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Production workers at John Deere's Waterloo facility, Iowa started closing down the plant just before midnight Wednesday to cool the furnaces. Deere told overnight workers to leave the plant as it was almost empty. Three days prior, members of the United Auto Workers meeting in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas had voted unanimously to reject a contract that would have given subinflation increases and eliminated pensions for new hires. Both the company and the union leadership were shocked by the rejection. Even some workers who had voted against the proposal and authorized a strike were stunned that it was being implemented. Deere is being walked out of the plant by the 10,000 workers. This was the first strike in 35 years. One worker confirmed that Waterloo had their picket signs before the strike started. It's all about the real deal. 700 nurses in Kentucky, 1,000 Alabama coal miners, 600 Frito Lay workers in Kansas, 200 bus drivers in Reno and 1,000 Nabisco factory workers at five locations across the country were also on strike.
Tens of thousands of workers are still waiting, with 37,000 Kaiser health care workers in California, Oregon, and Hawaii, who have either authorized a striking or are about to, as well as large unions representing academic workers. Over 60,000 television and film workers were ready to strike. In fact, 90 percent of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees members voted 98 percent in favor of striking on Saturday. IATSE members will decide whether to ratify the contract this week. This strike wave is not like the 1940s when one in ten U.S. workers went to strike within a year. It is not the labor lull in the 2010s when there was a lot of strike activity in private sectors. Workers today are more militant, that is, they are less willing to accept poor terms of employment, but they aren't particularly organized. The unions have played an inspiring role in the rise of union density, but they are not the only source. We are now seeing strike activity rise from a decades-long trough. The essential worker, a new class of worker born as a result of the coronavirus panademic, challenges the boss to fulfill that designation. Wall Street analysts are also alert to the possibility of a power shift in Deeres stock prices. One analyst reduced projections by 25%. The analyst wrote in a section of a report entitled Pendulum of Power has Swung: Members may not only want concessions from Deere concerning a new 6-year labor agreement but could also be trying to tie these negotiations in to their desire to change the UAW national leadership and to increase labor activism as they feel their power is growing in tight labor markets.
The Wall Street analysts report to investors really is worth quoting in its entirety (pasting here as a source was anonymously provided). The UAW's owner class is keeping an eye on the situation. pic.twitter.com/kq38ELn6r8 Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 15, 2021
One of the most popular media characters of the Build back Better era was the small-business owner who cannot attract workers. This is partly to provide cover for Fortune 100 CEOs John C. May and Deeres John C. May, who both benefit from the low-wage labor market. Employers see a problem in tight labor markets. But the reality is that it has a mirror effect on workers who are the indispensable, front-line, and hero workers. Workers in all industries, including transit, health care, logistics, food manufacturing, face understaffing that leads to burnout and forced overtime. Covid-19 added an additional dimension to the occupational hazards in slaughterhouses and nursing homes. In 2020, the nursing assistant was the most dangerous job in America.
These same forces that make work unbearable for many workers are also preparing workers to resist.
The heat of market basket inflation in the past year is also affecting workers. Kaisers 1 per cent raise, on top of an average 26percent wage cut for new hires, becomes a wage reduction against a 5percent consumer goods inflation. The increase of 15 cents per hour that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers construction workers in Orlando, Florida are receiving doesn't even come close to keeping pace with rising living costs. Kelloggs proposes to reduce the cost-of living adjustment. This was once an integral part of collective bargaining in core industry sectors, but it has been discontinued for Big Three autoworkers since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent auto bankruptcies. Kern to many of these strikes Deere and Kelloggs is a rebellion against the 1980s-era introduction two-tier contracts that offer worse conditions for new employees. Kelloggs strike leader Trevor Bidelman, Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 3G president, stated that workers are aware of record profits and don't feel moved by a $1-per hour wage increase. Since long, the members have organized themselves into a Facebook group called Post 97. This means that employees who were hired after 1997 receive worse wages, benefits and pensions. For most workers post-97, the current contract would provide a 6c increase over what workers had 10 years ago. The proposal by the company to reduce pensions for new hires, creating a post-21 workforce, is met with moral opposition. Many workers are pledging a core demand of the strike: No third-tier!
This is a long thread but it's important. John Deere employees reached out to me dissatisfied about the media repeating company talking points that workers earn 60-70k per year. One worker who has been with John Deere for a decade told me how much they earned in 2020. It was under $40k. Let's talk about the wages at John Deere. pic.twitter.com/PnFXX5VMb6 Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 15, 2021
However, a tight labor market can also mean leverage for workers. Because they are harder to replace, workers tend to be more willing to say no to their bosses. Today's workers quit their jobs at the highest level in decades. This is one of the best measures of their labor market power. Tight labor markets can lead to workers joining unions and being more willing to face employers about terms and conditions. The same forces that make work difficult for too many workers are also preparing workers to resist.
On January 16, 1946, kosher meat department employees gathered at First Avenue and 44th Street Chicago to picket. Photo by John Tresilian/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Also, the end of a national mobilisation tends to relieve workplace pressures. Workers who are forced to work in stressful conditions or low wages during an emergency will expect to see a change. Harold Meyerson recently noted that both 1919 and 1945-1946 witnessed massive strikes as the end of world wars. The 1945-1946 cycle saw more than 10% of American workers strike. These events could be called general strikes. They took place in Stamford (Conn.), Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Oakland, California. A return to normal labor activity after the pandemic may now be possible. Long-term stagnation in wages and a decline in the labors share of national wealth were hallmarks of the generation prior to 2008. The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s saw slower recovery from recessions than earlier years. Many workers were left in permanent underemployment or inactivity. These trends led to the Great Recession, which was followed by a long and painful recovery. In 2018, unemployment fell to below 4 percent. The most notable increase in strike activity was in the massive teachers strike. Teachers wages had not recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, and labor markets had finally recovered. After a period of relative inaction at the height of the pandemic, the current wave of private sector strikers picks up from where the teachers left off. Teachers were the first group of workers to refuse any terms imposed by their employers for reopening their workplace in 2020. It's hard to imagine teachers protesting against unsafe working conditions in the same way they did in the past two years without the militant teacher strikes. The resistance to unsafe working conditions has spread throughout the economy in both an organized and individual form.
Students, parents, teachers, and members of the teachers union march through Brooklyn in a demand for a safer environment for their children and for the students during the Covid-19 pandemic that began on September 1, 2020 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Workers economic resistance, whether it is through strikes or refusing to work in dangerous, underpaid and unappealing jobs, is shaping the political agenda. Many of the Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget proposals would achieve the same goals as workers actions, but in the realms of social policy. Indirectly supporting workers power would be proposed subsidies for child care and home health, as well as the expansion of Medicaid and the child tax credit. The federal government could increase workers' bargaining power by either increasing labor demand or by easing some of the terrible social pressures that have made employees accept any terms offered by employers. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) warns against an entitlement society. What he really opposes is the shift in labor markets power that such policies help to secure.
These strikes are aimed at determining whether American workers can be forced to work again under harsh labor market conditions.
This is a departure from recent history. For much of the past generation, militant industrial action had little political significance. Although major strikes like those at Verizon or UPS in 1997 and 2016 brought benefits for workers, such events were still economic affairs. While politicians might feel compelled by them to make comments about them, as Bill Clinton did about the UPS strike, such disputes didn't resolve any larger political questions about power balance between the classes. After making a neutral comment encouraging UPS and the Teamsters settle, Clinton went straight to Martha's Vineyard. Many mainstream Democrats have accepted what was once a left-wing argument over the years: that increasing social inequality and declining economic security of the working class is the main cause of American democracy's destabilization. This must be addressed head-on. Biden's administration stated that the decline in union density has led to a weakening of our democracy. Organized workers' militancy, which is higher in union membership, puts pressure on specific firms and causes dissension among employers. While some bosses try to calm down labor by agreeing to social reforms and others keep their distance, others are more resolute. People caught in the middle, such as salaried workers at Deere may sympathize with the strikers, but are forced to endure the strike despite a significant skills gap.
John Deere is trying to break a strike by having salaried office workers operate heavy machinery, lets see how thats going pic.twitter.com/Yb1JkoFAH8 Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 15, 2021
