Where do workers’ struggles stand today?

An estimated 459,000 workers went on strike last year. So far, only 139,000 workers have been on strike in 2024. The purpose of this article is to examine this sharp decline in strike activity. We can begin by looking, in chronological order, at the level of struggles.

Recent strikes

The biggest recent strike was the Labor Day walkout by about 10,000 UNITE/HERE hotel workers. This was an action by a workforce with a large number of women of color. The pressures and low pay of hotel work are well known. The strike was part of an ongoing campaign by the union against the major hotel chains. It was only meant to be a demonstration strike of short duration, not an open-ended strike. Seven hundred workers at the San Diego Hilton Bayfront are on a traditional strike which is still going on.

This strike was designed to only last for a short time. This is becoming an increasingly common tactic, particularly in the health care sector. So far this year there have been eighteen strikes involving more than 1,000 workers. Eleven of these lasted for five days or less. Now, there can be sound tactical reasons for a limited strike (building up worker self-confidence, not being seen as indifferent to patient care, etc.). However, this type of strike does not put nearly as much pressure on management as traditional strikes do and can more easily be ridden out by the employers.

There are always a number of small strikes going on. Recent examples include UAW members at Cornell, SCR Teamster special education drivers in Chicago, and the University of Illinois nurses.

Ongoing strikes

The strike of 33,000 Boeing aviation workers in the Pacific Northwest is the most important struggle in the country today. Boeing’s financial problems and recent safety issues are well-known. Machinists’ union members rightly feel that their wages have fallen behind in recent years and they are smarting from having given up a defined benefits pension plan.

The IAM bargaining team had reached a tentative agreement with the company on a contract that called for a 25 percent wage increase over four years and for Boeing to commit to building a new jet in the Pacific Northwest. (Boeing had previously moved production to the non-union South.)

This agreement was unacceptable to the union membership who rejected by a vote of 94.6 percent. A strike vote passed by a whooping 96 percent. Boeing’s high profile and the large number of workers involved have led to a great deal of attention being paid to this strike. At the time of writing, the strike is only in its second day. Some commentators are predicting a long strike. If this is the case, solidarity work should be high on the labor movement’s agenda.

Another important strike is that of 17,000 CWA members working for ATT in the Southeast. This is an Unfair Labor Practices strike due to management’s failure to seriously bargain the BellSouth contract. These workers have been out since August 16.

Two thousand five hundred SAG-AFTRA video game actors went on strike on July 26. The union recently won contracts with producers of 80 video games, but the strike goes on. 200 Teamsters are on strike at the Marathon refinery in Detroit. Business commentators have been concerned that the IBT may extend the strike to other Marathon locations.

Upcoming contract battles

Negotiations for a new United Airlines flight attendants’ contract have been working their way through the tortuous Rail Labor Art process for three years now. Some of the main issues at the table are the need for wage increases to be retroactive to the expiration of the last contract, attendant-passenger ratios, and the company’s disgraceful practice of only starting the pay clock when the plane pushes away from the gate.

The AFA-CWA, the flight attendants’ union, has been running a very effective contract campaign. There have been many well-attended airports pickets, union insignia are frequently seen on workers’ uniforms, and President Sarah Nelson has been a vigorous leader. These efforts culminated in a magnificent strike vote of 99.99 percent in favor! The AFA has been prominent is solidarity actions with other unions. The rest of the movement must return that solidarity if and when the union needs it.

The contract for 47,000 East Coast and Gulf ILA dock workers expires at the end of this month. The effect of automation on the logistics industry will be up there along with wages, hours, and conditions in these negotiations. The International Longshoremen’s Association does not have a militant past, but a possible strike would have great repercussions. 56 percent of all in-bound containers pass through ILA ports. The logistics industry has enough problems with the attacks by Houthi forces on shipping in the Red Sea area, drought in the Panama Canal, and the coming Christmas shopping season. A strike would seriously affect the economy. For this reason, some type of legal prohibition would become quite likely in the event of a strike.

Even though it’s not a contract expiration, the situation at Stellantis should be mentioned here. A big aspect of the UAW contract last fall was Stellantis’s pledge to reopen the shuttered Belvidere, Illinois, plant. However, the company has cited “poor market conditions” for postponing the opening of the plant, the Mopar (parts) warehouse, a new battery plant. These were all major parts of last year’s agreement. Reneging on them would be a major issue. UAW President Shawn Fain saw it as important enough to refer to in his prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention. So, the Belvidere situation will be watched carefully in the labor movement.

New organizing

Strikes are not the only indicator of union strength. The number of workers newly recruited to trade unions is another important gauge. There have obviously been some real steps forward on this front. We have seen the 27,000 public education workers in Fairfax, Virginia, joining the teachers’ unions. The Teamsters have organized 10,000 new members in the last two months at employers such as Amazon, UNFI warehouses, and Costco.

The UAW’s organizing in the South has received a good deal of attention. In April, they won a real victory when workers at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volkswagen plant voted to join the union. This brought 4,300 new members into the union. Unfortunately, organizing momentum was lost by a subsequent defeat at the Mercedes Plant in Vance, Alabama.

Just last week, 1,000 workers at the Ultium electric vehicle plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, joined the union through the card- check method where management does not challenge the petition to join the union and demand a NLRB election.

So, there is clearly important new organizing taking place. However, the scale of it is not sufficient to reverse the long-term decline in union density. Union membership has stayed flat for the last two years at around 10 percent. This breaks down to 32.5 percent in the public sector and just 6 percent in the private sector. The fact that our organizing is still not leading to increases in the overall percentage of workers in unions doesn’t mean we should give up or hang our heads in shame. Quite the reverse! It means that we should accurately assess the scale of our challenges and that the whole labor movement should devote the energy and resources needed to turn this situation around. More new organizing is the only answer.

Are we still in the 2023 labor upturn?

The evidence presented in this article leads to the conclusion that the 2023 labor upturn, characterized by the UPS contract, the SAG-AFTRA strike, and the UAW stand-up strike, has run its course. There are two main reasons for this. The first is to do with low unemployment and job security. Last year’s working-class confidence was based on low unemployment. There was a feeling that if the boss acted against a worker, then the worker could get another similarly paying job down the street. Furthermore, the employers were having a hard time finding the necessary workers and so would be much less likely to discharge the ones they already had. The working class is strengthened by new workers and energies coming into the workplace. This is why periods of low unemployment are often helpful to labor struggles.

The unemployment figures have only increased slightly from last year. It is 4.2 percent now; it was 3.8 percent at this time last year. But the mood has changed. People know that the new job they’re going to may well not have the wages and benefits they want. There is no confidence that the new job will be better than the old one. This is obviously an accurate perception as many of the newly created jobs are in the lower paying sectors of the economy.

Furthermore, there are not as many new jobs as there used to be. Job openings in July were at a 46-month low with the JOLT index falling to 7.67million job openings. Investopedia recently ran a very informative article, “The Great Resignation is Officially Over”. In a section entitled, “Workers sense the shift”, Diccon Hyatt wrote, “The public has noticed this shift in the labor market, according to the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey released Tuesday. It showed a deteriorating view of job market conditions in August. About two-fifths (40.3 percent) of consumers in the survey said jobs were “plentiful,” down from 43.7 percent in July, and 14.1 percent said jobs were “hard to get,” up from 11.3 percent in July.” Hyatt at one point uses the phrase “Employees are quitting quitting”. So, a change in workers’ views on job security is one big reason for the change in labor militancy.

The second reason lies in the nature of an upturn in struggles. When there’s an upturn, struggles are mutually reinforcing. Workers follow other struggles in the news, excitement is generated around them, and unionists go to other strikers’ picket lines. There is something in the air. You can feel it in something as simple as the amount of honking as people drive by picket lines. This was certainly the mood last summer. But this momentum needs new fresh events and struggles to sustain itself. It can’t just float in the air indefinitely. If after a certain period of time there are no new strikes or struggles, the atmosphere dissipates. It’s as if a runner in a relay race has no one to pass the baton to. This is what has happened in the class struggle in this country. There has not been a vibrant continuator to pass the baton of the UPS contract, the Hollywood strikes, and the UAW strikes onto.

This sober assessment does not mean that we need to change our fundamental perspectives and objectives. It means that an accurate view of the real balance of forces is the essential precondition of developing the strategy and tactics necessary to change that situation.