Strikes

1934 And Now: History Lives!

November 28, 2024 Peter Rachleff, Portside. Educate! Education, History, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Strikes, Unions

Over the first three decades of the 20th century, Minneapolis was the most notorious “open shop” city in the country. An employers’ organization (the “Citizens’ Alliance”) leveraged the power of banks, manufacturers, and local government to resist workers’ attempts to unionize. In February 1934 the city’s truck drivers and coal yard workers organized and struck their industry, winning union recognition in a week. Their success inspired other truckers and warehouse workers to organize and strike twice, in the spring and summer of 1934, facing down the power of police and private “deputies.”

You’re Already On Strike; How to Turn Up the Heat

November 28, 2024 Keith Brower Brown and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. Strategize! Detroit, Illinois, Oil and Gas, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Teamsters at Marathon Petroleum in Detroit have been on the picket line since September 4, their first strike in 30 years. Tankers filled with gasoline regularly exit the massive, belching refinery on a main Detroit artery, as Marathon continues production with supervisors brought in from other facilities. Workers have handbilled gas stations, as well as sometimes following Marathon trucks and picketing them when they make deliveries. They’ve gotten support from the Detroit City Council and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, as well as other unions like the UAW who have joined their picket lines.

Workers On The Picket Line

November 26, 2024 Marie Kelly, Workers World. Resist! California, Michigan, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Union workers at CVS stores in California asserted their rights by holding a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike at seven CVS store locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The workers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Not one CVS union member crossed the picket line, which represents 7,000 CVS workers in southern California. The strike came after UFCW filed ULP charges against CVS with the National Labor Relations Board, citing unlawful surveillance of workers, retaliation against union supporters and prohibiting workers from engaging in union activity.

Union-Owned Vegas Hotel Is Hiring Scabs To Break A Strike

November 25, 2024 Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Labor Notes. Resist! Hotel workers, Las Vegas, Nevada, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In her 17 years as a guest room attendant, Isabel Gonzalez has scarcely had a moment’s rest. Gonzalez is responsible for cleaning 15 hotel rooms per day—stripping dirty linens, taking out the trash, making beds, cleaning toilets, sweeping, mopping, and dusting—all in the span of 30 to 45 minutes per room. Sometimes she can fill a garbage bag from one room alone, with liquor and juice bottles, bottle caps, and half-eaten food from the floor. When pets stay in the rooms, she must find the time to vacuum twice and carefully sponge fur from the suede chairs. Often, she says, workers fall behind schedule and forgo their lunch breaks to catch up.

Canada’s Postal Strikers Refuse To Throw New Hires Under The Bus

November 24, 2024 Danielle Smith, Labor Notes. Resist! Canada, Postal Workers, Solidarity, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Roughly 55,000 postal workers in Canada are on strike, fighting to raise their wages, protect their work, and shape the future of Canada Post. They’ve been in negotiations since November 2023, after agreeing to a two-year contract extension in 2021 due to Covid. “We definitely don’t want our jobs to become a race to the bottom,” said Tracey Langille, president of Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 548 in Hamilton, Ontario. “We want solid jobs, living wages, decent benefits, and the ability to retire with dignity as well.”

Tennessee Rideshare Drivers Call Strike During Country Music Awards

November 20, 2024 People's Dispatch. Resist! Drivers, Lyft, Strikes, Tennessee, Uber, Worker Rights

Tennessee Uber and Lyft rideshare drivers have called a strike on Wednesday, November 20, the day of the Country Music Awards. Drivers, organized with the newly-formed Tennessee Drivers Union (TDU), are demanding fair pay and better working conditions. These rideshare workers aim to use the strike to show that they are “essential to Tennessee’s 30 billion-dollar tourism economy” by disrupting an event that brings in millions of dollars each year. According to TDU, Uber and Lyft take a cut of 60% to 80% from each ride. TDU reports an example of a rideshare driver earning USD 12.58, and a customer being charged USD 52.72.

Will International Solidarity Turn The Tables For Striking Gaming Workers?

November 20, 2024 Simon Rosenblum-Larson and Andrew Tillett-Saks, Labor Notes. Strategize! Gaming Industry, Georgia, International Solidarity, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights

Four thousand workers at the online gaming company Evolution in Tbilisi, Georgia, walked off the job in July protesting low wages, dangerous working conditions, and harassment. Four months in, their strike is one of the largest and longest that this Eastern European country has ever seen. In August, some strikers sewed their mouths shut with a needle and thread in a hunger strike that resulted in multiple hospitalizations. A union victory would represent not only a sea change in the Georgian labor movement, but also a major breakthrough in beating back employers who scour the globe for cheap, non-union labor. Companies outsource expecting that workers won’t fight back.

Teachers Union Staff Faced An Unexpected Labor Adversary

November 20, 2024 Mel Buer, In These Times. Resist! Lockout, NEA, Strikes, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights

In July, the National Education Association Staff Organization (NEASO) was locked out of their jobs without pay by NEA management after an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike over compensation and working conditions. The NEA is the largest union in the country, representing over 3 million educators in the United States with a union staff of 350. The lockout lasted for six weeks, ending eventually in a contract agreement between NEASO and NEA management. In this episode, two NEASO members talk about the impacts of the lockout on NEASO staff and the larger consequences for the teachers’ unions the NEA represents across the country.

Organizing To Strike: How 20,000 California Workers Got Ready

November 19, 2024 Barbara Madeloni, Labor Notes. Organize! California, Higher Education, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Michael McGlenn is a clinical psychologist at the University of California-San Diego. Three years ago, feeling the pinch of dues, he looked into dropping the union. He felt that “the best I could do was see the person in front of me and care for them,” he said, and as far as he could see, the union had nothing to do with what happened in his office. That was until a member organizer went to see him. They talked about how his ability to care for his patients was related to turnover and understaffing that could only be fixed through collective action. That conversation not only kept McGlenn in the University Professional and Technical Employees—years later, he is a leader on his campus.

1800 Nurses Strike University Health In Chicago

November 15, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! Chicago, Health Care, Illinois, Nurses, Strikes, Unions

Chicago, IL - On November 13, 1800 members of the Illinois Nurses Association (INA) went on strike against University of Illinois Health for continuing to refuse to negotiate a decent contract. Since June, the union has had 47 bargaining sessions with UI Health, to no avail. In August, a week-long strike was held, but this did not stop management’s greed. The union was left with no choice but to go on an open-ended strike. The workers are striking for higher wages, safety for nurses (and by extension, their patients), as well as family leave that lasts at least 12 weeks. UI Health has offered a measly 2% pay increase.

Canadian Longshore Workers Forced Into Binding Arbitration

November 13, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Educate! British Columbia, Canada, Forced Arbitration, Montreal, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

“The government is sending a dangerous message: employers can bypass meaningful negotiations, lock out their workers, and wait for political intervention to secure a more favorable deal,” said the Canadian Labour Congress in a statement on the government’s intervention into the port disputes.

Boeing Machinists End 53-Day Strike With 38 Percent Raise

November 6, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Boeing, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Striking Boeing Machinists will start returning to work tomorrow after voting for a new contract with substantial wage increases. The 33,000 Seattle-area Machinists voted 59 percent to accept, just two weeks after two-thirds of them voted to reject a slightly worse contract. Voting was more subdued this time, workers said. “The big difference in this contract is that we're getting a lot of intimidation from our CEO now,” said striker Mylo Lang. He voted no. “We put in a long, hard fight. We achieved a lot,” said Jon Voss, a steward at the Renton factory, where they build the 737. “Boeing does not get to be the bully that they have been for the past 25 years.”

Striking Hotel Workers Fight BlackRock

November 3, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. Resist! BlackRock, Boston, Hotel workers, Massachusetts, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston, Massachusetts - For almost two months, UNITE HERE! Local 26 hotel workers have been striking to demand the living wages and expanded benefits that management has denied them for years. The strike wave began on Sept. l when over 1,000 Boston and Greenwich, Connecticut, hotel workers walked off the job. Rolling strikes in nine other cities — including Baltimore, Honolulu and San Francisco — have followed. UNITE HERE! demands include: increased wages to offset rampant inflation, fair staffing schedules and an end to the staffing cuts made during the first wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Over 5,000 hotel workers have gone on strike across the U.S since September.

Portland Grocery Workers Strike Together

October 30, 2024 Paul Kirk-Davidoff, Labor Notes. Resist! Labor Day, Oregon, Portland, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Over Labor Day weekend, 5,500 grocery workers in Portland, Oregon, went on strike across 38 stores—and two unions. A thousand workers at 10 New Seasons Markets, members of an independent union seeking a first contract, struck for one day on September 1, in their first union-wide strike. And 4,500 members of Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 walked out of 28 Fred Meyer supermarket-department stores August 28 on a seven-day strike. This month they reached and ratified a tentative agreement. Though the two unions did not coordinate their strike plans—both chose Labor Day because it’s a big grocery shopping weekend—workers at New Seasons donated leftover food from their one-day strike to Fred Meyer picket lines

Nurses Weather Long Lockout And Win Staffing Ratio Language

October 29, 2024 Nurse Erica, Labor Notes. Resist! Hawaiʻi, Health Care, Honolulu, Nurses, Staffing, Strikes, Victory

In a malicious ploy, a hospital in Honolulu locked out its nurses after a one-day strike—and not just for a couple days, as hospitals often do, but indefinitely. The message was, you can come back only when you accept our demands. But the nurses stuck it out. They kept building their support with daily demonstrations. And in the end, amid public outrage after elders got arrested in a solidarity protest, management agreed to nurse-to-patient ratio language, a first for the state. The 630 nurses at Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children struck on September 13 over unfair labor practices—specifically, ongoing retaliation against nurses who report unsafe staffing conditions, as documented by their union, the Hawaii Nurses Association.

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