US labor movement faces big obstacles despite surge in strikes and union wins
The US labor movement is having a moment amid some recent big union contract wins, surges in strikes, historic union election wins at aggressively anti-union corporations, and a presidential administration that touts itself as the “most pro-union in history”.
Last week, the United Auto Workers reached a historic tentative agreement with Ford that includes 25% wage gains, then shortly after reached an agreement with Stellantis and General Motors. The UAW has called on other unions to time their contract expirations with 1 May to collectively pressure employers simultaneously, with the next UAW contracts at the Big 3 set to expire on 1 May 2028.
Other unions have also won historic contract gains this year at large employers such as UPS and Hollywood studios for TV and film writers.
But labor in the US is still facing significant obstacles and challenges in transforming the popular culture shift into gains against a backdrop of decades of union decline, worsening wealth inequality, and broken labor laws where employers violate labor laws with impunity and try to delay and bust union organizing campaigns.
Unionized workers have been framing recent surges in strikes for new contracts around corporate greed, exorbitant profits and soaring executive pay, leveraging a tight labor market and a growing public shift in support of the US labor movement.
So far 2023 has seen a significant influx in work stoppages, with employers experiencing the largest loss of labor hours to work stoppages in at least 23 years, around 11m labor hours from January to September 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Cornell University Labor Action
Tracker recorded 69 strikes in September 2023, involving 214,300 workers. Some 11,000 Hollywood television and film writers recently reached a historic deal after five months on strike.
“While the business has boomed, and studios have collected almost $30bn in annual profits, writer pay has gone down,” Laura Blum-Smith, the director of research and public policy at WGA West, said in April.
The Screen Actors Guild, which represents over 150,000 actors, has been on strike since July 2023.
The Good Fight star Christine Baranski said during a strike rally in July: “If this industry can generate millions, hundreds of millions, in compensation for those at the top, it can afford to share the wealth.”
Over 75,000 healthcare workers walked out on a three-day strike from 4 October to 7 October, the largest healthcare strike in US history and shortly won a new contract following the strike.
“The executives that are making millions of dollars aren’t thinking about anyone else but their own profit and their own increasing wages and not