The return of the strike weapon and prospects for the future

In recent months, the level of class struggle has finally begun rising in the U.S., following four decades of sustained labor defeats.

There have been more workdays lost to strikes this year than any year in the last two decades. Moreover, these strikes—multiracial and multigenerational—have shown the kind of confidence and determination by workers, especially young workers, that can win demands that seemed impossible just one year ago.

Striking unions have organized energetic mass pickets and large demonstrations this year, most notably among Hollywood writers and actors, healthcare workers, teachers, and autoworkers. These large, and sometimes huge, protests represent a sharp departure from the typical strike scenario over preceding decades—when companies used court injunctions limiting the number of pickets to a handful, in a war of attrition against their much stronger employers, who hired permanent replacements—in a bleak landscape for labor.

As of November 14, there have been 366 work stoppages across the U.S. this year, slightly fewer than the 424 work stoppages in 2022. But the big difference is the number of workers who have taken part: roughly half a million workers so far in 2023, more than doubling the 224,000 last year.

But beyond the numbers, the character of the class struggle has changed dramatically.

The last time this number of workers was involved in work stoppages was 1993, when some dedicated industrial workers launched a last-ditch effort to stave off yet more concessions in the employers’ offensive that had been raging since 1979. Their efforts, however, were no match for the ferocity of the corporations. In the mid-1990s, workers at companies such as Caterpillar, Bridgestone/Firestone and Staley manufacturing suffered crippling defeats, from which the labor movement has yet to recover.[1]

Growing working-class combativity

There were obvious signs of growing working-class combativity already in 2022. Most importantly, after railroad companies reached a tentative agreement with its 12 railway unions in September, workers in four of the unions—but representing a majority of the railroads’ workforce—voted to reject the contract. The major sticking point was a demand for paid sick days. The highly profitable carriers claimed they couldn’t afford to provide any. President Joe Biden invoked the 1926 Railway Labor Act, allowing Congress to prevent workers from striking. After a bill giving the workers seven sick days passed the House but failed in the Senate, Congress ultimately imposed an agreement without sick days.

This year’s strikes (and the “almost-strike” by UPS’ 340,000 workers in late July) were large-scale struggles and therefore drew considerable media attention, offering a very public display of the low pay and poor working conditions faced by these union workers. In addition, the autoworkers’ and Teamsters’ disputes marked the re-emergence of workers in key industries at the center of the class struggle after many years of absence.

The public supported the strikers in all these disputes by a two-to-one margin—the same margin by which the public favors unions in general, which is higher than at any time since 1965. All of this indicates a rise in class consciousness in the population at large.

There is a widespread sense of class anger across the U.S. today—at massive corporate profits, bloated CEO pay, low wages and poor working conditions—and working-class people could identify with the strikers: thousands of Hollywood writers and actors struggling to pay their rent and health coverage; UPS drivers in sweltering temperatures in trucks without air conditioning; autoworkers whose real wages (adjusted for inflation) have been driven down nearly 20 percent since 2008. Meanwhile, corporations that employ these workers are all awash in profits.

Major victories, after decades of defeat

Perhaps most importantly, workers who have stood up to the corporations have scored major victories across the board for the first time in decades. Last month, journalist Steven Greenhouse described the “wave of impressive – sometimes eye-popping” wage increases in union contracts this year:

In August, 15,000 American Airlines pilots won pay increases of 46% over four years. Teamsters at UPS won raises of $7.50 an hour over five years, with drivers’ pay climbing to $49 an hour and part-time workers receiving a pay increase of 48% on average.

After a three-day strike earlier this month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers won raises of 21%, as well as a $25 minimum wage for Kaiser’s workers in California. In March, 30,000 Los Angeles school district workers – bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers’ aides – won a 30% wage hike over four years. In Oregon, 1,400 nurses at Providence Portland hospital secured raises between 17% and 27% over two years.

Did strikers win everything they asked for this year? Of course not. A single strike could never recoup 40 years of givebacks. But they did force their employers to cave in on demands they had sworn they would never even consider. Hollywood writers and actors held steadfast until the studios finally agreed to some contract language on streaming and AI revenue. The UAW strike did not win back traditional pensions and retiree healthcare but held out to win COLA (cost of living adjustments) and UAW representation in some electric vehicle (EV) plants, giving the union a foot in the door.

But many strikers’ expectations were running higher this year because they had given back so much during the last four decades of one-sided class war. This was most evident among the older auto workers who voted against the new contract in spite of its enormous strides forward. Although the deal was ratified by 64 percent of Big Three autoworkers, support varied considerably. While 68.8 percent of workers at Stellantis and 69.3 percent at Ford voted in favor, the contract was supported by only 54.7 at GM. Significantly, seven of GM’s 11 U.S. assembly plants rejected the agreement.

The reason for the lower “yes” vote at GM had to do with the larger proportion of high seniority (and therefore older) workers there. These workers have weathered decades of contract givebacks and were angry that the automakers refused to reinstate traditional pensions and post-retirement healthcare. Many of these longer-standing workers voted against the contract at all of the Big Three companies.

Why now and not sooner?

The recent rise in working-class militance offers a glimpse at what will be needed to decisively shift the balance of class forces in the U.S., which has been weighed so heavily in favor of capital for so long.

But one obvious question remains: Why didn’t this rise in class struggle happen sooner? The answer is straightforward, especially with the benefit of hindsight.

In the late 1970s, the corporate class—aided as always by its two ruling parties, the Democrats and Republicans—launched an all-out offensive against working-class living standards and organization, using every means at its disposal. This vicious offensive has since become known as “neoliberalism”—welfare for the rich, austerity for the working class—and today continues to inform the policies of ruling classes around the world.

But class anger only accumulated—without struggle—until workers began to feel that they had a chance of winning through striking.

There is a set of factors that we can clearly identify that have come together and helped larger numbers of workers feel ready to strike:

Widespread class consciousness. This includes the knowledge that corporations are amassing huge profits and also compensating their executives and investors at jaw-dropping levels—so they can easily afford to give more to the workers who make these profits possible.

The pandemic only exacerbated this frustration, especially among so-called “essential workers” forced to risk their lives without additional compensation, while profits soared for their employers.

And high inflation rates that began during the pandemic may have slowed somewhat recently, but prices have remained higher than before the pandemic, and wages have not nearly caught up with the cost of necessities, like groceries and rent.

As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) summarized about the class dynamics at the Big Three automakers, for example,

Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits.
CEO pay at the Big 3 companies has jumped by 40% during the same period and the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks.
Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments. As a result, workers’ wages in the union and nonunion sector alike are falling farther behind inflation: Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.
Broadly sharing profits with workers will be even more critical as the industry focuses on becoming greener—both in what and how they produce cars and trucks. The Big 3 firms are set to receive record taxpayer-funded incentives to support their expansion into electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. EV transition policies and the economic and climate potential they promise will not be sustained if auto workers and auto communities are again asked to sacrifice good jobs.

The very tight labor market. The unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent for longer than at any time since the 1960s. In a survey by the New York Fed released in December last year, roughly 58 percent of respondents said they expected to be able to find a new job if they lost their current one. This makes going on strike less of a risk, especially among the millions of workers whose current wages and working conditions are not very different from the other jobs that are easily available.
Expanding industries, especially those using new technology. Unlike the 1970s and 1980s, when manufacturers universally claimed they were not able to compete due to low productivity (whether or not it was true), most major corporations can’t make this claim today. And many highly profitable industries, like entertainment, are embracing new technologies such as AI to increase their profits. In the case of the auto industry, this also means expanding into building electric vehicles—in large part funded with federal investment in “green” technology, in a win-win situation for the Big Three automakers.
Reformist union leaders. While changes in the top union leadership are not necessary to advance the class struggle, they can nevertheless be very helpful—exemplified by the newly-elected reform slates now leading the Teamsters and the UAW. Both Teamster president Sean O’Brien and the UAW’s Shawn Fain ran as reform candidates who use class struggle language and express a willingness to fight the employers to get what their members deserve.

This is especially the case for Fain, who wore an “Eat the Rich” t-shirt to a press conference with the national media, and whose key staffers include left-wingers such as Chris Brooks, a former journalist at Labor Notes. Throughout the strike, Fain made clear that the UAW’s struggle was being waged on behalf of the working class as a whole. After the union declared victory, Fain stated plainly that the union’s victory will be “a turning point in the class war that’s been raging in this country for the past 40 years.”

Fain only won because, for the first time in its history, the UAW allowed all its members to vote directly for the top union leadership, and Fain won by a very narrow margin earlier this year. But his “UAW Members United” slate successfully ousted the entrenched and corrupted “Administrative Caucus” that ruled the UAW for more than 70 years.

These new UAW leaders pursued a strategy they called the “Stand Up Strike,” seemingly in deference to the sit-down strikes that successfully unionized industrial workers in the 1930s. The Flint sit-down strike over the winter of 1936-37 ended in victory, forcing the staunchly anti-union corporate giant General Motors Corporation to recognize the UAW as its workers’ bargaining agent.

The Stand Up Strike broke from the UAW’s long-standing tradition of striking just one of the Big Three automakers, while the other two companies were expected to abide by the agreement. Instead, the union struck against all three automakers, but chose which locals to strike and when, keeping the three companies guessing which of their plants would be targeted next. In this way, the union was in the driver’s seat while the companies were left scrambling. This proved to be a winning strategy, but even so, the strike lasted six weeks before the union could declare victory.

All of these factors combined contributed to the size and character of the strikes that have happened this year, with these workers more confident and determined to fight for what they deserve.

The future: Solidarity and struggle

The key to the future, as always, will involve solidarity and the willingness to struggle. And we’re one step closer because of these recent strikes. Most importantly, new union organizing—which has been grossly neglected by business unionists—is urgently needed now.

Fain clearly understands this. He stated plainly, “One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” adding, “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with the Big Three. It will be with the Big Five or Big Six.”

Fain and the UAW negotiating team also succeeded in changing the contract expiration date to April 30, 2028, which would make the first day of a strike May Day of that year. And he is urging other unions to do the same, so that as many unions as possible could go on strike on the same date. This coordination would allow unions to “begin to flex our collective muscles,” Fain said.

He added, “If we are going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it’s important that we not only strike, but that we strike together.”

Fain has put forward a promising vision, but only time will tell if it can become a reality.

The future class struggle will definitely not be a linear rise in victories for the working class. History shows us that this has never been the case and never will be. Many obstacles stand in the way of success, and they will not be easy to turn around.

Fain himself barely eked out an electoral victory to become UAW president, and many UAW locals remain led by Administrative Caucus loyalists. And even though the Big Three automakers were taken by surprise in this strike, they will soon regroup.

A few nonunion foreign automakers—Hyundai, Toyota and Honda—immediately raised their workers’ wages after the UAW victory, in the hopes of avoiding a union upsurge within their own companies. But the UAW represents less than half of all workers producing automobiles in the U.S. Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Tesla, and Hyundai all remain staunchly nonunion, and unless their workers succeed at unionizing, they will continue to exercise a downward pressure on wages in the auto industry. And these companies can be expected to fight tooth and nail against any new union efforts in their plants.

Corporate leaders have undoubtedly been keeping a close watch on the rise in working-class combativity in recent months, and they will be devising their own strategies to contest any shift in the balance of class forces that has suited them so well in the previous decades.

The role of Marxists

Nevertheless, the potential now exists for the working class to make major gains in not only the near but also distant future. More than anything else, recent strikes provide hope for workers that what so recently seemed impossible can be achieved.

If all this sounds unrealistic, it’s important to recognize that, like defeats, victories are contagious—and cause broad class consciousness to advance sometimes very rapidly. The victories this year have been a long time coming.

No one can predict what will happen in the future, but one of Marxists’ greatest contributions to the class struggle is to imagine what could be possible—not only in the next step and the one after, but also in the longer term.

Perhaps most importantly in this moment, we need to recognize that a sense of hope has returned to the working class, after a very long period of hopelessness—which is the minimum requirement for labor’s future success.

[1] Stephen Franklin, Three Strikes: Labor’s Heartland Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans (The Guilford Press: June 2001). This book provides a detailed account of these three strikes that were crushed in the mid-1990s, ultimately breaking the industrial labor movement for decades to come.