Labor Notes has helpfully compiled this year's list of union contracts to watch—from Boeing to IATSE to postal workers, this could be another year of significant (although probably smaller than last year) labor strikes in the US.
a Cohost account about unions
mirroring and keeping a pulse on cool union stuff around the english-speaking (and occasionally non-english-speaking) world. run by @alyaza
Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains, demand your rights!
Cohost Union News website
alyaza.neocities.org/CohostUnionNews/This is according to Steven Greenhouse, former labor correspondent for the New York Times, who writes:
If 340,000 Teamsters walk out at UPS, it would be the largest strike since 1959, when 500,000 steelworkers struck
AND would be the biggest strike against a private employer in U.S. history—previous high was 1970, when 321,510 workers struck GM in the U.S.
Through May, there were about the same number of strikes in 2023 as last year — but the number of workers who walked out went up 80% (see chart).
They also note that things have picked up even more steam just in the past month:
Then this month — really in the past week — there was a lot more action:
- About 3,000 Starbucks workers are on strike this week over gay pride decor and accusations of unfair labor practices.
- Two large strikes in the manufacturing industry got underway — 1,400 members of the United Electrical Workers union at a locomotive plant in Erie, Pa., and one involving about 6,000 workers at a Boeing supplier in Wichita.
- Smaller actions sprung up, too: 84 Amazon drivers at a warehouse in California went out on strike, demanding that the company recognize their newly certified union. And cooks and cashiers at a McDonald's in Oakland, Calif., walked out.
- Also in June, hundreds of workers at Gannett walked off the job, as well as 250 members of Insider's newsroom — part of what Axios' Sara Fischer calls a summer of media strikes.