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Strikes

To Fix Short-Staffing, Raise Wages, PeaceHealth Strikers Say

October 24, 2023 Jonathon Baker, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
One of the largest non-nurse health care strikes in Pacific Northwest history began at 6:30 a.m. this morning, shedding light on skilled workers who often get overlooked. We’re demanding that PeaceHealth, a Jesuit-run health system, raise wages and fix critically short staffing—two issues that are closely related. The strikers are 1,300 workers at two hospitals in southwest Washington: PeaceHealth Southwest in Vancouver, and PeaceHealth St. John in nearby Longview. The strike will last five days; workers will return to work October 28. PeaceHealth had announced that it would cut off health insurance if the strike continued into November.

UAW Strikes Massive Ram Truck Facility

October 24, 2023 Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, Portside. , , , , , ,
The United Auto Workers union sent 6,800 Stellantis employees to the picket line Monday morning in a surprise, targeted strike at the company’s Ram truck facility. The Sterling Heights Assembly Plant is Stellantis’ “largest plant and biggest moneymaker,” UAW said in a statement Monday. The plant, about a half-hour north of Detroit, in Sterling Heights, Michigan, produces the Ram 1500 pickup. The union said the company, which makes vehicles under the Dodge, Ram, Jeep and Chrysler brands, has “the worst proposal on the table” in its negotiations on pay, converting temporary workers to full time and cost-of-living adjustments.

To Live And Strike In Hollywood

October 20, 2023 Gary Phillips, The Stansbury Forum. , , , ,
In the seminal book The Hollywood Writers’ Wars by Nancy Lynn Schwartz, completed by her mother Sheila Schwartz upon her daughter’s untimely death, the internal and external battles of Writers Guild of America, WGA, formed in 1933, were chronicled.  The Schwartz’s note of this then bourgeois gig: It was a great time to be prosperous, young, and progressive in the movie kingdom. You could live better than nine-tenths of the nation yet remain, through political activity, intimately connected to the pulse of humanity. That connection would prove to not just be blue-collar lives put to paper and screen by a bunch of lefties and their hardcore red buddies. By the 1940s, writers were seeking to better their working conditions.

Auto Workers Charge Up The Power To Fight For An Electric Future

October 17, 2023 Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. , , , ,
“I think organizing those [non-union] plants needs to be our number one priority after we get done organizing the Big 3,” says Ryan Ashley at Ford Cleveland Engine. “With how significant the gains are looking in this contract, they’ll see it. And it’ll help.”

Auto Workers Escalate: Surprise Strike At Massive Ford Truck Plant

October 12, 2023 Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. , , , , , , ,
Every Friday for the past four weeks, Big 3 CEOs have waited fearfully for Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain to announce which plants will strike next. But without warning on Wednesday afternoon, the union threw a haymaker: within 10 minutes the UAW would be shutting down the vast Kentucky Truck Plant. This plant, on 500 acres outside Louisville, is one of Ford’s most profitable—cranking out full-size SUVs and the Superduty line of commercial trucks. “We make almost half of Ford’s U.S. revenue right here,” says James White, who has worked in the plant for a decade. These 8,700 strikers join the 25,000 already walking the lines at assembly plants and parts distribution centers across the country in the union’s escalating Stand-Up Strike.

On The Picket Line

October 11, 2023 Marie Kelly, Workers World. , , , , , ,
Registered nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, have taken action against corporate greed and exploitation as well as union-busting tactics. Their strike is into its third month. The 1,700 nurses, represented by United Steelworkers Local 4-200, are demanding safe staffing. Research has proven that adequate nurse to patient ratios save lives. The pandemic was the match that lit the fire around safe staffing. Nurses were pushed to the brink and were no longer willing to put their patients’ lives and their own well-being and professional licenses at risk. Since the strike, RWJU bosses have shown that they undervalue their nurses by suspending health benefits and limiting picket lines at hospital entrances.

UAW Members At Mack Trucks Reject Tentative Agreement

October 9, 2023 UAW. , , ,
After voting by 73% to reject a tentative agreement, nearly 4,000 UAW members at Mack Trucks in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida walked out on strike at 7 a.m. on Monday, October 9. “I’m inspired to see UAW members at Mack Trucks holding out for a better deal, and ready to stand up and walk off the job to win it,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “The members have the final say, and it’s their solidarity and organization that will win a fair contract at Mack.” After weeks of failing to address core economic issues, the company reached a tentative agreement with just minutes to spare before the initial deadline on October 1.

Chipping Away At The Right To Strike

October 9, 2023 Veena Dubal, Dissent Magazine. , , ,
On June 1, the Supreme Court issued a significant decision against the labor movement in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters Local Union No. 174. In an 8–1 split, the Court found that the National Labor Relations Act does not protect striking cement truck drivers from being sued by their employer, who alleges damages for lost cement caused by their work stoppage. The decision, perhaps by design, has received little public outcry. Some in labor, who had anticipated a worse outcome, even expressed relief. On June 1, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry tweeted, “We are pleased that today’s decision . . . doesn’t change labor law and leaves the right to strike intact.”

North Carolina Sanitation Workers Strike For $5K Bonuses

October 8, 2023 Ben Carroll, Labor Notes. , , ,
“We’re here to make a stand. At least 40 trucks should be on the road right now, and as far as we know, no trucks have gone out this morning,” said Durham, North Carolina, sanitation worker Christopher Benjamin, flanked by 100 sanitation and other city workers at a September 6 press conference. This was the first morning of a six-day strike by the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union (United Electrical Workers, UE, Local 150). During the six-day “stand down,” as they called it, sanitation workers would show up to the yard each morning and refuse to take out the garbage and recycling trucks, instead holding meetings and rallies in the parking lot throughout the day.

New Jersey Nurses Two Months Into Strike For Safe Staffing

October 7, 2023 Sudip Bhattacharya, Labor Notes. , , , ,
There ought to be nine nurses on the day shift at 9 Tower, a trauma surgery unit inside the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Instead, some days there are just three. “Sometimes I’d look at a patient’s face and know that I won’t be able to maybe help feed them when they need to be fed,” said nurse Sophia Moccio, “or clean them when they need to be cleaned. It is distressing, and depressing for us.” Staffing levels this bad are a major reason why she and 1,700 of her co-workers at RWJUH have been on strike since August 4. Nurses in her 34-bed unit often have to manage the care of six patients apiece—and sometimes seven or eight.

UAW Scores Major Victory

October 7, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. , , , , , ,
On Facebook Live Friday afternoon, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain symbolically awarded roses to automakers General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford based on progress at the negotiating table, a reference to the reality show ​“The Bachelor.” The only thing missing was teary-eyed CEOs breathing a sigh of relief as the UAW agreed not to widen its strike to more factories for now. The UAW was poised to tap 5,000 members at GM’s assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, as part of its latest stand-up strike escalation. These workers would have joined 25,000 already on strike at five assembly plants and 38 parts distribution centers nationwide.

Kaiser Permanente Workers In D.C. And Virginia Go On Strike

October 6, 2023 Danielle J. Brown, Maryland Matters. , , , ,
Thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers across the United States began a strike against contract negotiations that strikers say are not being done “in good faith” and fail to adequately address the “unsafe staffing levels” within the major medical organization. The contracts for several thousand Kaiser Permanente workers expired Sunday evening, including contracts for about 400 pharmacists and optometrists out of Virginia and Washington, D.C., kicking off the nationwide strike of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers and technicians, according to a written statement from The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Kaiser Permanente Workers Begin Largest Healthcare Strike In US History

October 5, 2023 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. , , , , ,
The largest health care strike in U.S. history has begun, as more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning. The scheduled three-day labor stoppage comes after Kaiser failed to meet the demands of workers, continuing to prioritize their profits over patient care. The striking coalition includes eight unions representing health care workers from a variety of job descriptions and covers Kaiser facilities in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington City. This represents about 40% of all Kaiser Permanente staff, according to spokeswoman Renee Saldana of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare (SEIU-UHW)—the largest union in the coalition.

Biggest Health Worker Strike In United States History Begins

October 4, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , , ,
On October 4, 75,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente facilities in several US states are set to go on strike for three days following the breakdown of contract negotiations last week. A coalition of several unions representing health workers in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington, DC is battling the nonprofit health giant for safe staffing levels, cost of living pay increases, and against a two-tier pay system that Kaiser is trying to introduce. The largest union in the coalition is Service Employees International Union (SEIU)-United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) with 57,443 members, but the coalition also includes Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 30, SEIU Local 49, OPEIU Local 2 and others.

Where There Are Scabs, There Is Violence

October 4, 2023 Bill Cole, Labor Notes. , , , , , , ,
The province of Quebec was the first jurisdiction in North America to pass legislation banning replacement workers, in 1977, after significant increases in picket line violence across the province. One dispute was a 20-month-long strike involving UAW Local 510 and United Aircraft (later called Pratt & Whitney), which became one of the most violent strikes in Canadian history. In a blunt observation about replacement workers, Quebec’s Minister of Labour, Pierre-Marc Johnson, stated on the floor of the legislature that “where there are scabs there is violence.” Johnson said his government further supported a greater balance in the bargaining dynamic between labor and management.
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