The Journal. - 2023: The Year of the Strike

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Americans are walking off the job at a rate not seen in years. The U.S. has lost seven million workdays to walkouts so far this year. WSJ’s David Harrison on the factors that are making this year one of the best in recent memory to strike.  Further Listening: -‘We’ll Strike All Three’: The UAW’s Historic Walkout  -Meet the Man Who Has Detroit on Edge  -The Case of the Hollywood Shutdown  Further Reading: -UAW Joins Wave of Union Strikes Looking for Big Wins  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year, there's been something happening around the country. Hotel employees, including bellhops, front desk attendants, and cooks, walked off the job in Los Angeles today. Thousands of workers started the walkout at 6 a.m. local time. That Jacob Leinenkugel's brewing company. Members of the Screen Actors Guild. Graduate students. Workers. Hotel workers.

TV and movie writers. Going on strike. Go on strike. On strike. On strike. And more strikes keep being announced. more strikes keep being announced. Walkouts this week included workers at Mack Truck and at Walgreens Pharmacies. Some workers at casinos in Detroit and at defense contractor General Dynamics are gearing up for walkouts, while autoworkers and Hollywood actors continue their weeks-long strikes. All of this has made 2023 a standout.

There have been more workdays lost to strikes this year than any year in two decades. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Friday, October 13th. Coming up on the show, 2023, the year of the strike. We'll be right back. Markets. See app for details. Our colleague David Harrison says one reason why more Americans are walking off the job is because strikes are working. These are strikes across disparate industries.

How are they connected? We're all kind of living in the same kind of world here, the same macro world. But to a large extent, these are kind of independent actions, right? But, you know, every industry is dealing with these same sort of macro issues. They're all just kind of responding to the same overall conditions. And what are those conditions? The first big thing is this really rather severe labor shortage we've seen. And, you know, we've had a labor shortage for a while now. There's sort of a lot of sort of long-term reasons for that.

You have retiring baby boomers. You have sort of fewer people entering the workforce. So, you know, we have an economy that's geared, that was kind of set up in an environment where labor was plentiful, where, you know, employers posted a job and they had, you know, lines at the door, right? That's kind of how we of set up in an environment where labor was plentiful, where employers posted a job and they had lines out the door, right? That's kind of how we were set up. And that world doesn't really exist anymore. So that's one factor.

What else would you point to? You know, the pandemic kind of really, really accelerated that because people wanted to work from home. They didn't want to have, you know, they were much more picky in the jobs they were taking. The people kind of rediscovered this idea of, you know, work-life balance. So they kind of decided, you know, maybe I don't need to work so many hours. That made the labor shortage that much more acute.

And so, you know, that's kind of the environment that's kind of the backdrop for what we're seeing with labor unions. How is the public reacting to these strikes? The public is pretty much on board. You know, Gallup does these sort of regular polls, and they have for decades, of support for unions. And, you know, last year was the highest level since the 60s. So now 71% of people said they supported unions. Don't forget, like, the public is not some amorphous thing.

It's also made up of workers who also want their pay to go up. But then you also have, we have a president who's really pro-union, right? I mean, that's something we haven't had for a long time. I mean, Joe Biden has made a point of saying he's the most, you know, pro-union president ever in American history. And so, you know, he goes to picket lines or he, you know, he went to one and, that puts a little bit of a wind at the back of the unions. In recent years, that's manifested in new organizing efforts, where new unions have popped up and all kinds of workers, from graduate students to baristas, have joined. Starbucks voting to form unions, and these are tiny unions of 12, 15 members. I mean, this is something that's just, like, almost unheard of. And then, of course, you had the big drive to launch a union at Amazon.

Amazon workers hit the picket line Friday morning in Pontiac outside the fulfillment center. They're frustrated. The Amazon Labor Union, the independent labor union, you know, they actually were formally recognized. But yeah, this is really a recent phenomenon. So, you know, the big story last year was these workers forming unions to exercise their leverage. And this year, as contracts come up for renewal,

many unions are starting to ask for more. They're making big demands because they're kind of reflecting where we are in the economy and so so that's why we've seen these kind of very aggressive labor demands and labor unions kind of really willing to to take action. So what are they asking for? Pay increases is a big deal but it's not just about pay increases. The economic rebound from the pandemic has been much stronger than anybody anticipated. And so a lot of restaurants and retail establishments have just been swamped with customers and they cannot possibly handle them all with the staffing that they have. And so one of their big demands

is better staffing. And so they don't have to work so many overtime hours. And that's something that's relatively new. I don't think that's a request you don't traditionally see from unions is better staffing levels. This is also something that striking nurses and pharmacy workers have demanded. Other demands beyond pay range from actors and writers wanting protections against AI to autoers asking for job security as the industry moves to electric vehicles. And what have employers told you about how they see all these demands?

I mean, the employers will say they support their employees' right to unionize and to collective bargain, and they're sort of on board with the process. But what they say is what the unions are demanding is unrealistic. But, you know, be that as it may, they've ended up, by and large, giving their employees what they wanted. Last month, Hollywood writers returned to work after a five-month strike.

They successfully secured staffing guarantees, increased pay, and the potential for more money when streaming shows are hits. Today, Kaiser Permanente workers announced they'd negotiated a 21% pay increase. What are you looking for next? I'm very curious to see how the UAW strike is going to resolve, because that is, you know, that is one that's been really at the forefront of public consciousness. And, you know, I've heard people say that, I'm not sure that I agree with this, but I've definitely heard a lot of analysts say

that the UAW is bargaining from a position of strength, that they are going to get what they want just because of everything we've talked about. Today, United Auto Workers President Sean Fain said the union wouldn't stop striking at plants of GM, Ford, and Stellantis until its demands were met. I want us to look back on 2023 and be able to say, man, that was the first big win. That was the one where we really learned how to fight. That was the year we took our union back by standing up for ourselves.

Coming up, we talk to one striking UAW worker. At AirMiles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them. Mmm, how's that spicy enchilada? Oh, very flavorful. Yodeling with them. Ooh, must be mating season.

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and a tasty bacon and egg or breakfast sandwich for only $5 at A&W's in Ontario. Tiffany Simmons is an auto worker at a Ford plant in Michigan who's been on strike for the last month. She works the graveyard shift at the Union Hall. I make sure that our incoming midnight strikers, I make sure there's, along with other people, because there's not just me, there's an entire team of people that are there at the hall. We make sure that there's coffee brew, there's cocoa, something warm to eat. It is Michigan, so it is cold right now. It is rainy right now. We make sure there's hand warmers for the strikers. Signs are repaired

and signs are made up. So we're making sure everyone is dry, fed, warm, motivated, and in good spirits. And I'm there from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. And then I come home, I go to bed and I get up and I do it all over again. What does it feel like to be doing that instead of making cars? It feels good to be fighting the fight. It feels because it's a fight that's worth fighting. But I also miss my job. Of course, none of us wanted to do this. No one wanted to be on strike.

No one wants to be on Michigan Avenue as opposed to being on their job, making their paycheck, making money. But it's for a cause that we've been fighting for and we've been bargaining for forever, it seems. What made you want to work in the auto industry? The auto industry is my family business. I currently work with my father, who's worked for Ford since 1987. And as of now, three of my four younger brothers are also Ford Motor Company employees as of 2020.

So Ford is pretty much, or the auto industry is pretty much all I know because my mother worked for American Axle for 14 years as well. How long have you worked for Ford? How long have you worked for Ford? I started with Ford in 2007, part-time, as something called a TPT, a temporary part-timer. And I was offered full-time work in 2012. What did that feel like? It was amazing. I can tell you where I was, what I was doing. I was riding up the street to get a pizza.

what I was doing. I was riding up the street to get a pizza and I happened to get the phone call and I literally pulled over into the 7-Eleven parking lot and answered my phone and I screamed and I cried and I called my dad and I told him I made it. I finally made it. So it was a very, it was a great feeling. What do you like about your work? made it. So it was a very, it was a great feeling. What do you like about your work? I like the informality of it. I like that I can wear a t-shirt and jeans to work. I like that I get to interact with so many people. I like the manual labor part of it. It's extremely fascinating to be a part of something that you see something built from the ground up every day. And with what we do, it's more than just building a car. We're literally in charge of making something that keeps people safe.

Keeps it like we build a product that carries people's lives from point A to point B safely. So that's a very cool feeling to know that you're responsible for something that everyone uses every day. And as you progressed through Ford, did your pay and benefits improve? through Ford, did your pay and benefits improve? They were meant to improve, but the job that my father was able to take care of my entire family with one paycheck is no longer that job because our pay hasn't improved in quite a while. The pay rate, the benefits, they've been stagnant for a course of time. While the economy, the world is evolving, the automobiles are evolving, but the people that make the automobiles, what we're getting as far as benefits, as far as pay, as far as work standards, getting as far as benefits, as far as pay, as far as work standards. That's not evolving.

The UAW's main demands are a large pay increase, a four-day workweek with overtime, and union representation at the battery plants for EVs. UAW President Sean Fain today said that Ford needs to bring more to the table. said that Ford needs to bring more to the table. Ford has said it made strong offers to the union, including significant pay increases. Company executives said they've been bargaining this week around issues like retirement benefits and EV battery plants. What's the most important demand for you? The most important demand? Well, it's hard to pick just one because everything goes hand in hand. The pay goes with the benefits. The benefits goes with what kind of life you'll have when you retire.

I want this job to be more of a job like it was for my father. What Ford, what Stellantis, what GM is offering us, it's not sufficient right now. The price of groceries went up. The price of gas went up. The housing market went up. There are people that are building these cars that can't afford to buy the cars that they're building. Do you look forward to going back to work? Of course, I look forward to going back to work? Of course, I look forward to going back to work. And it's so odd to feel like that right now because it's long hours.

It's taxing on your body. I come home with cuts, scrapes, bruises, covered in dirt, grime, oil, frustrated. But now that it's drawing on a month without it, I actually miss it. And I can't wait to get back to building these cars. That's all for today, Friday, October 13th. Additional reporting in today's episode by Nora Eckert. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Our engineers are Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Thanks for listening. See you Monday.