Beyond Striketober: The class struggle today

This presentation was made to an International Socialism Project meeting on November 28.

The purpose of this presentation is to examine Striketober, the series of strikes that received a great deal of media attention this Fall. First, it’s necessary to go through the chronology of the strikes. Secondly, based on this overview, a number of conclusions on the state of the class struggle today can be made.

What strikes have taken place?

The following strikes and struggles were the main components of what came to be known as Striketober:

The bakery and food workers strikes at Frito-Lay, Nabisco, and Kellogg’s. The short walkout at El Milagro in Chicago fits into this trend.
The Seattle carpenters’ strike.
The major strike at John Deere agricultural implements.
The large motion picture and TV workers’ union IATSE contract negotiations went to the wire.
At Kaiser-Permanente, the huge West Coast health care chain, tense negotiations posed the possibility of a strike. Additionally, an important operatingengineers’ local is on strike there.
There was a large nurses’ strike at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo.
Although not a contract battle, the victory of the opposition O’Brien-Zuckerman slate in the Teamsters Union is a major victory in the fight to build a more militant labor movement.

Who is on strike right now?

The 700 operating engineers at Kaiser-Permanente remain on strike.
1,000 nurses are on strike at Cabell Hospital in Huntington, W.Va.
450 workers at Special Metals also in Huntington. (This makes Huntington the per capita capital of the US class struggle!)
700 nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worchester, MA.
1,400 workers at Kellogg’s Cereals
1,100 WarriorMet coal miners in Alabama.
200 school bus drivers in Reno.
650 oil refinery workers in Beaumont, Tx, are still locked out.
450 concessions workers at Phoenix airport.

The current strikes can roughly be divided into three categories.

Long bitter strikes with little movement at the bargaining table (St.Vincent, Beaumont, and WarriorMet).
Demonstration strike ( Phoenix airport) A demonstration strike is when the union announces beforehand that the strike will have a limited duration and not be open-ended.
Strikes where the outcome is still up in the air and the strikers are receiving solidarity and publicity (Kellogg’s and Kaiser-Permanente).

Scale of the strikes

These strikes account for 6,650 workers. There are about 14,300,000 union members in this country. This means that 0.05% of union members are currently on strike. (I’m sure I’ve missed some strikes when making my list. However, their size is not sufficient to change the broader point being made.)

What’s coming up on the union front?

The very important results of the UAW referendum on one member, one vote, will be announced in the next few days.
There will be a ratification vote for the Kaiser-Permanente contract on December 8.
14,000 Kroger grocery workers in Houston are facing a possible strike.

Eight lessons from Striketober

1). The scale of struggles is not sufficient to justify the term “strike wave”. This is not a question of our attitude. We are enthusiastic partisans of each and every workers’ struggle with no ifs, ands, or buts. We wish there had been a strike wave. There simply wasn’t one. By way of comparison, in some estimates one of out every three union members struck during the 1947 strike wave. Even at the mid-October highpoint, Striketober figures were under one percent of the total number of union members. All of the Striketober strikes added together come to less than the Chicago teachers strike by itself. They come to far less than the 2019 GM strike by itself. It’s crucial to maintain a sense of proportion and perspective.

2). The economic upturn has, to a certain extent, increased working class confidence. Unemployment is down to 4.6%. Help wanted signs are widespread. Declines in unemployment have a positive effect on working class consciousness. There is less fear of being fired, the boss needs workers, and it’s easier to get another job. This creates a better atmosphere for strike action. Press interviews suggest these sentiments are factors in the current situation, workers do feel strikes are more possible.

The “Great Resignation”, the large number of people voluntarily leaving their jobs to take work elsewhere, has attracted a large amount of attention. Many left wing writers see it as evidence of a “Take this job and shove it!” attitude in the working class. There’s an element of truth in this. But there’s more to the picture.With its characteristic class consciousness, the Financial Times wrote, “While some are attempting to wield their newfound leverage to gain better pay and benefits from their existing employers through organized action, far more are abandoning their old gigs for better ones.”

This is their way of saying that escaping a bad job as an individual is a very different thing from deciding to organize with one’s co-workers to fight the employer and achieve better results for everyone.

3) Two-tier has emerged as a key issue. For example, at John Deere, 1997was the cut-off year. Workers hired after that date receive lower pensions andpoorer post-retirement health care-benefits. In the current round of negotiations, the company proposed introducing a new third tier for future employees.Thismay well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in the workers’ decision to strike.The campaigning by “Post 97s”,as second tier workers are called at Deere, was an important force in the strike.

In the recent bargaining round, Kaiser-Permanente management proposed a two tier pay structure.This is quite rare in health care. Management’s proposal was only withdrawn as the strike deadline approached. At Kellogg’s the company wants to move to a two tier benefit system and to make it virtually impossible to move throughthe progression on the compensation schedule to reach full pay.

4) Shift schedules have emerged as a key issue.Across the country, employers are seeking to increase profits by lengthening shifts. Frito Lay and film making are two examples of this trend.

At Frito- Lay,a worker might work the traditional 7:00 AM to3:00 PM shift and then have four hours of mandatory overtime taking them to a 7:00 PM dismissal time. They would then have to report back to the factory at 3:00 AM for the next shift. For IATSE members, long shifts of twelve hours or more are common. Breaks are often minimal. The question of how much “turn-around time” between shifts there should be was central in the recent negotiations.

5). Management has been taking a hard line.Employers have been taking a confrontational position during the recent strikes. We have seen the hiring of permanent replacements for striking union members at Kellogg’s. Management has refused a traditional back to work agreement in the St. Vincent Hospital strike which would allow the nurses to return to their jobs at the end of the strike.

There have been court injunctions against picketers at John Deere and Kellogg’s. Miners have been arrested on the picket line in Alabama. At Cabel Hospital, management has started regressive bargaining. This is where management, instead of increasing its proposals to reach a compromise, decreases its proposals as the bargaining sessions proceed.

6). The pattern of settlements has been mixed. At John Deere there were pay increases, improved pensions and health care, no new third tier, but there was noprogress in getting rid of the hated second tier.

IATSE members won a ten hour minimum turnabout time, meal break delay compensation, pay increases focused at the low end of the schedule, pensions and health stayed the same.The general wage increase was a low 3%. No success was achieved on the crucial issues of residuals and how to compensate workers for works that are streamed on new media platforms.

These contracts won some modest steps forward and contained no concessions, but did not achieve all of their goals. Could more have been won? That would have only been possible

If the majority of workers wanted to take the struggle forward and continue to fight. This is very hard to read from outside. Militants inside the industry are the ones best placed to make that assessment.

7). The proportion of strikes that are demonstration, not open-ended, has increased.Compiling accurate strike figures is obviously a precondition for a report like this. An interesting issue came up looking over the statistics for this presentation. The list of strikes was made on Monday November 22 when the total number of strikers came to 6,650. If the presentation had been prepared the previous Thursday, the total number of strikers would have been about seven times higher, 46,650, as the solidarity strike with the Kaiser-Permanente engineers was taking place that day.

In fact, strike figures can fluctuate greatly from day to day.Why is this? American trade unions have made a turn to limited or demonstration strikes. Most of these only go on for a day or two. Demonstration strikes are particularly common in the healthcareindustry. This is a very different situation from the time when strikes went on until a contract was reached.

Demonstration strikes are contradictory. On the one hand, they are a much weaker form of pressure on the bosses. It is much easier for employers to ride out a strike of a definite short duration. On the other hand, they are much better than nothing. These short strikes allow workers to feel a sense of unity and activity. They can be a very useful step on the road to more durable forms of action.

The November health care workers and nurses’ solidarity strike with the Kaiser- Permanente engineers deserves special mention. These workers were not striking for their own wages and conditions. They were striking, and obviously losing wages, for other workers. This sense of class solidarity is a stark contrast to the moral ethos of our times. Solidarity strikes have become rare. Let’s hope this is the first of many.

8). Contract ratifications are not open and shut. Historically, most tentative agreements are ratified most of the time. We have recently seen a change in this pattern. The Seattle carpenters rejected a tentative agreement. In IATSE most locals are grouped into two contract divisions; the Area Standards Agreement and the Basic Agreement. The Area Standards Agreement was only just passed. The Basic Agreement narrowly lost in the membership was, but implemented due to the unusual Electoral College method by which IATSE counts its votes.

The situation in the United Auto Workers union should be seen in this context. The UAW is embroiled in a long running corruption scandal that has seen two former presidents imprisoned and fifteen top officers indicted. These cases led to a court ordered referendum in which theUAW members will vote on whether the International Executive Board should be elected by direct membership voteor by the convention delegates, as is currently the practice.

The scandals have led to a sharp decline in the authority and credibility of the Solidarity House/Administrative Caucus leadership of the union. This situation has led to tentative agreements being rejected twice at both Volvo and John Deere.

Unions will only be able to rebuild their strength when workers feel that they are in full control of their own union. This fall we have seen two major steps forward on that front: the victory of the O’Brien/Zuckerman slate in the Teamsters Union and the vigorous campaign for one member one vote in the UAW waged by the Unite All Workers for Democracy caucus. Battles for union democracy will play an important role in the revitalization of the labor movement.

To conclude, we have to make a careful analysis of the real state of the class struggle and not get carried away. But that is not our number one task. As the man said, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.” This means Marxists should throw ourselves into solidarity with the strikes and struggles going on today. That’s our number one task.