> to replace paid work.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/actors-strike-explained-2607dd29da6c16c0a406359a7e86d7fb">The actors’ strike began</a> on July 14, 2023, after their union, SAG-AFTRA, voted to end negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major production studios. The main concerns of the union – which represents 160,000 actors and people in other creative professions – center around compensation on streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/hollywood-actor-sag-aftra-ai-artificial-intelligence-strike-rcna94191">artificial intelligence</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23696617/writers-strike-wga-2023-explained-residuals-streaming-ai">Screenwriters, who have been on strike</a> since May 2, have similar concerns.</p>
<p>The two strikes have halted U.S. TV and movie production. <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/global/matt-damon-oppenheimer-cast-moved-red-carpet-strike-1235669528/">Premieres are being canceled</a>, and <a href="https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/emmys-sag-aftra-strike-will-prevent-actors-from-campaigning-for-awards/">Emmy-nominated actors aren’t campaigning</a> for those prestigious TV awards.</p>
<h2>Rewind to the rise of TV</h2>
<p>Ever since Louis Le Prince <a href="https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-was-the-first-movie-ever-made/">filmed the first movie</a>, “Roundhay Garden Scene,” in 1888, actors have earned a living through their work being shown on screens small and large.</p>
<p>The first hit <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bigdream-tv-milestones/">shows on TV aired in the mid-1940s</a>, but actors initially earned far less from television than movies. Around 1960, with the advent of hits like “Leave It to Beaver,” “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Bonanza,” <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1224894">TV became very profitable</a>. TV’s growing prestige and economic heft gave television actors newfound power at the contract negotiating table.</p>
<p>Actors demanded that their craft be compensated for TV shows about as highly as for their film appearances. <a href="https://time.com/6294777/sag-wga-strike-1960/">Led by future President Ronald Reagan</a> and Charlton Heston – who went on to serve as a National Rifle Association president – the Screen Actors Guild went on strike on March 7, 1960. Among that union’s top demands: health care coverage and <a href="https://ps.extremereach.com/blog/what-are-residuals-in-film-and-tv-production/">residuals for movies aired on television, reruns and syndication</a>. </p>
<p>Residuals are a form of royalty paid to actors when movies and TV shows air on television after their initial run. That can include reruns, syndication and the broadcasting of movies on television.</p>
<p>The actors union’s strike, which <a href="https://apnews.com/article/actors-strike-explained-2607dd29da6c16c0a406359a7e86d7fb">coincided then as today</a> with a screenwriters strike, <a href="https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/residuals/history-residuals">successfully negotiated</a> a contract with executives that resolved the residuals conflict and secured health care coverage for its members. </p>
<p>That contract applied to broadcasting and, years later, cable TV.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t work for streaming, because streamed shows aren’t scheduled. Whereas “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108778/">Friends</a>,” a sitcom that initially aired on NBC, is available today on Max, formerly HBO Max, through syndication, and its actors receive relevant residuals, “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/70242311">Orange Is the New Black</a>” originated on Netflix. Because it never runs on a different platform via syndication, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@itskimiko/video/6904342710782676229?lang=en">the actors in its cast</a> <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/read-orange-black-cast-cutting-141628579.html">earn paltry residuals</a> in comparison – even though viewers are still watching the show’s seven seasons.</p>
<p>Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/26/squid-games-creator-rich-netflix-bonus-hwang-dong-hyuk">Squid Game</a>,” forfeited all residuals when he cut a deal with Netflix. It <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/squid-game-creator-rights-residuals">earned Netflix nearly US$1 billion</a>, but Hwang got none of that bounty.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men in suits, including Ronald Reagan, shake hands with one another in an old photo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537590/original/file-20230715-63212-yzqhp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actors Charlton Heston, right, and future President Ronald Reagan, second from right, shake hands with leaders of the Association of Motion Picture Producers after the Screen Actors Guild ended its 1960 strike against seven movie studios.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hollywood-ca-academy-award-winner-charlton-heston-shakes-news-photo/515261244?adppopup=true">Bettmann via GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fast-forward to 2023</h2>
<p>As I explained in my 2021 book, “<a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781839827686">Streaming Culture</a>,” streaming has fundamentally changed the production and consumption of both TV and film while blurring the lines between them.</p>
<p>People consume different types of media through subscriptions and streaming technology than they do while watching broadcast TV and cable television. Actors and writers are concerned that their <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/mychalthompson/sagaftra-actors-residuals">compensation hasn’t kept up</a> with this transformation.</p>
<p>And the <a href="https://twitter.com/brocktocks/status/1679540876589273088">actors who are on strike argue</a> that the formulas in place since 1960 to calculate residuals don’t work anymore.</p>
<p>Residuals paid for roles in broadcast TV shows are based on the popularity of those programs, with actors earning far more for hits like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “NCIS” than for duds. Hit shows can have a second life on streaming platforms and result in actors getting paid again for that earlier work.</p>
<p>In contrast, streaming residuals <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/04/hollywood-strike-streaming-residuals-wga-producers-1235325130/">pay a flat rate</a> for foreign and domestic streams. A streaming original film or TV show earns a set amount for residuals in its domestic market and second set amount for foreign markets. This fee doesn’t change based on popularity or the number of times a production is streamed. </p>
<p>But streaming has changed more than residuals for actors and writers. It has also transformed how TV shows are made.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1680022053666140160"}"></div></p>
<h2>Ejecting regularly scheduled shows</h2>
<p>Many <a href="https://screenrant.com/why-tv-show-seasons-shorter-reason/">TV seasons have grown shorter</a> since streaming became the norm, falling from 20 or more episodes to 10 or fewer per season.</p>
<p>That’s because streamers <a href="https://screenrant.com/why-tv-show-seasons-shorter-reason/">started making shows with lower budgets</a>, as it costs less to produce fewer episodes. The studios also cut costs by hiring fewer writers.</p>
<p>Since actors are typically paid per episode in which they perform, their salaries have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/07/14/actors-writers-strike-first-day/">dropped by virtue of having fewer appearances</a> in even the most popular shows.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/8/9/17662280/tv-shows-gone-too-long-gaps-breaks-between-seasons">gaps between seasons have also grown longer</a> and more unpredictable. Every season of the nine-year run of “Seinfeld” on NBC began in the fall and ended the next spring, then picked up again the next fall.</p>
<p>Streaming shows are far less predictable.</p>
<p>Amazon Prime’s “<a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a39093712/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel-season-4-new-episodes-schedule-details/">The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel</a>” paused for more than two years between seasons 3 and 4.</p>
<p>The same streamer aired the first season of “<a href="https://www.tvguide.com/news/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-season-2-cast-plot-and-more/">Lord of the Rings: Power of the Rings</a>,” in September 2022, but Season 2 won’t be released until late 2024. </p>
<p>As gaps between seasons grow, some <a href="https://apnews.com/article/streaming-shows-removed-residuals-4be3ac859c766c352e57ef96176fd812">actors are having a harder and harder time making ends meet</a>.</p>
<p>Another change has to do with the question of whether particular shows will keep going. In conventional broadcast or cable television, networks determine whether they will renew a show during the period known as “<a href="https://www.boombroadcast.com/boom-blog/2015/04/10/what-is-sweeps-and-how-does-can-it-affect-television-coverage">sweeps</a>,” at the end of a TV season. Since streaming television has no defined seasons, these decisions can drag on. </p>
<p>This can leave actors and writers in limbo. And their <a href="https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/read-first-contract-1570/">contracts often stop them</a> from <a href="https://longreads.com/2015/04/01/the-1944-court-decision-that-changed-hollywood/">working on other shows between seasons</a>.</p>
<h2>Will AI erase actors?</h2>
<p>Although residuals and the number of episodes have until now been negotiable, perhaps the strike’s biggest issue is the studios’ use of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/07/14/actors-writers-strike-first-day/">artificial intelligence</a></p>
<p>Actors fear studios will use AI to replace actors in the future. Without a contract that says otherwise, once a studio films an actor, it can potentially use the actor’s likeness in perpetuity. This means a background actor could be shot for one episode of a TV show and continue to be seen in the background <a href="https://movieweb.com/tom-hanks-keep-acting-after-death-ai/">for seasons without pay</a>. </p>
<p>That hasn’t happened yet, but many actors are <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/hollywood-ai-writers-strike-tech-b2376457.html">certain</a> it will.</p>
<p>Actors object to the possibility that studios will seek to “own our likeness in perpetuity, including after we’re dead, use us in their movies without any consent, without any compensation to our performers, especially background performers,” said actor <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/14/sag_aftra_strike_begins">Shaan Sharma</a>, best known for his role on “The Chosen.” “It’s inhumane. It is dystopian.” </p>
<p>Until now, actors and writers say, the studios <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/07/13/hollywood-writers-actors-strike-sag-aftra/#link-O22LAXPUCRCPTEKL3RU66ZA6WA">have refused to negotiate over AI</a> with actors or writers. But both unions see AI as a threat to their members’ livelihoods, a point SAG-AFTRA President <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/sag-strike-fran-drescher-speech-actors-writers-rcna94096">Fran Drescher made on MSNBC</a>.</p>
<p>As Drescher continually points out in her media appearances, 99% of actors are <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/morning-joe-sag-aftra-strike-wga-support/">struggling on working-class incomes</a>. Meanwhile, studio executives continue to increase their own pay. <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/05/ceo-pay-wga-writers-strike-1235351572/">For example, in 2022</a>, Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos earned roughly $50 million each. Warner-Discovery CEO David Zaslav earned $39 million.</p>
<h2>No ‘pause’ for widening inequality gap</h2>
<p>The gulf between what actors and top executives earn is a major difference between today’s actors and writer strikes and the 1960 strikes. In 1965, executives made 15 times the average salary of their workers. By 2021 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/17/american-chief-executive-pay-wages-workers">those top execs were earning 350 times more</a> than the average worker – including actors. </p>
<p>And while today’s biggest stars, like <a href="https://en.as.com/meristation/news/the-last-of-us-salary-controversy-pedro-pascal-was-paid-9-times-more-than-bella-ramsey-n/">Pedro Pascal</a> and <a href="https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/celebrities/highest-paid-streaming-cable-tv-show-actors-actresses/">Natasha Lyonne</a>, earn millions for every performance, most actors struggle to make ends meet.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, actors earn an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-strike-by-the-numbers/index.html">average hourly wage of $27.73</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, studios are pulling in huge profits. For example, Netflix and Warner Bros. earned <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/studio-profit-paramount-warner-bros-universal-1235354279/">$5.2 billion and $2.7 billion in 2022</a>, respectively.</p>
<h2>Watching union action on repeat</h2>
<p>As I explain in my new book, “Digital Feudalism: Creators, Credit, Consumption, and Capitalism,” striking actors and screenwriters are part of the wave of labor unrest in recent years. In my view, U.S. <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781804557662">workers are rejecting a system</a> that expects workers to buy more on credit while making a living with increasingly precarious jobs. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-starbucks-workers-join-nationwide-unionizing-effort/">Starbucks baristas</a> to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/amazon-worker-union-organizer-reinstated-34a6fb1d8fa5ae177f351c3ddff8df45">Amazon’s union organizers</a> to the workers planning the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/economy/ups-strike-economic-impact/index.html">pending UPS strike</a>, more and more Americans are fighting for higher wages and more control over their schedules.</p>
<p>In fighting threats to their livelihoods, actors and screenwriters are the latest example of a national movement for stronger labor rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209829/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>Some of the ways that streaming has transformed the industry are jeopardizing actors’ livelihoods.David Arditi, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051752023-06-26T12:22:06Z2023-06-26T12:22:06ZStates are weakening their child labor restrictions nearly 8 decades after the US government took kids out of the workforce<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533204/original/file-20230621-29-s1rh34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C421%2C3946%2C2175&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in 2023 that lets children under 16 work without official permission from their parents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Child%20Labor%20State%20Laws/94b480d8d5154f86bbe79e135835f989?Query=sarah%20huckabee%20sanders&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1172&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/some-lawmakers-propose-loosening-child-labor-laws-to-fill-worker-shortage">Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire</a> had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures. </p>
<p>The laws generally make it easier for kids from 14 to 17 years old to work longer and later – and in occupations that were previously off-limits for minors.</p>
<p>When Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/26/politics/iowa-child-labor-law-kim-reynolds/index.html">signed her state’s new, more permissive child labor law</a> on May 26, 2023, the Republican leader said the measure would “allow young adults to develop their skills in the workforce.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.k-state.edu/polsci/about/faculty-staff/fliter-john.html">As scholars</a> of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q7nIrq8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">child labor</a>, we find the arguments Reynolds and other like-minded politicians are using today to justify undoing child labor protections echo older justifications made decades ago.</p>
<p>Many conservatives and business leaders have long argued, based on a combination of ideological and economic grounds, that federal child labor rules aren’t necessary. Some object to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/3/23702464/child-labor-laws-youth-migrants-work-shortage">government determining who can’t work</a>. Cultural conservatives say <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p085345">working has moral value for young people</a> and that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/4/23436470/education-crt-parents-schools-midterms-desantis">parents should make decisions for their children</a>. Many conservatives also say that teens, fewer of whom <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/21/after-dropping-in-2020-teen-summer-employment-may-be-poised-to-continue-its-slow-comeback/">are in the workforce today than in past decades</a>, could help fill empty jobs in tight labor markets.</p>
<p>Opponents of child labor observe that when kids under 18 work long hours or do strenuous jobs, it can disrupt childhood development, interfere with their schooling and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-sleep-do-you-really-need-156819">deprive them of the sleep they need</a>. Expanding child labor can encourage kids to drop out of school and <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20220729">jeopardize young people’s health through injuries</a> and work-related illnesses. </p>
<h2>Long-brewing battle</h2>
<p>Child labor protections, such as making many kinds of employment for children under 14 illegal and restricting the hours that teens under 18 can spend working, are guaranteed by the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa">Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938</a>. U.S. law also does not treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. The federal government deems many occupations to be too hazardous for anyone under 18.</p>
<p>Until that law took effect, the lack of a federal standard always <a href="https://theconversation.com/abolishing-child-labor-took-the-specter-of-white-slavery-and-the-job-markets-near-collapse-during-the-great-depression-144454">obstructed progress in the states</a> toward keeping kids in school and out of mines, factories and other sometimes hazardous workplaces.</p>
<p>Three years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld it in the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/312us100">U.S. v. Darby Lumber</a> ruling, which toppled a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/247us251">related precedent</a>.</p>
<h2>Challenges began during the Reagan administration</h2>
<p>There were no <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv7h0t22">significant efforts to challenge</a> child labor laws for the next four decades. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan sought to ease federal protections to allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer hours in fast-food and retail establishments and to pay young workers less than the minimum wage. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/08/04/white-house-retreats-on-teen-hours/cd4cd765-a416-41ac-96c4-3edb51b0f296/">A coalition</a> of Democrats, labor unions, teachers, parents and child development groups blocked the proposed changes.</p>
<p>By the late 1980s, <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700626311/">child labor violations were on the rise</a>. Some industry groups tried to loosen restrictions in the 1990s, but <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700626311/">legal changes were minimal</a>.</p>
<p>A more ambitious attempt to roll back child labor laws in the early 2000s, led by a homeschooling group, <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700626311/">ultimately failed</a>, but conservatives continued to call for similar changes.</p>
<p>When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was vying to become a 2012 Republican presidential nominee, he made headlines by calling <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/gingrich-calls-child-labor-laws-truly-stupid/2011/11/21/gIQAFYKHiN_blog.html">child labor laws</a> “truly stupid.” He suggested kids could work as janitors in schools.</p>
<p>Today, the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank, is drafting state legislation to strip child labor protections, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/23/child-labor-lobbying-fga/">The Washington Post has reported</a>. Its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, has been helping push these bills through state legislatures, including in Arkansas and Missouri. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young child at work in a field in an old black and white photo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533240/original/file-20230621-10556-mhyd5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This 9-year-old boy worked as a picker at the American Sumatra Tobacco Company in 1917, before the U.S. government restricted child labor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-a-nine-year-old-boy-seated-among-plants-taller-news-photo/1498300352?adppopup=true">Hine/Library of Congress/Interim Archives/Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Iowa and Arkansas</h2>
<p>In our view, Iowa has the most radical new law designed to roll back child labor protections. It allows children as young as 14 to work in meat coolers and industrial laundries, and teens 15 and older can work on <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-child-labor-bill-iowa-may-violate-federal-law-rcna85321">assembly lines around dangerous machinery</a>.</p>
<p>Teens as young as 16 can now serve alcohol in Iowa restaurants, as long as two adults are present. </p>
<p>U.S. <a href="https://cbs2iowa.com/news/local/us-dept-of-labor-review-finds-iowas-child-labor-bill-violates-federal-law">Labor Department officials</a> argue that several provisions of Iowa’s new law violate national child labor standards. However, the department <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/dol-hamstrung-in-response-to-state-child-labor-law-rollbacks">has not disclosed a clear strategy</a> for combating such violations.</p>
<p>Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed her state’s <a href="https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?id=HB1410&ddBienniumSession=2023%2F2023R">Youth Hiring Act of 2023</a> in March. It eliminated work permits for 14- and 15-year-olds.</p>
<p>Previously, employers had to keep a work certificate on file that required proof of age, a description of the work and schedule – and the written consent of a parent or guardian.</p>
<p>Arkansas has scrapped those safeguards against child labor exploitation. We find it puzzling that supporters touted the bill as enhancing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-huckabee-sanders">parental rights</a> because the law removes any formal role for parents in balancing their kids’ education and employment.</p>
<h2>Federal vs. state laws</h2>
<p>You may wonder how states can undermine federal child labor laws. Doesn’t federal law preempt state laws?</p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/child-labor">federal and state laws</a> govern the employment of minors, and all states have <a href="https://www.ecs.org/50-state-comparison-free-and-compulsory-school-age-requirements/">compulsory school attendance laws</a>. Federal laws set a floor of regulations in youth employment that cover maximum hours, minimum ages, wages and protections from hazardous jobs.</p>
<p>If states pass tougher laws, as many have, the stricter standards govern workplace practices. School attendance requirements vary by state, but once someone turns 18, they’re no longer covered by the <a href="https://www.oshaeducationcenter.com/articles/child-labor-laws/">Fair Labor Standards Act’s restrictions</a>.</p>
<p>Federal law, for example, does not require minors to obtain work permits or employment certificates, but <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/work-permits-for-minors-what-you-need-to-know.html">most states mandate such documentation</a>.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bill-search/2022/A4222/bill-text?f=A4500&n=4222_R1">exception of New Jersey</a>, these efforts to weaken child labor laws are being led by Republicans.</p>
<p>To be sure, some states are still attempting to strengthen child labor protections. </p>
<p>Democrats in <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/HB23-1196">Colorado introduced a bill</a> that would allow injured children to sue employers for child labor violations. <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2023a_1196_signed.pdf">Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law</a> on June 7, 2023. </p>
<p>Having child labor laws on the books at both the federal and state levels is only half the battle. <a href="https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/conflicting-trends-in-child-labor-laws-send-mixed-messages-to-employers">Enforcement</a> is another matter. Many violations in recent years have involved <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/advocates-hhs-questions-unaccompanied-migrants-child-labor-rcna87326">children who immigrated to the United States</a> without their parents, only to wind up working long hours, sometimes in dangerous jobs, at young ages.</p>
<h2>Construction sites?</h2>
<p>Other states are trying to weaken protections. <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/open/2023/05/ohio-could-soon-loosen-its-child-labor-laws.html">Ohio state lawmakers</a> want to allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 9 p.m. during the school year with their parents’ permission, even though federal regulations don’t allow teens that age to work past 7 p.m. </p>
<p>Some states are considering legislation that directly conflicts with federal child <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/">labor standards on hazardous occupations</a>. For example, a bill Republican Minnesota state Sen. Rich Draheim introduced would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work <a href="https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF0375&session=ls93&version=latest&session_number=0&session_year=2023&keyword_type=all&keyword=construction">in or around construction sites</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2023/04/27/child-labor-laws-protections">Strong opposition</a> from politicians, child advocacy groups, education associations, labor unions and the public has defeated some of these efforts.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/64613">Georgia Republicans introduced a bill</a> that would have eliminated work permits for minors, but they withdrew it without a vote. And Republican <a href="https://legiscan.com/SD/drafts/HB1180/2023">lawmakers in South Dakota sponsored a bill</a> to extend working hours for children 14 and under from 7 p.m. to 9 pm. It was withdrawn as well.</p>
<p>In Wisconsin, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-wisconsin-labor-unions-afl-cio-33980985bd1dc13d2fb132026c743d23">Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill</a> in 2022 that would have let teens work longer and later. In 2023, some Wisconsin lawmakers are trying again. They want to let <a href="https://www.wisn.com/article/proposed-bill-would-allow-14-years-olds-wisconsin-serve-alcohol/43762440">14-year-olds serve alcohol</a>.</p>
<h2>Taking aim at federal rules</h2>
<p>There are some national efforts to weaken – or strengthen – child labor rules as well.</p>
<p>Rep. <a href="https://dustyjohnson.house.gov/media/press-releases/johnson-introduces-teens-act-increase-youth-workforce-participation">Dusty Johnson</a>, a South Dakota Republican, seeks to revise federal regulations to permit 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 9 p.m. on school nights and up to 24 hours per week during the school year. We don’t expect his bill to pass in today’s divided Congress.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nhpr.org/business-and-economy/2023-04-11/kids-at-work-in-new-hampshire-and-other-states-officials-try-to-ease-child-labor-laws-at-behest-of-industry">There’s also a push</a> in the House and the Senate to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/671/text?s=1&r=1&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22future+logging+careers+act%22%5D%7D">let 16- and 17-year-olds</a> <a href="https://www.risch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=FD6D88E4-AEB4-4DFF-BEF9-FB90C7D9E2A3">work in logging operations</a> with parental supervision.</p>
<p>And yet there’s also support in Congress to increase penalties for child labor violations. Currently, the maximum such fine is $15,138 per child. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2388/cosponsors?s=10&r=1&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Justice%22%2C%22for%22%2C%22Exploited%22%2C%22Children%22%5D%7D">Pending bills in the House</a> and <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/637/text?s=1&r=52">Senate</a> would increase the penalty to nearly 10 times that amount if enacted.</p>
<p>And several <a href="https://dankildee.house.gov/media/press-releases/kildee-leads-new-bill-crack-down-child-labor-america">Democrats have introduced</a> measures to strengthen <a href="https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/on-world-day-against-child-labor-durbin-delauro-introduce-bill-to-ban-child-labor-on-tobacco-farms">federal child labor restrictions</a>, <a href="https://ruiz.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/dr-ruiz-introduces-legislation-raise-labor-standards-and-protections">especially in agriculture</a>.</p>
<p>With so many states seeking weaker child labor protections, we believe a federal-state showdown over the question of whether young people in the United States belong in the workforce is inevitable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Betsy Wood's research has been supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.</span></em></p>Some of the biggest changes to child labor laws are in Iowa and Arkansas.John A. Fliter, Associate Professor of Political Science, Kansas State UniversityBetsy Wood, Assistant Professor of American History, Bard CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062492023-06-14T12:33:53Z2023-06-14T12:33:53ZAdjusting jobs to protect workers’ mental health is both easier and harder than you might think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530941/original/file-20230608-16844-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C475%2C6621%2C3776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Work doesn't have to make you feel burned out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-working-late-in-office-royalty-free-image/1132122136">Luis Alvarez/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. employees are increasingly <a href="https://www.workplacementalhealth.shrm.org/?_ga=2.1662386.2091759886.1686692934-92904937.1683801257">struggling with mental health challenges</a> tied to their jobs, such as depression, anxiety and <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642">burnout</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&gmla=AHoSzlXHC1hBAKTmRZFVoOEhKGrtTOLup2PNl_qvOrfCvLDJjqEZQNO8kCvJoURoHNFIoSpwmC3Ra4ZbI3yr5C50S000&user=D0iz6OYAAAAJ">We’re professors</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m-85A0gAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who research how employees interact</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5hVxoXwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">workplace well-being</a>. After noticing that research on mental health and work had not kept up with the increasing prevalence of mental health challenges, we reviewed existing findings on mental health and work to see how scholars can best investigate these issues going forward.</p>
<p>We found that employers could greatly reduce the causes of many of their employees’ mental health challenges through basic human resources approaches, such as taking tasks away from someone who is perpetually swamped or providing more job flexibility. But those fixes, as we explained in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2021.0211">Academy of Management Annals</a>, would require work-related changes employers rarely make or authorize. </p>
<p>We analyzed the findings from 556 articles by researchers on this topic and observed that helping individual employees cope after their problems emerge is far more common than taking steps to preemptively fix problems that are contributing to workers’ conditions. </p>
<h2>Culture and job design</h2>
<p>When you think about jobs that can take a toll on mental health, some very demanding and stressful professions may come to mind. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2010.541300">Doctors, nurses</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.54">soldiers</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1078390317695266">first responders</a>, for example, often do suffer due to their <a href="https://theconversation.com/seeing-dead-fruit-flies-is-bad-for-the-health-of-fruit-flies-and-neuroscientists-have-identified-the-exact-brain-cells-responsible-207283">regular contact with illness and death</a> on the job.</p>
<p>Yet, we found that the tasks employees perform are often not what leads to their mental health degradation. Instead, an employer’s culture and the way its jobs are designed play big roles.</p>
<p>This pattern can explain why poor mental health manifests in all lines of work, not just emotionally demanding jobs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found, for instance, that <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.html">suicide rates</a> for farmworkers, truckers and warehouse workers are among the nation’s highest.</p>
<p>An employer’s culture lays the groundwork for the quality of social interactions among its employees – and, depending on the profession, with clients, students or the public.</p>
<p>The way people deal with one another can prove important. For instance, employees who endure <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135225">workplace bullying</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2392498">don’t have a supportive boss or colleagues that they can talk to</a> are more likely to have poor mental health.</p>
<p>The way that a job is designed can cause stress, anxiety and feelings of mental and emotional exhaustion. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2392498">Not having the authority to make decisions</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.711523">lacking clarity about responsibilities</a> and facing obligations that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X20929059">regularly conflict with personal obligations</a>, infringing upon personal and family time, can all increase the risk of mental health problems. </p>
<p>Workplace culture and job design also matter for people doing inherently traumatic jobs. </p>
<p>A review of 61 studies of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2015.1057334">humanitarian aid workers’ mental health</a> made clear that poor leadership and insufficient support for workers caused disproportionate damage to their mental health. These factors were separate from the trauma they regularly witnessed and experienced in the aftermath of disasters.</p>
<p>This body of research indicates that all employers can reduce work-related mental health risks by scrutinizing how jobs are designed and determining whether any positions should be reconfigured for the sake of their employees’ mental health.</p>
<h2>Mental health benefits</h2>
<p>Employers have a choice. They can take steps to prevent mental health damage before it occurs, or they can deal with its aftermath. Both are important, but according to the body of research we’ve reviewed, the latter is far more common.</p>
<p>People with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2020.1867618">chronic mental illnesses can thrive</a> at work in the right conditions.
And most U.S. employers today do provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-014-9412-0">access to mental health benefits</a>, partly due to the Affordable Care Act. The ACA, which Congress passed in 2010, requires insurance companies to treat mental health care the same way they treat physical health care when offering coverage.</p>
<p>About <a href="https://www.workplacementalhealth.shrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Mental-Health-in-America-A-2022-Workplace-Report.pdf">78% of U.S. employers provide mental health benefits</a>, including employee assistance programs, and work benefits that provide individual mental health, financial and legal support. Such measures are useful, but only after the harm has taken place. These benefits generally do nothing about psychological hazards tied to work and preventing work-related harm.</p>
<p>Further, many employees who need help <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F08901171221112488d">don’t take advantage of these programs</a>.</p>
<h2>4 steps to reduce the toll work takes on mental health</h2>
<p>Here are four steps employers can take to address the causes of poor mental health:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Revise job descriptions</strong>.
Employers should eliminate ambiguity, wherever that’s possible, about core duties and responsibilities. They should communicate with employees to ensure they understand why their jobs might require flexibility and adaptation. In times when workloads get unavoidably large, such as what happens at accounting firms in the weeks before Tax Day, employers should strive to balance long shifts with opportunities for employees to rest and recharge.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Proactively train staff on the positive behaviors expected of them</strong>.
Just as employers strategically plan which job-related skills are important, they can also strategically identify what interpersonal skills are important and value these like technical capabilities with hiring and promotions. If employees engage in bullying behavior, employers can retrain, reassign or fire them accordingly.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Help employees build resilience</strong>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-008-9030-y">Research on police officers</a> suggests that when they get resilience-building training before experiencing trauma on the job, it can reduce the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. Similar types of resilience training could also help in less inherently traumatic lines of work.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Don’t assume that employees will speak up</strong>. Only <a href="http://www.mindsharepartners.org/mentalhealthatworkreport-2021">65% of employees with mental health challenges</a> say that they would tell a co-worker, manager or human resources representative about those problems. They may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011211002010">conceal the severity</a> of these issues even if they do talk about them, due to the stigma associated with mental health problems. Proactively addressing the causes of poor mental health for everyone is key, because there’s no way for employers to know the extent of these problems.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Construction workers wearing hard hats and bright-colored vests getting a safety briefing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530947/original/file-20230608-30-1ow56g.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">Employers can strengthen workers’ mental health, just as physical safety has gotten better over time at construction sites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/construction-engineers-getting-a-safety-briefing-royalty-free-image/694033313?phrase=hard+hats+construction+safety&adppopup=true">Westend61/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Spotting hazards</h2>
<p>Spotting physical hazards on the job is easier than identifying psychological hazards. Yet that doesn’t mean the psychological hazards are less dangerous or can’t be addressed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/nearly-50-years-of-occupational-safety-and-health-data.htm">Requiring hard hats, posting warnings</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.96">mandating safe work habits have reduced accidents</a> in factories, on construction sites and at other workplaces. Likewise, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021484">researchers have found that redesigning jobs</a> and adopting better workplace cultures can go a long way toward improving mental health.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaclyn Koopmann previously worked on research funded by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Rosado-Solomon and Matthew A. Cronin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Changing workplace culture and the way jobs are designed can stave off depression, anxiety and burnout.Emily Rosado-Solomon, Assistant Professor of Management, Babson CollegeJaclyn Koopmann, Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, Auburn UniversityMatthew A. Cronin, Professor of Management, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040782023-06-09T12:29:14Z2023-06-09T12:29:14ZThe US has a child labor problem – recalling an embarrassing past that Americans may think they’ve left behind<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530946/original/file-20230608-2398-osoifr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C187%2C2993%2C2286&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lewis Wickes Hine, 'A little spinner in a Georgia Cotton Mill, 1909.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P545)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Special Collections, where I am head curator, we’ve recently completed <a href="https://umbc.edu/stories/preserving-the-photography-of-lewis-hine/">a major digitization and rehousing project</a> of our collection of over 5,400 photographs made by <a href="https://iphf.org/inductees/lewis-hine/">Lewis Wickes Hine</a> in the early 20th century.</p>
<p>Traveling the country with his camera, Hine captured the often oppressive working conditions of thousands of children – some as young as 3 years old. </p>
<p>As I’ve worked with this collection over the past two years, the social and political implications of Hine’s photographs have been very much on my mind. The patina of these black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era – an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they’ve left behind. </p>
<p>But with <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart/in-2023-america-has-a-child-labor-problem/">numerous reports</a> of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/us-crack-down-child-labor-amid-massive-uptick-2023-02-27/">child labor violations</a>, many involving immigrants, occurring in the U.S., along with an uptick in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-huckabee-sanders">state legislation</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-child-labor-bill-d2546845dd6ad7ec0a2c74fb3fc0def3">rolling back the legal working age</a>, it’s clear that Hine’s work is as relevant today as it was a century ago.</p>
<h2>‘An investigator with a camera’</h2>
<p>A sociologist by training, Hine began making photographs in 1903 while working as a teacher at the progressive Ethical Culture School in New York City. </p>
<p>Between 1903 and 1908, he and his students photographed migrants at Ellis Island. Hine believed that the future of the U.S. rested in its identity as an immigrant nation – a position that contrasted with <a href="https://pluralism.org/xenophobia-closing-the-door">escalating xenophobic fears</a>. </p>
<p>Based on this work, the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/nclc/background.html">National Child Labor Committee</a>, which advocated for child labor laws, hired Hine to document the living and working conditions of American children. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Boy covered in soot poses with his hands clasped behind his back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530975/original/file-20230608-29-2g9rie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘Trapper Boy, Turkey Knob Mine, MacDonald, West Virginia, 1908.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gelatin silver print. 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P148)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the late 19th century, several states had passed <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-2-the-reform-movement.htm">laws limiting the age of child laborers</a> and establishing maximum working hours. But at the turn of the century, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-1.htm">number of working kids soared</a> – between 1890 and 1910, 18% of children ages 10 to 15 were employed.</p>
<p>In his work for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine journeyed to farms and mills in the industrializing South and the streets and factories of the Northeast. He <a href="https://90025031.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/9/4/22941172/6532401.png?256">used a Graflex camera</a> with 5-by-7-inch glass plate negatives and employed flash powder for nighttime and interior shots, hauling upward of 50 pounds of equipment on his slight frame. </p>
<p>To gain entry into factories and other facilities, Hine sometimes disguised himself as a Bible, postcard or insurance salesman. Other times he’d wait outside to catch workers arriving for or departing from their shifts.</p>
<p>Along with photographic records, Hine collected his subjects’ personal stories, including their ages and ethnicities. He documented their working lives, such as their typical hours and any injuries or ailments they incurred as a result of their labor. </p>
<p>Hine, who considered himself “<a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2525831M/Lewis_Hine_in_Europe">an investigator with a camera</a>,” used this information to create what he termed “photo stories” – combinations of images and text that could be used on posters, in public lectures and in published reports to help the organization advance its mission.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boys standing at a table splayed with seafood as an older worker obsveres" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531002/original/file-20230608-21-jdp136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lewis Wickes Hine’s photograph of three young fish cutters working at the Seacoast Canning Co. in Eastport, Maine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/nclc/00900/00972v.jpg">National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legislation follows</h2>
<p>Hine’s muckraking photographs exemplify the genre of <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/edph/hd_edph.htm">documentary photography</a>, which relies upon the perceived truthfulness of photography to make a case for social change. </p>
<p>The camera serves as an eyewitness to a societal ill, a problem that needs a solution. Hine portrayed his subjects in a direct manner, typically frontally and looking straight into the camera, against the backdrop of the very factories, farmland or cities where they worked. </p>
<p>By capturing details of his sitters’ bare feet, tattered clothes, soiled faces and hands, and diminutive stature against hulking industrial equipment, Hine made a direct statement about the poor conditions and precarity of these children’s lives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five young boys wearing caps and holding newspapers in front of an imposing white building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530972/original/file-20230608-19-jlog7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘Group of newsies selling on Capitol steps, April 11, 1912.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P2904)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hine’s photographs made a successful case for child labor reform. </p>
<p>Notably, the National Child Labor Committee’s efforts resulted in Congress establishing the <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/Story_of_CB.pdf">Children’s Bureau</a> in 1912 and passing the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/keating-owen-child-labor-act">Keating-Owen Act</a> in 1916, which limited working hours for children and prohibited the interstate sale of goods produced by child labor.</p>
<p>Although the <a href="http://sites.gsu.edu/us-constipedia/child-labor-law/">Supreme Court later ruled</a> it and a subsequent Child Labor Tax Law of 1919 unconstitutional, momentum for enshrining protections for child workers had been created. In 1938, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa">Fair Labor Standards Act</a>, which established restrictions and protections on employing children. </p>
<p>The National Child Labor Committee’s project also included advocacy for the enforcement of existing child labor regulations, a regulatory problem reemerging today as the Department of Labor – the agency tasked with enforcing labor laws – <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/dols-wage-arm-vows-child-labor-focus-despite-no-rule-changes">comes under fire</a> for failing to protect child workers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hooded girl in a field of cotton stares forlornly at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530998/original/file-20230608-29-alq94t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young picker carries a large sack of cotton on her back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-cotton-picker-carries-a-large-sack-of-cotton-on-her-news-photo/640486085?adppopup=true">Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ethics of picturing child labor</h2>
<p>A recent surge of unaccompanied minors, primarily from Central America, has brought new attention to America’s old problem of child labor and has threatened the very laws Hine and the National Child Labor Committee worked to enact. </p>
<p>Some estimates suggest that one-third of migrants under 18 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html">are working illegally</a>, whether it’s laboring more hours than current laws permit, or working without the proper authorizations. Many of them perform hazardous jobs similar to those of Hine’s subjects: handling dangerous equipment and being exposed to noxious chemicals in factories, slaughterhouses and industrial farms.</p>
<p>While the content of Hine’s photographs remains pertinent to today’s child labor crisis, a key distinction between the subject of Hine’s photographs and working children today is race. </p>
<p>Hine focused his camera almost exclusively on white children who arrived in the country during waves of immigration from Europe during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. <a href="https://journalpanorama.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Zelt-American-Photographs-Abroad.pdf">As art historian Natalie Zelt argues</a>, Hine’s pictorial treatment of Black children – either ignored or forced to the margins of his images – implied to viewers that the face of childhood in America was, by default, white. </p>
<p>The perceived racial hierarchies of Hine’s era reverberate into the present, where underage migrants of color live and work at the margins of society.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of women hold drums and signs reading 'Popeyes Stop Exploiting Child Labor.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531004/original/file-20230608-29-lcdhg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers protest outside a Popeye’s restaurant in Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023, after reports emerged of the franchise exploiting child labor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/betty-escobar-left-and-other-fast-food-workers-protest-at-news-photo/1491552588?adppopup=true">Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/underage-workers/">Contemporary reports</a> of child labor violations offer few images to accompany their texts, graphs and statistics. There are legitimate reasons for this. By not including identifying personal information or portraits, news outlets protect a vulnerable population. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/eca/media/ethical-guidelines">Ethical guidelines</a> frown upon revealing private details of the lives of children interviewed. And, as Hine’s experience demonstrates, it can be difficult to infiltrate the sites of these labor violations, since they are typically kept secure.</p>
<p>Digital cameras and smartphones offer a workaround. Beginning in 2015, the International Labor Organization <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/My-PEC">urged child laborers in Myanmar</a> to become “young activists” and use their own images and words to create “photo stories” – echoing Hine’s use of the term – that the organization could then disseminate.</p>
<p>Photographs of child labor in foreign countries are far more common than those made in the U.S., which leaves the impression that child labor is someone else’s problem, not ours. Perhaps it’s too hard for Americans to look at this domestic issue square in the eyes. </p>
<p>A similar effect is at work when viewing Hine’s photographs today. While they were originally valued for their immediacy, they can seem to belong to a distant past.</p>
<p>But if Hine’s photographic archive of child laborers is evidence of the power of photography to sway public opinion, does the lack of images in today’s reporting – even if nobly intended – create a disconnect? </p>
<p>Is the public capable of understanding the harmful consequences of lack of labor enforcement when the faces of the people affected are missing from the picture?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Saunders 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>While Lewis Hine’s early-20th century photographs of working children compelled Congress to limit or ban child labor, the US Department of Labor is now under fire for failing to enforce these laws.Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections and Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063542023-06-09T12:28:38Z2023-06-09T12:28:38ZMillions of women are working during menopause, but US law isn’t clear on employees’ rights or employers’ obligations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530400/original/file-20230606-25-owsgbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=202%2C123%2C7287%2C4413&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hot flashes can happen anywhere, including at work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/mental-stress-heat-dehydration-inconvenience-royalty-free-illustration/1256459717">Aleksei Morozov/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While she was interviewing Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in March 2023, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drewbarrymore/video/7215304306550148398?lang=en">Drew Barrymore suddenly exclaimed</a>: “I’m so hot … I think I’m having my first hot flash!”</p>
<p>She took off her blazer and fanned herself dramatically.</p>
<p>While most hot flashes aren’t televised, the entertainer’s experience was far from unique. Barrymore, age 48, is one of approximately 15 million U.S. <a href="https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/pb-assets/Health%20Advance/journals/jmcp/JMCP4097_proof.pdf">women from 45 to 60 who work full time</a> and may experience menopausal symptoms.</p>
<p>Unlike Barrymore, most women are silent about their menopausal symptoms. Yet their symptoms, even when concealed from employers and co-workers, are a burden on them, their workplaces and on the overall U.S. economy. Lost work productivity due to menopausal symptoms – measured by missed work hours, job losses and early retirement – <a href="https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/pb-assets/Health%20Advance/journals/jmcp/JMCP4097_proof.pdf">add up to about $1.8 billion annually</a>, the Mayo Clinic estimates. </p>
<p>The three of us <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gCJEShUAAAAJ&hl=en">write and teach about employment discrimination</a> and feminism, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iGSWDoAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">and two</a> of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=679058">us have written</a> a <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479809691/menstruation-matters">book about menstruation</a>. Because of our shared interests, we are currently writing a book about menopause and the law. We’ve observed that although <a href="https://www.glamour.com/gallery/celebrities-who-have-spoken-out-about-menopause">Gwyneth Paltrow, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama</a> and other celebrities are speaking out about their own menopausal transitions, work accommodations are rare and employers typically don’t even acknowledge this stage of life.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CqTl7SBrFHp/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Stigma and silence</h2>
<p>In the lead-up to menopause, which typically begins between the ages of 45 and 55, levels of reproductive hormones change, and menstrual cycles become irregular and then eventually cease. This transition, called perimenopause, <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/perimenopause/symptoms-causes/syc-20354666">typically lasts for seven years</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://hellobonafide.com/blogs/news/what-are-the-34-symptoms-of-menopause">Common symptoms of perimenopause</a> include hot flashes, sleep disturbances, heart palpitations, excessive bleeding and irregular periods. Technically, menopause occurs after women <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-menopause#identify">don’t have a period for an entire year</a>, and <a href="https://www.nhsinform.scot/healthy-living/womens-health/later-years-around-50-years-and-over/menopause-and-post-menopause-health/after-the-menopause">postmenopause is the stage after that</a>. <a href="https://mymenoplan.org/what-if-im-transgender-or-nonbinary/">Transgender men and nonbinary people</a> assigned female at birth can experience menopause too.</p>
<p>Employees who experience menopausal symptoms are often reluctant to talk about them at all, let alone tell their bosses. They may feel stigma and shame, and they may worry that it could hurt their chances for a promotion, their co-workers will see them as less capable or that their status at work will be otherwise jeopardized. These concerns are not unfounded.</p>
<p>In a series of studies, researchers asked workers and college students to describe their initial impressions of potential co-workers, including “<a href="https://hbr.org/2022/12/research-workplace-stigma-around-menopause-is-real">a menopausal woman</a>.” The participants described her as “less confident and less emotionally stable” than the non-menopausal women.</p>
<h2>No legal protections</h2>
<p>Employees who do speak up and seek accommodations for their menopausal symptoms, which might include dress code adjustments to deal with hot flashes, are often out of luck.</p>
<p>No federal law requires employers to accommodate menopausal symptoms.</p>
<p>Although the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” for <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-reasonable-accommodation-and-undue-hardship-under-ada#genera">workers with disabilities</a>, U.S. courts have consistently held that menopause, by itself, is not a disability, even when its symptoms are <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3916860">seriously affecting someone’s ability to do their job</a>. </p>
<p>That’s what happened to <a href="https://casetext.com/case/sipple-v-crossmark">Georgia Sipple</a>, a food product demonstrator who had a doctor’s note requesting permission to break a dress code by wearing short sleeves on the job. When Crossmark, her employer, refused, Sipple felt that she had no choice but to quit. She sued the company, but the Eastern District of California federal court dismissed her case.</p>
<p>Sometimes, employees even get punished for their menopausal symptoms or status. </p>
<p>When 911 operator <a href="https://www.acluga.org/sites/default/files/appeal_brief.pdf">Alisha Coleman</a> experienced heavy perimenopausal bleeding that seeped through onto the office carpet, she was fired for failing to “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/coleman-v-bobby-dodd-inst-inc">maintain high standards of personal hygiene”</a>. She sued, but the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/ga-woman-said-she-was-fired-for-leaking-during-her-period-at-work-the-aclu-is-suing-for-discrimination/2017/09/08/50fab924-8d97-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html">Middle District of Georgia dismissed her case</a>, refusing to recognize her termination as a form of sex discrimination.</p>
<p>Instead, the judge drew a specious distinction, saying that Coleman had been fired for “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/coleman-v-bobby-dodd-inst-inc">being unable to control the heavy menstruation</a>.” With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, she appealed, later <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/woman-settles-with-employer-she-says-fired-her-for-getting-period-work/afsPqA1kEa6mz0erIGMNaO/">obtaining a confidential settlement</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women on stage form a line with one in a desk chair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530180/original/file-20230605-21-vdkn2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actors perform a scene from ‘Menopause the Musical’ at the Shaw Theatre in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/su-pollard-who-plays-rutland-housewife-miquel-brown-who-news-photo/833683640?adppopup=true">Joel Ryan/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pregnancy and breastfeeding accommodations</h2>
<p>Employees have far fewer legal protections for menopause today than for pregnancy and breastfeeding.</p>
<p>Congress first directly addressed pregnancy discrimination in the workplace in 1978 with the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/internal/policies/pregnancy-discrimination">Pregnancy Discrimination Act</a>. That law made it clear that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. This means that an employee who was fired because her water broke and she went into labor at work would, unlike Coleman, have a winning sex discrimination claim.</p>
<p>Congress also passed the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-pregnant-workers-fairness-act">Pregnant Workers Fairness Act</a> in December 2022, which goes into effect on June 27, 2023. That law requires reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on employers.</p>
<p>Since 2010, Congress has required most <a href="https://www.usbreastfeeding.org/workplace-law-guide.html">employers to provide breastfeeding employees</a> with reasonable break times to pump milk for one year after their children’s births, and also to provide them with a private place that isn’t a bathroom to do so. Most recently, in December 2022, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/well/family/pump-act-breastfeeding.html">Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act</a> expanded those protections.</p>
<h2>Why not menopause?</h2>
<p>In our view, pregnancy and breastfeeding offer a potential model for <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3986267">protecting workers from menopause-related discrimination</a> and providing reasonable accommodations. Until Congress is ready to pass such legislation, there are other possibilities.</p>
<p>First, the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/what-laws-does-eeoc-enforce">Equal Employment Opportunity Commission</a>, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws, could issue “best practices” guidelines. </p>
<p>These guidelines can be modeled on practices in the United Kingdom, where many business have adopted <a href="https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/industrynews/a-movement-to-make-workplaces-menopause-friendly/">menopause policies</a>. Climate-controlled break spaces, dress codes that incorporate short-sleeve options and breathable fabrics, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/get-more-meaning-from-work/2023/may/25/menopause-is-a-life-stage-the-workplaces-where-its-no-longer-a-taboo">dedicated menopause support</a> and the like can all make a positive difference. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could also issue guidance highlighting menopause-based discrimination as a form of sex or age discrimination.</p>
<p>Additionally, even if the commission does not act, companies can adopt these kinds of policies on their own. That is already starting to happen, as U.S. businesses like the tech company Nvidia and the drugmaker Bristol Myers Squibb begin to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/nyregion/menopause-women-work.html">establish some accommodations for menopause</a>, including help with finding treatments.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/038-23/transcript-mayor-eric-adams-delivers-address-women-s-health-holds-in-person-q-and-a">New York Mayor Eric Adams has promised</a> “more menopause-friendly workplaces,” at least for city workers.</p>
<p>To be sure, it can be risky to discuss symptoms at work, as this can undercut perceptions about <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/women-rule/2023/06/02/menopause-is-coming-out-of-the-closet-00099880?tab=most-read">women’s competence at work</a>.</p>
<p>Given these symptoms’ prevalence, though, and the millions of workers experiencing them, we believe that breaking the silence can challenge and dispel these stereotypes – increasing the chances that they’ll remain on the job for many more years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three scholars who are writing a book about menopause and the law suggest ways to protect women experiencing it.Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of VirginiaBridget J. Crawford, Professor of Law, Pace University Emily Gold Waldman, Professor of Law; Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Pace University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059812023-05-20T00:33:07Z2023-05-20T00:33:07ZUnionized bodies in topless bar! Strippers join servers and baristas in new labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527289/original/file-20230519-23-zdmud0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C303%2C5601%2C3487&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dancers at Star Garden in LA have voted for union representation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-the-star-garden-topless-dive-bar-on-may-18-news-photo/1491335689?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in Los Angeles have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1134667170/strippers-union-los-angeles-dancers-star-garden">voted to become the only unionized strippers</a> in the U.S. – joining a <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">growing trend of young employees</a> seeking workplace protection though labor mobilization.</p>
<p>On May 18, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board announced that balloted employees at the topless bar had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/18/business/stripper-union-california/index.html">voted 17-0 in favor</a> of joining the <a href="https://www.actorsequity.org/">Actors’ Equity Association</a>.</p>
<p>It makes Star Garden the first unionized strip club since the now-defunct <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/08/what-it-was-like-to-work-at-the-lusty-lady-a-unionized-strip-club/279236/">Lusty Lady in San Francisco and Seattle</a>. That 1996 union campaign was later the subject of the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264802/">documentary “Live Nude Girls Unite</a>.” </p>
<p>Lusty Lady shut its doors in Seattle in 2010, and three years later in San Francisco, making Star Garden if not the first then at present the only unionized strip club. But given the high-profile nature of the campaign – and the impact of union drives among young staff elsewhere – <a href="https://cob.sfsu.edu/directory/john-logan">I believe</a> that there is a high chance that Star Garden won’t be the last strip joint to unionize.</p>
<h2>Rusty nails and broken glass</h2>
<p>Star Garden is the latest in a string of organizing breakthroughs. In 2022, 2,510 petitions for union representation were filed with National Labor Relations Board elections – a <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/unfair-labor-practices-charge-filings-up-16-union-petitions-remain-up-in">53% increase from 2021 and the highest number since 2016</a>. And petitions for union elections have continued to increase in 2023. </p>
<p>Just as at Star Garden, many of the recent union victories have occurred in workplaces that previously seemed resistant to labor drives. Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Apple retail stores, REI, Ben & Jerry’s, Chipotle and Barnes & Noble are among the big-name companies that have seen staff unionize for the first time since workers voted to unionize at Starbucks in Buffalo in December 2021. And evidence suggests that a successful union drive leads to more. Workers at <a href="https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2023/03/31/a-model-for-labors-renewal-the-starbucks-campaign/">over 300 Starbucks stores</a> have now voted to unionize, and their efforts have inspired young workers throughout the low-wage service sector. </p>
<p>But in other crucial ways their campaign chimes with that of the other new union drives than have occurred recently in the United States. Star Garden employs the same kind of young, self-assured workers that have contributed to the dynamism of union campaigns at Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and others. Most of the dancers are in their 20s and 30s, and they have proved assured spokespeople for the union during <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/12/1120759940/star-garden-stripper-topless-dancers-union-striking-los-angeles-california">the campaign’s extensive coverage</a> in traditional and social media. </p>
<h2>Youth-driven campaigns</h2>
<p>In contrast to past generations of union drives, it is young employees that are spearheading the new push for unions. And they are doing so independently, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-starbucks-and-the-sparking-of-a-new-american-union-movement-180293">less outside mobilizing from established union leaders</a>. The Star Garden workers self-organized and repeatedly pressured management to act on their concerns before <a href="https://www.law360.com/employment-authority/articles/1524811/calif-dancers-moving-to-form-nation-s-only-strip-club-union">deciding to petition for a union election with Actors’ Equity Union</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Men and women in black T-shirts with 'Starbucks Workers Union' emblems on the front jump in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527295/original/file-20230519-15-z65a08.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">Starbucks employees and supporters celebrate a successful union drive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UnionMembership/2b391175f2054871aff7d7f752e6f773/photo?Query=Starbucks%20union&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=140&currentItemNo=29">AP Photo/Joshua Bessex</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, the issues cited by Star Garden workers as evidence of a need for union protection – sexual harassment by customers, unresponsive management and an unsafe working environment – are in many respects just more extreme versions <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/starbucks-workers-at-the-nyc-roastery-strike-against-unsafe-work-conditions/">of the problems</a> that have driven many retail and food-service-sector workers to mobilize.</p>
<h2>Anti-union tactics</h2>
<p>In common with workers at Starbucks, REI and Trader Joe’s, the Star Garden dancers concluded that having a union and collective bargaining was the surest way to remedy such problems. </p>
<p>And like many of those other workforces, the Star Garden strippers faced a long battle against management to achieve that goal.</p>
<p>The organizing campaign<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1134667170/strippers-union-los-angeles-dancers-star-garden"> lasted for 15 months</a> as a result of company’s efforts to fight worker organizing and then prevent a union vote. </p>
<p>Workers voted in a National Labor Relations Board election in November 2022, but management opposition prevented the labor board from counting the ballots until last week. Among other tactics, the owners of Star Garden are <a href="https://money.yahoo.com/huge-win-hollywood-star-garden-211500506.html">alleged to have retaliated</a> against workers for protesting an unsafe working environment and claimed that the workers were independent contractors, not employees. Employers also <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1134667170/strippers-union-los-angeles-dancers-star-garden">filed for bankruptcy</a> – an act that can void a union contract.</p>
<p>But the anti-union tactics failed. When the ballots were eventually counted, they showed that workers had voted unanimously for union recognition. In common with campaigns at Starbucks and elsewhere, the success at Star Garden suggests that traditional <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/union-busting-what-is-it">anti-union tactics</a> may be <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">less effective with today’s younger workers</a>. </p>
<p>There is another common theme in the rash of union breakthroughs in recent years: They have generated headlines.</p>
<p>Star Garden may not have the big-name appeal to media outlets of, say, Starbucks or Amazon. But the nature of the business involved lends itself to widespread media and social coverage. In short, “strippers’ unionize” <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/06/la-strippers-look-to-form-first-exotic-dancers-union-in-decades/">makes</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/18/los-angeles-strip-club-dancers-unionize-actors-equity-association">for</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/business/strippers-union-labor.html">great</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3606699-strippers-at-la-club-move-to-unionize/">headlines</a>.</p>
<p>The high profile of this and other drives is an important part of the story. Widespread social media and traditional news coverage can <a href="https://academicminute.org/2022/02/john-logan-san-francisco-state-university-why-are-unions-suddenly-such-a-hot-topic-and-does-it-matter">raise awareness of the potential to unionize</a> among other young workforces. It conveys to employees that organizing is something they can do, not just something they read about. </p>
<h2>Time for a new corporate strategy?</h2>
<p>There is also a takeaway from union drives by Star Garden strippers and other workers for corporations: The public may be tiring of old-style anti-union tactics, and it may be in their interests to work with employees seeking to unionize.</p>
<p>As Lilith, one of the Star Garden dancers, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fp0fzc">told the BBC</a>: “A union strip club is going to be a novelty in the United States. It will have customers from all over. … I think if both parties come to negotiate in good faith, we can create a really successful business together.”</p>
<p>From my perspective, it does prompt the question of whether it is time for company bosses to embrace unions. With <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">over 70% of the public approving of unions</a> – and a much higher proportion of young workers – companies like Star Garden, Starbucks and REI could potentially benefit from marketing themselves as “good employers” who respect their workers’ right to choose a union. </p>
<p>Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s is one such company seemingly taking that approach. In January, it became the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90890085/ben-and-jerrys-ice-cream-scoopers-union-fair-election-demands">first major national employer to sign</a> the Starbucks Workers United-initiated “Fair Election Principles,” which would guarantee workers a free and fair choice to unionize. The union recognition process at Ben & Jerry’s is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/17/benjerrys-ice-cream-union/">scheduled for the Monday of Memorial Day weekend</a>. </p>
<p>Star Garden may be the country’s only unionized topless bar. But it is part of a wider trend that is influencing attitudes toward mobilizing in young workforces across the country – from servers to ice cream scoopers and now strippers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Young motivated employees are pushing the movement for union representation among US workforces. Is it time for management to get on board?John Logan, Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.