Rolling Labor Action Thread

The John Deere strike is underway.

For anyone just catching up on the 10,000 worker UAW strike at John Deere -- the largest strike in the US in two years -- here's how you can get up to speed, based on what I've written for @labornotes:

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 14, 2021

lmao Deere itself put out a graphic in August to show how much better their employees have it, because of their pension -

Here's another great image from Deere management.

In August, they told UAW members how much better they had it than at competitors CAT and CNH, because of the pension.

Now Deere wants to eliminate the pension, and the stool is collapsing; but not in the way the company thought! pic.twitter.com/uLJ9BiERIo

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 13, 2021

sorry just restated the tweet there, so you get the drift, doubly

John Deere is trying to break a strike by having salaried office workers operate heavy machinery, let’s see how that’s going— pic.twitter.com/Yb1JkoFAH8

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 15, 2021

So happy for the IATSE strike. My union’s working conditions are way better than theirs and I’m still reeling after each film shoot, it’s a very tough industry. I can’t imagine what IATSE members have been going through and I really hope the strike brings about change.

A few days ago the nurses union for Kaiser-Permanente, a very big health care provider on the US west coast, voted to authorize a strike whenever their leadership decides that contract talks have broken down completely. The management was offering them a 1% raise!

btw, they're my provider. if they screw this up I'll be mad as hell at management not the nurses.

Looks like a whole lot of people aren’t taking it anymore

There was a regular at the bar who I hadn't seen for months. He was in Thursday, said he'd had enough of 70-80 hour weeks and had quit his job. I said "way to go, comrade, I love seeing power swing from mgmt to labor." He's a typical white middleaged southern conservative and was extremely uncomfortable with this.

this little wave of strikes is literally the only thing giving me any kind of hope at all about making a better world

xp lol

So IATSE tweeted this out, but a lot of tweets saying the deal sucks and/or isn’t much better than the previous one and that they plan to vote no:

“We went toe to toe with some of the richest and most powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world, and we havenow reached an agreement with the AMPTP that meets our members’ needs.”https://t.co/861fwvQNii

— IATSE // #IASolidarity (@IATSE) October 17, 2021

BREAKING: @BVWU_IWW has reached a tentative agreement with Burgerville. If ratified, 100 workers at five Oregon locations will become the only fast food workforce in the U.S. to be covered by a union contract. They’ve been in contract negotiations since 2018. A historic moment! pic.twitter.com/ujUJaGenLp

— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) November 12, 2021

the wobblies??

the workers at the local bathhouse here in Toronto won their union drive!!!

we won 🥲 https://t.co/VjscVj78gP

— graeme lamb (@_gmlamb) November 12, 2021

yup. the wobblies are still out there.

Activision action

https://www.polygon.com/22786117/activision-blizzard-walk-out-bobby-kotick-resignation-demands

https://lbo-news.com/2021/11/12/striketober-wasnt/

As marvelous as it would be to see a revival of labor militancy, people got a little ahead of things calling last month “Striketober.” According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stats, it was a blip by historical standards.

Here’s a graph of the number of workers involved in strikes or lockouts (the BLS counts them together) since 2000. There were 57 months with higher numbers of workers off the job. At the high point of this graph, May 2018, there were over fourteen times as many workers on strike as there were last month.

https://doughenwood.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/stoppages-monthly.png?w=1280

Here’s another measurement—what the BLS, in nice Victorian fashion, calls “days of idleness” as a percent of total days worked throughout the economy. It was 0.01% in October, a level that’s been matched in 39 other months since January 2000. And as the bottom graph shows, back in the old days when strikes were frequent, lost workdays were many times 0.01%. Before 1980, the low was 0.07%, set in 1957. From 1948 to 1979, it averaged 0.16%. In 1959, just two years after the pre-neoliberal era low, it was 0.43%, the series high.

there's always hope for strikevember

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/kaiser-nurses-to-hold-sympathy-strike-in-solidarity-with-engineers/

BREAKING: The 10,000 striking John Deere workers voted to approve a third contract offer 61%-39%, ending the 5-week strike & solidifying major concessions from the company.

The big wins include:
- $8500 bonus
- Immediate 10% raise
- Another 10% raise by 2025
- Improved pension

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) November 18, 2021

nice

I think the disproportionate attention is because — at least for the moment — there's a lot of focus on workers, or lack of workers. But it's a good opportunity to get people thinking about it. And publicity for something like the John Deere deal is worth a lot in making people think organizing could work for them.

yeah if it sticks, more media focus on strikes is a welcome trend

i saw some people who cover labor complaining about erasure in this piece, but the fact that it's getting written about as a media trend is a sign something is different (for now) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/business/media/labor-unions-media-coverage.html.

my guess is labor power is about to begin a secular increase for the next few decades, not just for political reasons but because the US is trending towards labor scarcity. the trump/stephen miller reductions in legal immigration (which reduced refugee/asylum-seeker inflows by 100% and green cards by 50%) is now consensus policy, and birth-rates are below replacement. the working-age population started to shrink around 2018-19 and will probably accelerate

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=J3eH

we named the cc https://t.co/3bcwZPZjmN

— Michael Rose (@dcmichaelrose) December 13, 2021

sorry, posted reply instead of tweet

Wow. An NLRB employee has been charged with bribery and fraud. Charging doc alleges she was selling non-public info on potential union elections and ULP's to an outside labor consultant who would then sell the info to law firms https://t.co/6ybLIeD3Q8 pic.twitter.com/hh7k8Nxkp1

— Dave Jamieson (@jamieson) December 13, 2021

look at the world's tiniest legal notice on the bottom

That last bullet point is fucking despicable.#SupportWorkers #FredMeyerStrike pic.twitter.com/ydAG1aJCOC

— Shawn Levy (@shawnlevy) December 17, 2021

oh, you have to click the photo to see it taped on there

I saw someone say that line was a legal requirement in the state where that store is located.

re: crossing a picket line

it is, it lists the state statute making them say it
xp oh i'm referring to the thing taped under there, yeah

The UFCW is the only union* I've belonged to, at a Kroger. Never saw a union rep or heard from them again after the first sign-up meeting, somewhat disappointing as a 16-year old who had just read A People's History for the first time.

*excluding the IWW for ten years which was basically like a yearly PBS donation

about the only good news i see in my feed these days is labor action stuff

https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/268148823_251494930420109_4847124755181834689_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=QyC3uHr4pn0AX9h9yfu&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.xx&oh=00_AT_ZIt9Qz3-s-9jeis_ybVN2CwoVqAimeFjucTdY1RVHZA&oe=61C6FD7E

no deal until they bring back Product 19

number of american workers covered by a union fell in 2021, percent of workers covered also fell relative to 2020 but flat compared to 2019, according to BLS

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

good write-up https://www.epi.org/publication/latest-data-release-on-unionization-is-a-wake-up-call-to-lawmakers/

thanks for that flopson

You can follow the ongoing Starbucks actions at this Twitter account: https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited

Not only did REI make a union busting website, they already have a union busting podcast episode that starts with a fucking land acknowledgement!!

Liberalism is a disease, folks! https://t.co/5sp9T2O8pL pic.twitter.com/1ProLoaZQN

— Honda Wang 王宏达 (@HondaWang) February 7, 2022

How can this be, I was assured all corporations are now woke.

"chief diversity and social impact officer"

I'm a little unclear where Honda Wang's sympathies lie

Memphis Starbucks has fired 7 of its employees involved in unionization

https://news.yahoo.com/starbucks-fires-union-leaders-memphis-204249934.html

minneapolis federation of teachers on strike now, here's a recap of the last week:

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/minneapolis-teacher-strike-week-one-update/89-95a9dd41-2bbe-4724-9ef5-2be2b0738dc5

really good deep dive into the people behind the vote

https://www.thecity.nyc/staten-island/2022/3/24/22995196/amazon-workers-staten-island-union-vote

Current Vote Totals:
2050 Yes
1574 No

476 votes in ALU’s favor after resuming the count today on the last box.

— Amazon Labor Union (@amazonlabor) April 1, 2022

Memphis Starbucks has fired 7 of its employees involved in unionization

Former CEO and also former vaporware presidential candidate Howard Schultz has returned as CEO in order to crush the unionising push and its going great

If @SBWorkersUnited can win new benefits with just 9 unionized stores, imagine the gains Starbucks workers can win with hundreds of unionized stores. https://t.co/VFQF9fRb2F

— Josh Miller-Lewis (@jmillerlewis) March 31, 2022

Starbucks' appeal of a decision ordering a union election, which was due last Friday, was mislabeled and filed with the wrong part of the labor board, Starbucks' law firm Littler said in a new NLRB filing today that ends "Thank you in advance for your...professional cooperation"

— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) March 30, 2022

^ this is the second SBU union the law firm has failed to stop in recent weeks due to misfiling an appeal. Labor and employment law specialists Littler Mendelsohn PLC… welcome to the resistance

these governors were bought by special interests a long time ago

Well, it's not VW that's paying them off... most of their plants worldwide are already union. It's just this aggressive posture where they don't want to see labor make any gains at all, because pretty soon they'll be coming after the poultry plants that are employing 14 year old undocumented workers and we can't have that

well sure, those are also special interests, but don’t be under any illusions that vw wants unionized plants in the US

btw there has been a lot of organizing effort in TN poultry plants.. a great movie about that here (my mom worked on it) - https://annelewis.org/morristown-in-the-air-and-sun/

They did it!!

https://tabithaarnold.substack.com/p/these-hands

Studio visit with the leader of the free world! pic.twitter.com/4J6loV6RZC

— tabitha (@thetolerantweft) April 18, 2024

White conservative Southern governors don't need to be bought off by special interests — the preservation of cheap labor by any means has been an explicit part of their agenda since the country formed. (Including trying to secede to preserve it, obviously.)

But hell yeah UAW. Shawn Fain looking like one of the strongest, smartest major union leaders in years.

Alabam's next!

https://www.al.com/news/2024/04/inside-uaws-latest-alabama-mercedes-benz-plant-union-push-will-this-time-be-different.html

Some more good news:

BREAKING: 4 million workers will now take home more money when they work more than 40 hours a week under a new Labor Dept. rule released today. The changes would make it so salaried workers earning less than about $59k annually would automatically be due overtime pay.

— Rebecca Rainey (@RebeccaARainey) April 23, 2024

They've also just outlawed noncompete agreements.

got this fucked-up spam on my work email today.. for some kind of webinar

What Managers Need to Know as The Union Knocks on the Door

Managers and Supervisors are taken to task every day in managing their Non represented employees. It is important for them to learn the Initial warning signs of Union Organizing long before a Union gets the appropriate number of signed Authorization Cards and the NLRB Conducts a secret Election. Learn here the best Election is the one that is never held.

xp ok that's some real progress!

I’m surprised the overtime rule only affects 4m people. Is it only federal workers or something?

overtime-exemption impacted workers will be the intersection of exceeded the previous salary threshold, below, the new threshold, and already passing the "primarily perform executive, administrative, or professional duties" exemption test

Starting the conversation about the nuts and bolts reality of how to pull off a 2028 general strike. (Which is truly possible.) https://t.co/5fyNBrO5oH

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) April 23, 2024

dare to dream (I am in favor)

In general, however, it’s pretty much been disaster after disaster for five decades: Reagan busting the air traffic controllers’ union, four failed congressional attempts to make the NLRA more functional, even more failed attempts to raise the federal minimum wage (stuck at $7.25 for the past 15 years), the passage of NAFTA, the enactment of permanent normal trade relations with China, and the relentless, sickening decline in the share of American workers who belong to unions, which now stands at 10 percent, and a bare 6 percent among private-sector workers. That decline correlates well with the shrinking of the American middle class.

However, the seven days between Friday, April 19, and Thursday, April 25, saw a succession of worker victories that was almost breathtaking in its scope.

Two of those victories were the direct result of worker mobilizations. On Friday, the UAW won a recognition election at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga factory by a 73 to 27 percent margin, in an election where fully 84 percent of the eligible workers voted. Workers evidently viewed the UAW’s landmark victory in its strike several months earlier against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis as proof positive that the union could raise their wages and benefits. They ignored the pleas of six Southern governors that the union would subvert “Southern values,” which most workers apparently understood to mean “low-wage work sustained by a lack of worker power.”

The new UAW leadership, headed by president Shawn Fain, had made sure to keep the strike against the Big Three and the unprecedented contract they won in the public eye, and that leadership then appropriated $40 million to unionize factories in the South—historically, the graveyard of unionization efforts.

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-04-29-great-week-for-american-workers/

Tesla's next, baby

BREAKING: Oakland @McDonalds workers at 1330 Jackson St are ON STRIKE due to a rat infestation. Management has warned us we’ll be fired if we document the rats.

We’re sending evidence to CalOSHA.

We know the biggest rats are making huge profits off our labor.

Not today. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/lu1baX0z9G

— California Fast Food Workers Union (@CAFastFoodUnion) May 3, 2024

they're not even asking for more money, they just want the rats removed from the workplace... lol

has there ever been a better moment for the giant inflatable rat??

I walk by that location all the time - they closed the dining room for Covid and never reopened, it's drive-up only now which is becoming more and more common around here.. too bad if you don't have a car

xp no, this is what the giant inflatable rat was born to do, this is its moment

Go Scabby!

NEWS: @audubonsociety is challenging the constitutionality of labor law in response to the @NLRB complaint that found management committed several Unfair Labor Practices.

Audubon CEO @DrElizabethGray joins Elon Musk and others in this anti-union approach. https://t.co/QkdFN9isch

— The Bird Union 🪶 (@thebirdunion) September 4, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdqQ2BdgOA

https://patch.com/maryland/owingsmills/s/izo7s/dockworkers-strike-in-baltimore-supply-chain-concerns-begin?utm_source=local-update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/10/longshoremen-strike