[rad-green] 2019 Year in Review: Workers Strike Back

https://www.labornotes.org/2019/12/2019-year-review-workers-strike-back


*Labor Notes          December 20, 2019*

2019 Year in Review: Workers Strike Back

*By Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Dan DiMaggio*


*In terms of the number of workers who went on strike, 2019 is on pace to
match 2018, bolstered by actions like the strike by 34,000 Los Angeles
teachers in January. Photo: Joe Brusky*

2018 could have been a tough act to follow. It’s not every year that a
grassroots
movement of teachers
<https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2018/05/whats-behind-teachers-strikes>
captures
the nation’s attention.

But workers across the country rose to the occasion, making 2019 one of the
most exciting years for the labor movement in recent memory.
TEACHERS KEPT AT IT

In terms of the number of workers who went on strike, 2019 is on pace to
match 2018.

Teachers again made a huge showing—this time leading in big, heavily
unionized school districts. United Teachers Los Angeles kicked it off in
January
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/01/los-angeles-teachers-strike-defend-public-schools-privatizers>
with
a seven-day walkout in the country’s second-largest school district.

Union reformers built that strike
<https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2019/01/la-teachers-showed-us-how-its-done>,
which drew huge crowds of supporters to rally against privatization. The
Union Power caucus won leadership of the local in 2014, pledging to team up
with parents to demand better staffing and quality schools, not just the
wage increase that the previous administration had emphasized.

Denver teachers grabbed the baton in February
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/02/people-are-starting-see-winning-possible-denver-teachers-win-oakland-next>,
striking for three days and winning reforms to a convoluted pay system.
Strike leader Tiffany Choi was later voted in
<https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/09/second-times-charm-denver-teacher-reformer-wins-again>
as
union president on a program of democratizing the union, strengthening
community support, and taking on the billionaire-backed “education
reformers.”

Continuing their 2018 struggle, West Virginia teachers struck again
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/02/west-virginia-strikes-again-defeating-privatization-bill-single-day>
for
two days, defeating a bill that would have sucked funds from public schools
and opened the door to privatization. Teachers saw the bill as legislative
retaliation for their strike last spring.

Oakland teachers struck next
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/03/oakland-teacher-strike-builds-steam-california-school-funding-fight>—another
reformer-led union taking the fight to one of the most intense fronts in
the war with the privatizers. Teachers at eight charter schools held
wildcat strikes to join public school teachers on the picket lines.

In the fall, Chicago teachers and school employees struck back
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/11/striking-teachers-and-support-staff-forced-chicagos-mayor-find-money-she-said-wasnt-there>,
targeting new Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Her promises to leave behind the old
ways of her predecessor, union nemesis Rahm Emanuel, didn’t last long. But
the unions forced her to find money she said wasn’t there, putting a nurse
and librarian in every school.

Their campaign broke ground in expanding the imagination of what a union
can bargain for, with demands for affordable housing, which they didn’t
win, and support for homeless students, which they did.

Little Rock teachers waged a one-day strike
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/11/fight-racial-justice-fuels-little-rock-educator-strike-preparations>
against
the racial re-segregation of schools and against a move by the state of
Arkansas to retract their union recognition.

Educators in the Boston suburb of Dedham, Massachusetts, defied a court
injunction (carrying the threat of fines and jail time) and went on strike
anyway
<https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2019/10/defying-injunction-massachusetts-teachers-strike>.
They won all their demands, including a raise and a sexual harassment
process. Seeing the writing on the wall, another nearby school district,
Newton, hastily settled a teacher contract it had spent a year resisting.

And continuing from 2018, “Red for Ed” rallies at state capitols brought
out thousands in Indiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and
elsewhere. The list goes on and on.
PRIVATE SECTOR STEPPED UP

Meanwhile, private sector workers in a number of union strongholds got in
on the act, showing that strikes can still inflict significant economic
damage on employers.

Locomotive manufacturing workers struck for nine frigid February and March
days
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/03/erie-locomotive-plant-workers-strike-against-two-tier>
in
Erie, Pennsylvania, and beat back the demands of new owner Wabtec
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/06/erie-locomotive-workers-avert-strike-new-contract-wabtec>,
which wanted to unilaterally impose a two-tier system and strip workers of
the rights they had won through decades of battles with General Electric.

Thirty-one thousand workers at the New England grocery chain Stop & Shop struck
for 11 days
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/05/strike-empties-shelves-stop-shop> in
the run-up to Easter, costing the company between $90 and $110 million—3
percent of its annual profits—and fending off the worst of the company’s
concessionary demands on health care, time-and-a-half, and pensions.

AT&T workers went out for four days across the Southeast
<https://prospect.org/labor/why-we-wear-red-on-thursdays-cwa-strikes/>,
halting the company’s effort to raise their health care costs. The workers
also won big wage increases and pension and 401(k) enhancements. It was the
biggest private sector strike in the South in a decade.

Twenty thousand grocery workers in the Pacific Northwest used their
contract campaign to highlight a gendered pay disparity. The union’s
analysis found that women were twice as likely as men to be hired into jobs
on the lower of two pay schedules, with an average gap of $3.50 an hour.
They authorized a strike but avoided one, settling a contract that raised
wages for lower-paying jobs and formalized the steps to advance into
higher-paying jobs.

And in the midst of deepening accusations of corruption against the leaders
of their union, 49,000 General Motors factory workers went out
<https://labornotes.org/2019/09/gm-strikers-say-no-more-tiers> on the
longest national strike the U.S. auto industry has seen in decades. In six
weeks they cost the company $3 billion in profits.

The strike ended with a contentious settlement
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/10/gm-workers-ratify-contract-though-mixed-best>
that
brings current second-tier workers up to top pay faster and provides a
pathway to permanent employment for some temps. However, the tiers will
persist for new hires, and the union conceded the closure and sale of the
Lordstown plant and two other facilities.

Beyond the schools, a public sector standout union was AFSCME Local 3299,
representing 25,000 campus and hospital workers in the University of
California system. This year they waged their fourth and fifth short
strikes in a long-running contract campaign—since 2017—that takes aim at
racism in the state’s higher education system.

The number of workers on strike is not the only way to measure the strike’s
power, of course. We need no better example than the 10 air traffic
controllers called in sick during the government shutdown in February,
leveraging their unique position to end the political stalemate.
Transportation Security Administration agents had also been calling out in
record numbers during the shutdown, slowing down airport operations.
HOLD THE CHAMPAGNE

But while the numbers of strikes, strikers, and “days of idleness” have
reached 30-year highs, they’re still far below the levels that workers
sustained during the entire post-WWII period through 1979.

Only 1 in 16 workers in the private sector belongs to a union. Successful
union drives are few and far between—an exception being the recent
organizing boom among journalists. Union busters continue to break the law
with impunity. The most high-profile organizing drive this year, by auto
workers at Volkswagen in Tennessee, went down to defeat
<https://labornotes.org/2019/06/why-uaw-lost-again-chattanooga>. A union
drive among Delta’s 25,000 flight attendants has sparked some hopes, though
it follows several failed efforts.

Organizing among immigrant workers has suffered, as the Trump
administration has revived high-profile workplace raids. In the largest
such raid since 2006
<https://labornotes.org/2019/09/poultry-workers-and-allies-organize-wake-anti-immigrant-raids>,
680 Mississippi poultry workers were detained, just hours after some of
them had dropped their children off for the first day of the school year.

Unions had braced for major membership losses
<https://www.labornotes.org/openshop> following last year’s Janus v. AFSCME
decision at the Supreme Court, which made the entire public sector “right
to work.” Fortunately, these losses mostly have not materialized so far.

Still, right-wing state governments haven’t let up in their onslaught
against public workers. The governor of Alaska, for example, tried to
require state workers to opt in to the union every year; the policy is
currently held up in the courts. Rather than raise taxes on oil companies,
the governor has set about slashing public services.
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One anchor of resistance has been the union of cooks, deckhands, engine
workers, and pursers who operate the ferries that are crucial to isolated
coastal communities along the Gulf of Alaska. These workers teamed up with
local residents to battle cuts to the ferry system. (Their slogan: “We
believe in ferries!”) So when they went on strike in July
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/08/we-believe-ferries-alaska-ferry-workers-walk-job>,
the ferry workers enjoyed community support—people even took stranded
strikers into their homes and fed them.

But overall, while unions are fighting to win back some of what we lost
during the Great Recession, it’s an uphill battle—and most are still
failing to harness members’ potential power, which is especially
unfortunate given the tight labor market.
INSPIRING ORGANIZING

The almost entirely non-union tech sector saw flashes of activity. This
fall, 1,000 Amazon tech workers walked out in Seattle to demand the company
do more on climate change. Some of them had previously flown to Minnesota
to show their solidarity with warehouse workers who walked out during the
company’s “Prime Day” sales blast
<https://labornotes.org/2019/07/prime-day-amazon-protests> in mid-July.

Workers at the Boston headquarters of online furniture retailer Wayfair walked
off over the company supplying beds to the Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement agency’s infamous detention centers
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/06/wayfair-walkout-immigration-detention-centers>
.

Amazon warehouse workers in Chicago and Sacramento who don’t have a formal
union have banded together
<https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2019/11/hard-fight-amazon> under the
banner of local “Amazonians United” groups. Through petitions and marches
on the boss, they forced the e-commerce giant to pay them when the
warehouse shut down during a heat wave, improved health and safety, and got
fired workers un-fired.

Drivers for companies including Uber and Lyft built a grassroots campaign
in California to support the passage of a law that would make drivers
employees rather than independent contractors.

Rideshare Drivers United in Los Angeles, a driver-led organization, built
their organization up through one-on-one outreach. RDU was the first driver
organization to call for a strike to line up with Uber’s stock launch in
May, and helped to coordinate efforts across the country.
GLOBAL UPRISINGS

Globally, 2019 has been a year of major uprisings. In many, unions played
an important role.

In Chile
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/11/chile-revolt-its-not-about-30-pesos-its-about-30-years>,
protests that initially targeted a public transit fare increase erupted
into a broad-based attack on the country’s political leadership.
Unions—first the militant dockworkers, later joined by miners, construction
workers, public sector workers, and more—joined in on the movement, helping
to leverage the pressure that won a referendum on the country’s
constitution.

As of this writing, workers in France are engaged in an ever-growing strike
against changes to the country’s pension system. Unions in Colombia have
joined the movement against their country’s leadership in the form of days
of national strikes. Postal and transport workers in Finland brought down
their prime minister.

In Hong Kong, millions took to the streets to defeat a bill that would have
allowed residents to be extradited to mainland China’s opaque legal system,
where labor activists continue to be arbitrarily detained for organizing.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions has reported an upsurge in
interest from workers interested in forming unions.

Puerto Rican unions, meanwhile, helped overthrow the U.S. territory’s
governor
<https://www.labornotes.org/2019/08/teachers-fighting-public-schools-were-key-uprising-puerto-rico>
as
part of the largest general strike in the island’s history.
CRACKDOWN

As always, when we stand up, bosses and their cronies try to beat us down.
This year has been no different.

The Trump National Labor Relations Board has continued its attacks on
workers’ rights, rolling back many of the advances of the Obama Board,
including on faster unionization elections, graduate students’ right to
unionize, and joint employer responsibility. To make matters worse, they
reversed longstanding precedent on employers’ ability to unilaterally
implement mid-term contract changes.

Two particularly egregious cases of the courts coming down on job actions
are on the top of many labor activists’ minds, and are a healthy reminder
that the legal system is rarely the friend of workers.

TWU and IAM, who jointly represent mechanics at American Airlines, were
targeted by the courts with a “permanent injunction” for alleged slowdowns
at the airline during contract negotiations. Facing stiff financial
penalties, the unions had to do a government-mandated tour of denunciations
around the alleged job actions.

The ILWU, meanwhile, is fighting a $93.6 million jury award over work
slowdowns at the Port of Portland. The award could force the international,
which has $8 million in assets, to enter bankruptcy proceedings. The ILWU
has appealed to the judge to dramatically lower the award.
KEEP AN EYE ON OUR OWN

And while attacks from the bosses, government, and government bosses
continue, we’re also reminded that we have to keep a sharp eye on some of
those on “our” side, as well.

The leadership of the UAW is falling like a house of cards amidst federal
indictments, with rumblings of a government takeover. The head of the
largest federal employee union is on leave while facing allegations of
sexually harassing staffers.

In California, leaders of the Teamsters and SEIU in California tried to
undermine the potentially transformative legislation on the
misclassification of workers as independent contractors by attempting a
back-room deal with Uber and Lyft. The failed scheme was done under the
guidance of the Machinists, who have a head start with the Uber-backed
Independent Drivers Guild in New York.

And backstabbing continues to haunt the building trades. New York City
construction unions—with the exception of the leadership of the
Carpenters—fought a lengthy battle to make the next phase of Hudson Yards,
the largest private real estate development in U.S. history, all union. But
they were stabbed in the back by the Ironworkers international leadership,
who ousted a militant New York City business manager and ordered members to
cross the picket line or have their local trusteed.

Meanwhile, members throughout the labor movement are pushing for more
democratic presidential endorsement processes inside their unions
<https://labornotes.org/2019/09/members-demand-voice-their-unions-presidential-endorsements>,
hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2016 debacle in which many unions lined up
early behind Hillary Clinton’s doomed campaign and thumbed their noses at
Bernie Sanders’ insurgent, pro-worker primary run. With a more crowded
Democratic primary field this time around, most unions have yet to endorse,
though United Teachers Los Angeles members recently voted to back a Sanders
endorsement, which pushed the national leadership of the Teachers (AFT) to
publicly declare that other locals were free to make their own endorsements
as well. National Union of Healthcare Workers endorsed both Sanders and
Warren in a membership vote.
REFORMERS RISING

Across the labor movement, there are members organizing to make their
unions stronger and more democratic. In both the public and private sector,
reformers are recognizing that unions need to be strengthened from the
bottom up.

In the NewsGuild, 32-year old journalist Jon Schleuss of the L.A. Times ousted
a three-term incumbent
<https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/12/challenger-wins-re-run-vote-head-newsguild>
on
a pledge to increase transparency and democratize the union. Baltimore
<https://labornotes.org/2019/05/baltimore-teachers-unseat-incumbents-who-demand-do-over>
and
Denver teachers elected new leaderships, who were battle-tested in
campaigns around heat in schools (in Baltimore) and a strike over merit pay
(in Denver.)

Teamsters in Charlotte, Philadelphia, and New Orleans elected new leaders,
supported by Teamsters for a Democratic Union <https://www.tdu.org/>. These
wins provide momentum to the effort to unseat IBT President James P. Hoffa
in 2021.

And those are just a few examples of groups that have taken leadership.
Other groups, like the Philadelphia’s Caucus of Working Educators, continue
to show us that there’s a lot of progress to make even without having won
leadership. They’ll take that energy to the Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers leadership election next year, with a slate of members who have
been hard at work organizing in their worksites.

We'll have an opportunity to hear from participants in many of the year's
most important struggles at the Labor Notes Conference in April
<https://www.labornotes.org/2020>. Visit labornotes.org/2020 for more info
and to register. Hope to see you there!
A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #490
<https://www.labornotes.org/archives/labor-notes-490>. Don't miss an
issue, subscribe
today. <https://labornotes.org/store/labor-notes-subscription>

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