DRAMATIC LABOR RESURGENCE?
Posted by MLToday | Oct 17, 2021 | Other Featured Posts | 0
Dramatic Labor Resurgence?
It may not be a “labor revolution” as the author contends, but it has the look of a strike wave. The Editors
By Faiz Shakir
October 8, 2021
Our nation is in the midst of a labor revolution. It’s a wonderful thing, and you may not be aware of it.
After an emotionally, physically, and mentally taxing year dealing with ramifications of Covid-19, workers across the country are standing up for basic dignity and respect on the job in a historic way. And through the pandemic, the nation was reminded of the essentialness of labor—not the labor of Wall Street; rather, the labor that drives our hospitals, our groceries, our mail, our livelihoods.
They are striking; they are picketing; they are demanding fair contracts. They are forming new unions on campuses and coffeehouses, and they are walking out on low-wage jobs at Burger King, Dollar General, and elsewhere. In short, laborers are demanding their due. And it is infectiously spreading from workplace to workplace.
Much of the renewed breath of labor activism can be tracked to the courageous workers at the Amazon warehouse plant in Bessemer, Alabama, who in February attracted national attention for demanding dignity against one of the largest and most powerful employers in America. In that campaign, we witnessed a greedy corporate giant pull out all the stops and engage in gross union-busting tactics that require rerunning the election, according to the National Labor Relations Board. We saw Amazon come under the microscope for its poor working conditions. We applauded a president of the United States who sided with the workers. And despite falling short of reaching its unionization goal, those mostly Black laborers told America’s workforce: If we can stand up for ourselves, you can, too.
In the weeks that followed, workers at corporate behemoths like Frito-Lay, Nabisco, and Kellogg’s, among others, have stood up in large numbers to demand fair pay, paid time off, and affordable health care. And they have won, or are winning, key concessions.
The American public is responding by delivering its highest approval of labor unions in decades!
As workers take action, the Biden administration is operating in the background to give strength to them. The administration has delivered a worker-friendly NLRB, a slew of appointees across the administration who are willing to hold corporations accountable, and a policy agenda focused on working families. By delivering stimulus checks, child tax payments, child hunger benefits, and more, the Biden administration has effectively raised the income floor for America’s workers. They can breathe, and they don’t have to take your crappy-paying job with no benefits. Businesses are complaining of a “labor shortage,” which in reality is—viewed from the perspective of workers—labor power in action. Employers will need to compete to offer attractive job offers, which is exactly as it should be.
When corporations fail to meet worker demands, they are increasingly encountering a labor force that isn’t going to take it. Just look at the numbers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks “large strikes,” meaning strikes of over 1,000 workers. In 2020, there were a total of nine such strikes, involving 28,800 workers. In 2021 so far, the total number is already at 12 strikes, involving 22,300 workers. And they’re not done yet. There are three large pending strike authorizations that could add to that tally: IATSE-affiliated Hollywood production workers (60–65,000 workers), Kaiser Permanente workers (37,000), and UAW-affiliated John Deere workers (roughly 10,000).
It’s not just “large strikes,” either. In 2020, the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, a government agency that handles labor disputes, recorded under 50 official strikes resulting from union labor disputes. So far in 2021, the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker has recorded over 100 such strikes—and it’s only October. There are other counts out there that suggest the federal agencies are under-reporting labor actions that are going on; regardless, there is little dispute that the fundamental trend is clear. Workers of the nation are uniting.
Jonah Furman, who closely monitors the labor movement for Labor Notes, told me that labor revolt has been building for some time. “With around 10,000 workers currently on strike, and over 100,000 more moving in that direction, we’re beginning to see private-sector workers pick up where the teachers’ strike wave left off before the pandemic,” Furman said.
In these uncertain political times, here’s some clarity: There’s probably a picket or a worker-led movement near you. Join it. The time is ripe to build real working-class solidarity in this country.
Faiz Shakir is the founder of the advocacy journalism organization More Perfect Union.
THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
https://mltoday.com/dramatic-labor-resurgence/
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Strike Wave Across the US Demands Better Working Conditions
Over 100,000 workers in the US are on strike or have voted to authorize a strike. The capitalist class is profiting massively off the pandemic, and workers are fighting back for what is theirs. | Photo: Twitter @pslweb
Published 18 October 2021
The recent massive wave of work stoppages led to the creation on social networks of the term “Striketober,” formed by the union of the English words “strike” and “October.”
Thousands of workers in the United States are on strike today for higher wages and better conditions in a labor market that is trying to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although Hollywood film crews threatened to paralyze the U.S. film industry starting Monday, at the last minute, they reached an agreement on working conditions for technicians, but other unions continue to strike.
In the last few days, 10,000 operators of the agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere Heavy Equipment went on strike. The unions representing 31,000 employees of the health care group Kaiser Permanente agreed to do the same in California and Oregon.
They join 1,400 workers at Kellogg's cereal company and more than 2,000 at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, New York, who have crossed their arms since the beginning of this month.
In addition, American Airlines pilots plan to carry out informational pickets at airports in Miami, Chicago, and Dallas for two weeks, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, 1,000 coal miners in Alabama, 700 nurses in Massachusetts, 400 whiskey manufacturers in Kentucky and 200 bus drivers in Reno, Nevada, also interrupted their activities, report journalists from The Intercept.
This wave of work stoppages led to the creation on social networks of the term "Striketober," formed by the union of the English words strike and October.
According to Cornell University's Labor Action Tracker, which tracks such actions, at least 176 strikes have begun this year in the country, including 17 in October.
Some 4.3 million Americans walked off their jobs this month because they were dissatisfied with deteriorating working conditions due to the health care crisis, including insufficient safeguards against Covid-19.
As a result, companies struggle to find labor, while unions see the labor shortage as an advantage to demand wage increases.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Str ... -0020.html
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THE GREAT RENUNCIATION: CAUSES AND MISERIES BEHIND THE STRIKES IN THE US
18 Oct 2021 , 4:00 pm .
Today, only about 12% of American workers are union members (Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Very little is said in the US media about the strikes that took place in recent weeks in the land of (corporate) freedom, and much less about their underlying reasons: workers are beginning to tire of the wage situation and the few or no benefits in the labor market.
At the moment, in the United States, there is an abundant supply of work that has allowed unions to demand greater compensation for the workforce, so some have begun to organize strikes, not general but coordinated at the national level.
The reason for the unemployment includes the typical string of worker demands under the negative plus of pandemic measures, among them the extensions of the working day, excess tasks, low salaries, the security deficit for jobs, disincentives in pensions, mistreatment and abuse by managers and entrepreneurs, etc.
It seems that satiety is running through the minds of millions of workers who have quit their jobs, or unemployed people who have preferred to turn to other types of income and not to corporate employment.
A sign of billions and millions was starred by Beth McGrath, then a Walmart worker in Louisiana, who recorded herself quitting in front of all shoppers through the intercom saying "everyone here is overworked and underpaid," before call specific managers for inappropriate and abusive behavior. The video went viral.
"I hope you don't talk to your families the way you talk to us," he said to one of the managers before finishing with "Fuck this job!"
This is just one example of the countless in the United States that has caused a wave of job resignations, not in the last few months, but since last year, a phenomenon that economists have called the Great Resignation , with women leading this. trend .
DATA FROM A GRINGO NIGHTMARE
Before they reached an agreement with the great American film industry, about 60,000 Hollywood workers were going to support a strike this Monday, October 18.
*The 10 thousand employees of the tractor manufacturer John Deere are added.
*The 2,000 contracted workers at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, New York.
*And some 31,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare group employees in California and Oregon are poised to strike.
*Add in the resignation of 1,400 workers at the Kellogg's cereal company on October 5.
This would give a total of more than 100,000 union members involved in the Great Renunciation, which they have also called on social networks "striketober" (striketober) since all the manifestations of this trend have occurred in October and part of September.
We must mention that the affiliation of workers to unions has plummeted in recent decades in the United States due to legislation against this type of worker organization and the obstacles of companies to union attempts, being one of the most representative of the case that surrounds Amazon.
Last year, only 11.3% of workers belonged to a union, up from 20% in 1983, according to the US government's Bureau of Labor Statistics .
Furthermore, despite the sustained growth of US capitalism during the last decades, this has not resulted in a rise in wages but rather in their stagnation , which is why many in that country are at a time of high social discontent. economic when the inequality between the richest and the rest is increasingly wide and extensive.
The seriousness of the situation was confirmed by the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which shows a record 2.9% of the workforce who quit their jobs in August, which equates to 4.3 million resignations in total. .
Data from the Labor Department mention that 10.4 million job vacancies were left in August (half a million less than in July). In other words, there are job offers even when the federal government itself accepts that they are decreasing, as is the demand for employment.
A new survey by consultancy Harris of employed people found that more than half of workers want to quit their jobs. Many cite indifferent entrepreneurs and managers and lack of flexibility in scheduling, even with a pandemic on their shoulders, as reasons for wanting to quit. In other words, millions of American workers are simply fed up with the employment situation in their country.
In this way, two closely correlated trends are developing in the United States: resignations must be seen hand in hand with a growing willingness of unionized workers to go on strike.
The US government only considers strikes as such if there are more than a thousand people involved, which is why, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2020 there were only 11 major strikes in the country; between 1950 and 1980, the annual average was 300. Another fact of how the union organization has been undermined.
CAPITAL VS. JOB
It seems a situation that will not have a prompt resolution, because between the negotiations with the different branches of production and services, the business owners have proposed an increase of between 5% and 6% of the salary, an issue that the plaintiffs say is insufficient .
Former US Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration and now a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, Robert Reich, claims that "American workers are now showing their muscles for the first time in decades" and calls the union demonstrations an "unofficial general strike".
His opinion on the subject is very interesting due to the position he held in the federal government, since it gives an inside view that few in the United States dare to reveal:
"Years ago, when I was Secretary of Labor, I kept meeting workers across the country who had full-time jobs but complained that their jobs paid too little and had few benefits, or were unsafe, or required long or unpredictable hours. Many said that their employers treated them badly, harassed them and did not respect them.
"Since then, these complaints have only gotten louder, according to polls. For many, the pandemic was the last straw. Workers are fed up, wiped out, and exhausted. In the wake of so many hardships, illnesses, and deaths over the past year, They won't take it anymore. "
Once again: American workers are fed up.
While some retire early, others come to endure jobs they hate, when a great many simply do not want to return to jobs that would not improve much, or even worsen, their particular situations.
Thus, the quality of jobs in the United States is deteriorating according to the testimonies and union actions of millions of Americans.
"The North American corporation wants to frame this as a 'labor shortage' . It is incorrect. What is really happening is more accurately described as a living wage shortage, a shortage of pay for dangerous living conditions, a shortage of childcare, a shortage of paid sick leave and a shortage of health care, "Reich says.
Most responsible for this situation are US corporations, which have enjoyed absolute dominance over politics, spending on lobbying the government to secure even higher profits at the expense of workers' rights. At the same time, the power of unions has diminished, a trend directly related to the increase in economic inequality.
But now the companies are worried about this show of force on the part of the gringo proletariat. So in the wake of these strikes and resignations, lawmakers are actively trying to strengthen existing federal labor laws. Business groups are lobbying Democrats to weaken pro-worker measures included in the Build Back Better Act that is being debated in Congress.
In this way the main economic contradiction of modern times is represented: the capital-labor relationship, in which the capitalist class tries by all means to undermine the interests of the workers, and vice versa.
For now, satiety translates into loosely coordinated union moves, being a warning sign to employers and managers who ignore the anger and frustration of thousands and millions at their own risk.
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