Rolling Labor Action Thread

I couldn’t find one, that we should have one. Mostly because I was looking for a place to post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtXprCW45RI

Background on Frito-Lay strike: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/7/21/22586982/frito-lay-products-strike-boycott-topeka-kansas

good thread

I've been encouraged to see a lot more ferment and labor talk even here in my very red state over the past year. Local service workers formed Facebook groups etc., have become a lot more outspoken. Still a long way from real organization in most cases, but the ground is fertile.

(btw the video clip at the top is a skit)

posted this on union rat thread

Today, a majority of the Board found that a union’s use of rats or other inflatables, along with other bannering activity, does not violate the National Labor Relations Act, even when targeting a neutral employer. Read more: https://t.co/d5F9OjBJ2Y

— NLRB (@NLRB) July 21, 2021

Long live Scabby.

My wife works in this area and told me about one employer who responded with an inflatable cat.

Was it ... a fat cat?

I think there have been those as well.

Interesting news from the Teamsters: https://www.labornotes.org/2021/07/convention-no-other-teamster-challengers-turn-corner

<3

No contract. No snacks.
Flour and sugar stays on tracks. https://t.co/F7g00htw1H

— Railroad Workers United ✊ (@railroadworkers) August 27, 2021

Happy Labor Day! Leave that Nabisco alone.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/labor-day-demands-supporting-nabisco-s-striking-bakery-workers-n1278486

It’s on.

https://iatse.net/by-a-nearly-unanimous-margin-iatse-members-in-tv-and-film-production-vote-to-authorize-a-nationwide-strike/

Oh yeah here comes big daddy

Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places, but is there a deadline for when the strike would start? Seems like they are still giving the studios one more chance first...

They are. The idea is that if this doesn't make it happen, they can then call the strike; the vote was to authorize the union leader to call the strike as needed rather than a specific vote TO strike, if you see the difference.

John Deere may be headed to the picket line: https://gizmodo.com/john-deere-workers-sure-look-like-they-re-about-to-go-o-1847847258

And we might be about to get the first unionized Dollar General: https://inthesetimes.com/article/dollar-general-workers-store-connecticut-union-campaign

wow gizmodo comments are woke

one for the 'left wing drift' thread

the dollar general story is great - also grim, also just incredibly familiar. the same things play out again and again and again. places like walmart swoop down like hawks on anybody attempting to unionize. they do captive audience meetings with powerpoints showing employees that their wages will go down etc - and it fucking works. and i guess ufcw just doesn't have the resources to fight it? i dunno. i hope it goes down differently this time.

IATSE gonna strike on the 18th

i keep thinking about these low wage big box jobs and like, 7-11s and stuff. i guess the turnover is just so high, and they're shitty jobs anyway, that it's like... how many people are going to put in the work to actually fight for dignity in these jobs? how many people are going to face the absolute mountain of shit the company is going to rain down on them and make it through to the other side? if it really gets bad you quit and get a job somewhere else if you can. move on.

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

No, it’s a corrupt union leadership working in concert with the school and accepting the first TA offered. I know because two friends who have worked for the AFT told me privately that they agree with me but can’t say so publicly, and told me why.

Also, spare me the “you can do such and such.” You think I have time for that when I’m making next to nothing because the union is deferential to management’s needs to fuck over employees? Please . Get one clue.

Big deal

https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2024/message-from-sara-starbucks-and-workers-united-agree-on-path-forward/

It's interesting how many European & Korean companies have absolutely no issues with collective bargaining.. even VW was fine with their Tennessee plant going union, it's just part of the business
It makes it easier to budget when you know what your labor expenses are going to be, years in advance

Corporate America just has this utter contempt for the worker, like they should be fucking grateful to get a fifteen minute break now and then

^^^^ Speak of the devil

Under previous leadership at the UAW, the union came close to winning elections in 2014 and 2019 at the plant but came up short after a surge of anti-union organizations and Republican elected officials aggressively opposed the efforts. Similar efforts have already begun during the current campaign at the plant.

US Volkswagen workers file for union election to join United Auto Workers

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/18/volkswagen-workers-file-union-election-to-join-uaw

IATSE seems to be making deals

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/iatse-negotiations-cinematographers-reach-deal-craft-issues-1235857297/amp/

Fuck these people

To be sure, southern politicians have spoken out against the UAW. Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, said, “It would be a big mistake for (the VW) workers to risk their future” by unionizing. Alabama’s governor, Kate Ivey, wrote, “Alabama has become a national leader in automotive manufacturing, and all this was achieved without a unionized workforce … Unfortunately, the Alabama model for economic success is under attack.”

(UAW President) Fain fired back, saying that Ivey “dared to say that the economic model of the south is under attack. She’s damn right it is! It’s under attack because workers are fed up with getting screwed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/uaw-union-drive-south-volkswagen-tennessee

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

not action per se but some good news

https://natlawreview.com/article/nlrb-overturns-another-longstanding-rule-involving-employers-expressing-views

Yes this is huge!

more non-action but very good news

https://www.wpr.org/news/dane-county-judge-strikes-down-act-10-restoring-public-employee-union-bargaining-rights

Amazon Teamsters strike: https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-workers-go-strike-us-ahead-christmas-rush-union-seeks-contract-talks-2024-12-19/

it's a start I guess, but IIUC, this is essentially: america's trumpiest and least effective labor union, which spent most of this year informally campaigning for republicans and isolating themselves from the rest of the movement, and has made essentially no contribution to efforts to unionize warehouses, calling a strike that does not coordinate with 99% of the workforce and will thus have no impact?

caek wouldn't it be illegal for the 99% of the Amazon workforce that aren't unionized to coordinate with this action?

and, while I was as disgusted with Sean O'Brien this year as everyone else was, they have organized 10k workers at Amazon warehouses, so how is that "no contribution to efforts to unionize warehouses"?

Wait who is on strike here? Is it the ALU or the teamsters? The ALU affiliated with them a couple of months ago (after years of organizing alone, for which the teamsters deserve no credit afaict). the membership and leadership is distinct (and the ALU members work for Amazon, the teamsters don’t)

If this is the ALU striking and the teamsters are just running the press operation then good for the ALU, gotta start somewhere.

If this is the otherwise completely isolated teamsters union of people who don’t work for Amazon dicking around outside a staten island warehouse for publicity then my point stands.

it's the ALU: https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/breaking-the-amazon-labor-union-is. Amazon hasn't been willing to bargain with them yet

the bulk of the strike is the Staten Island warehouse, but there are other workers walking off at 6 other sites. I'm not clear on why/how. ALU will presumably have access to IBT strike pay (generally the single most compelling reason to affiliate), so I wouldn't hate on them too much, while I do share your opinion of their leadership

good stuff

‘Stunned by the solidarity’: New York Times tech workers make ‘shocking’ $114,000 donation to Post-Gazette strikers, just in time for the holidays

after years of organizing alone, for which the teamsters deserve no credit afaict

I see, did not know this

I dunno maybe I’m being ungenerous and assuming the worst based on a very shallow understanding of events and the nature of their support. I’m inclined to do that with the teamsters though. The leadership is obviously rotten but based on the polling they released around the time of the none in endorsement so is their membership. All off topic though this is a derail. It’s good people are striking and I support anyone who is. (Amazon is my employer btw if you didn’t know! I have no affection for them and support warehouse unionization but should declare an interest here.)

I have friends on the line in Chicago and I support them regardless

IBEW members and apprentices called my husband and others racist and homophobic slurs yesterday for daring to protest an absolutely corrupt arena deal in Philly that will decimate Chinatown and the surrounding area.

honestly, i think the knee-jerk pro-labor response here and in other lefty circles is really lacking in nuance. people who will gladly sell out a community and a city to make a buck are not people deserving of my solidarity, they are people deserving of my scorn.

dan, do you mean friends at Amazon? or are you referring to a different strike? if the former, are you able to clarify how workers are striking outside of Staten Island? just curious.

my short response to caek and table is that social unionism is the way (caek, you should try it at your workplace ;)

so I agree that knee-jerk pro-labor sentiment can be un-nuanced. it's obviously a congenital problem for unions that their raison d'être is waged labor. but as a vehicle to resist capitalism's and neoliberalism's worst predations collectively and a political structure to build power for social justice causes at a large scale, I'm not seeing a lot of viable alternatives.

brb gonna organize amazon corporate wish me luck

dan, do you mean friends at Amazon? or are you referring to a different strike? if the former, are you able to clarify how workers are striking outside of Staten Island? just curious.

I do mean at Amazon, specifically at the Skokie facility outside Chicago. I'm not able to clarify anything because I live an hour away, so I don't see/speak to them all that often and I don't know specifics.