The Boston Globe has a story about how “nearly 500,000 workers have gone on strike this year, almost four times as many as the year before, according to the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and hundreds of thousands more have threatened to do so, leading to gains for auto workers, Hollywood writers and actors, health care professionals, UPS employees, and more.
“The Biden administration’s pro-union stance and changes at the National Labor Relations Board to hold employers more accountable have further buoyed workers, while public support of unions remains higher than it’s been in decades. At the same time, labor organizers are growing increasingly strategic.”
Overall, the Globe writes, “the number of major work stoppages is far smaller than it was in the 1940s through the 1970s, but the pace picked up markedly this year. In October, when auto workers, Hollywood actors, and Kaiser Permanente health care employees in California were all on the picket line, striking workers missed more than 4.5 millions days of work, according to the Labor Department, the biggest monthly total in 40 years. The numbers in August and September were the highest in more than two decades.
“These actions are paying off. Unionized workers have won an average wage increase of 6.6 percent this year, the biggest in more than three decades, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis conducted before the UAW contract deals were finalized.
“The number of nonunion employees organizing is also surging, but the only workers seeing real gains are those with collective bargaining agreements already in place, said Sharon Block, executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. For thousands of people negotiating with employers for the first time at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and REI, getting a contract is a major uphill battle.”
However, the Wall Street Journal writes there are some signs that the bloom is off the rose.
“Low-wage workers were the labor market’s surprise winners of the past few years. As employers clamored to hire from a limited pool of workers, Americans in lower-paying industries gained leverage to obtain some of the largest pay raises and perks. Government relief during the pandemic padded those workers’ finances.
“Now, that leverage is weakening. More workers are seeking jobs, and the economy is feeling the impact of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to combat inflation. That has resulted in slower wage growth overall, but particularly at the lower end of the pay scale. Pandemic-era savings cushions are growing smaller.
“Retailers are noticing low-income consumers pull back, and economists expect this to cool an exceptionally strong streak of consumer spending, though they don’t see an outright bust.
You can read the pieces here and here.
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