A pause in a period of labor revival: The class struggle today

Last November, this site published a major article by Sharon Smith, “The return of the strike weapon and prospects for the future”. This piece argued that there was a revival in the level of workers’ struggles in this country. Recently issued statistics have confirmed this perspective. The Bureau of Labor Statistics 2023 Work Stoppages Report cites thirty-three major stoppages, the highest figure in twenty-three years. The purpose of today’s article is to examine where this process of labor revival stands.

Economic background

Before we discuss the state of the labor movement, we should briefly look at the overall economic context. Obviously, low unemployment is good for working class combativity. Workers are less likely to be worried about being fired. If a worker loses their job due to union activity, it will be easier to find a job elsewhere. Employers have difficulty finding new workers and will therefore be more cautious in dealing with their current employees. Last year’s successful strikes and contract settlements were predicated on a relatively low level of unemployment. That condition still holds true today. Unemployment currently stands at 3.7 percent. It has hovered around that number since it reached 3.8 percent in February 2022. Therefore, the low unemployment figures that accompanied last year’s strikes are still with us, and the consequent impulse to working class activity still stands.

There is a second economic factor that concerns strikes and labor activity. Do wages in contract settlements exceed inflation? Workers will only want to strike if they can see tangible gains being made. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January stood at 3.1 percent. For workers to move forward, contracts must therefore contain annual wage increases that are higher than that. CNN Business reports that 900,000 union workers received wage raises of more than 10 percent. This is considerably higher than the overall wage increase rate which is 2.2 percent above the rate of inflation. So, the “union difference” is still a real factor for US workers.

Strikes and contract expirations

Last year the news was full of dramatic labor stories: the Teamster contract at UPS, the UAW “Stand Up” strike at the Big Three, and the screenwriters and actors strikes in the entertainment industry. Today, the news is much less exciting. There were only two strikes involving more than a thousand workers in January. They were the one-day California State University strike and the Newton, Massachusetts school teachers strike. At the time of writing, there are no large national strikes taking place.

However, this does not mean that the labor revival analysis was wrong. For years now, the big majority of strikes occur when the old contract expires. No major national contracts have expired since November, so there simply have not been opportunities for new strikes. However, a number of major contracts are due to expire this year.

The contract for 5,000 Teamsters at Anheuser-Busch expires on March 1.
60,000 screen and stagehands’ IATSE contract is up at the end of July.
30,000 IAM machinists at Boeing will see their contract expire on September 12.
Large numbers of flight attendants are already working under expired contracts.
Two separate Communication Workers contracts with ATT are due to expire this year.
The contract for 7,000 UAW members at Daimler Truck expires on April 26.
At the post office, both the internal workers APWU and the rural letter carriers have contracts that will expire this year.
The Philadelphia and Chicago public school teachers both have contracts that are up this year. The huge CTU contract is up on June 30.

Workers’ responses to these contract expirations will give a good picture of the overall state of working class combativity. We will then be able to see what type of wage and contract language gains the workers have been able to make. The present relative lull is simply too short a time period from which to draw any big conclusions.

Workers struggles in 2024

Even if we have not seen a continuation of last year’s high profile labor activity, it does not mean that all has been peace and quiet.

The largest recent strike was the one-day strike by the 29,000 members of the California Faculty Association in the California State University system. The contract, which was approved by a 76 percent majority, has wage increases of 5 percent annually, some larger increases for lower paid teachers, and some contract language improvements. The campus skilled trades in Teamster Local 2010 also approved a new contract.

Massachusetts outlaws teacher strikes. Therefore, the 2,000 members of the Newton Teachers Association were in violation of the law during their eleven day strike. The union was given a massive fine of $675,000 for going out on strike. There is a possibility that the fine could be reduced to $275,000. Even so, this is a monstrous attack on the union and collective bargaining rights in general. The union rebuffed a frontal attempt to smash it, and this is to their credit. The final settlement seems to hold the line and contains some real improvements for Unit C or paraprofessional members.

These are the two largest strikes so far in 2024. Of course, there have been a number of other labor actions as well. Some examples of these are :

The three main flight attendants unions came together for a February 13 national day of picketing to advance their contract fights. Thousands picketed nationally.
Uber, Lyft and other gig workers held a national day of action on February 14. This was organized by the Justice for App Workers coalition and included drivers turning off their apps for airport rides.
There was a four day strike by 48 Chicago Teachers Union members at the Instituto del Progreso Latino’s two schools.
The national contracts are not the only contracts that the UAW has with the automakers. There are also local contracts. The large Ford Kentucky Truck plant negotiations were particularly contentious. This plant had been pivotal in the national strike last fall. Finally, a tentative agreement was reached on February 21 that averted a strike by the 9,000 UAW members at the factory.
Two recent Teamster actions are important. There is an ongoing strike by 400 workers at the Molson Coors brewery in Fort Worth. This is linked to the possibility of a strike when the Anheuser-Busch contract expires.
US Foods is a large national food distribution company. 130 members of the highly active Local 705 in Bensenville, Illinois went on strike at the beginning of January. They used a very original and bold tactic. The workers used the IBT’s Protections of Rights contractual provisions to picket other US Foods facilities across the country. Their picket lines were honored, and production disrupted at a number of plants. Hopefully, other unions will follow 705’s lead in using this tactic.

This list of struggles is not exhaustive, but it’s enough to establish the point. Even though there are no large national strikes taking place, smaller workers’ actions are certainly continuing to take place.

New organizing

Union density refers to the proportion of the workforce that is unionized. It has remained flat in the past period. The 2023 figure was 10.0 percent, down a fraction from 10.1 percent in 2022. Density is 6 percent in the private sector and 32.5 percent in the public sector. These figures will need to be increased drastically if unions are to go forward. There are some significant examples of union organizing taking place.

At Starbucks, Workers United has won 391 NLRB elections, while losing 88. This is out of a total of about 9,000 stores. However, even with 391 wins, the union has not been able to reach a single first contract. This shows the extent of management’s hostility to the union. Starbucks’s army of lawyers and anti-union consultants can just wear down the small groups of mostly young workers at the individual stores.

Cultural Workers United is the AFSCME unit focused on museum and educational workers. It has scored a number of successes recently. It has won votes at institutions as varied as the Living Desert Zoo, Please Touch Museum (a children’s museum in Philadelphia), the Minnesota Historical Society, the Chicago Academy of Science, and the Museum of Science and Industry. Its locals also have reached a number of first contracts.

The United Auto Workers is engaged in what is probably the most ambitious organizing currently taking place. The union leadership decided to use the momentum of its strike victory to extend organizing to the rest of the automotive industry. This campaign has already begun. A majority of workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have signed union authorization cards. The UAW is also engaged in organizing drives at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama and the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance, Alabama. Recently, the UAW International Executive Board earmarked $40 million dollars for the new organizing drive. Battery and electric vehicle plants will be a special focus of the campaign.

Conclusion

The beginning of this article used Sharon Smith’s article on the state of the class struggle as its starting point. In that article, Sharon tempered the assessment that we are in a new phase of the class struggle by making an important point. She wrote, “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.” Our conclusion should be that although there has not been a linear rise of struggles, we are certainly still in a period marked by last year’s working class victories.