American employees are demanding “their share” like never in decades

Automobile, health, catering, armaments, aviation, internet, entertainment, etc.: Americans have been taking advantage, for several months, of the negotiating power provided by low unemployment to demand – and obtain – better conditions, in a context of inflation high.

“Workers have not had this much leverage in decades, and certainly not since the 2008-2009 recession,” Susan Schurman, a professor specializing in labor relations at the Rutgers University.

“The last time” that the United States experienced social movements of this magnitude “was in the 1930s,” she emphasizes.

In the United States, “the rank-and-file employees, the blue-collar workers, are lagging behind, wages have been stable for decades because the bargaining power was on the employers’ side,” she continues.

“But the pandemic changed all that. All of a sudden, the labor market became tense, employers had difficulty recruiting and therefore, unions could put pressure,” she underlines. “This is what has been happening for a year.”

Result: attempts to unionize in companies (Amazon, Starbucks in particular) are increasing, but achieving success remains difficult.

– Range of requests –

According to Ms. Schurman, when employees see what unions are getting, they want to do the same and employers sometimes accept their demands to avoid the creation of a union.

Protest by auto workers in Ontario, California, September 26, 2023 (AFP/Archives/Patrick T. Fallon)

Better salaries, better conditions, guarantees for the future, more security, etc.: the range of demands is vast.

The common thread is wages in a country where inflation “still remains too high”, insisted Jerome Powell, head of the American central bank (Fed), on October 19.

The institution has raised its rates eleven times since March 2022 so that inflation “falls sustainably” towards the 2% objective. It was 3.7% in September (9.1% in June 2022, a record in four decades).

A level which erodes the purchasing power of Americans, also faced with the consequences of Fed rates at the highest since 2001 (5.25-5.50%).

According to the Ministry of Labor, the number of working days not worked due to strikes jumped this summer to reach 4.1 million in August, a 23-year high and more than the total of the previous seven months.

In the automobile industry, where a strike began in mid-September at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, the situation is “special”, notes Ms. Schurman.

“Employees made enormous sacrifices” during the rescue of the sector after the 2008 crisis and now, with the recovery, “the managers are receiving a lot of money and the workers want their share”.

“Another record quarter, another record year. As we have been saying for months: record profits mean record contracts,” Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, commented on Tuesday when the quarterly results were announced. from GM.

– Unpublished –

Elected in March, he adopted an unprecedented strategy of simultaneous walkouts in the three groups. Up to nearly 45,000 employees were mobilized, out of their 146,000 registered at the UAW.

Picket line in front of Netlfix offices in Hollywood, California, October 20, 2023 (AFP/Archives/Frederic J. BROWN)

According to the Anderson Economic Group (AEG), which counts Ford and GM as clients, the first five weeks of the strike cost the American economy more than $9.3 billion.

“We were all surprised (by this strategy). But it seems to be working, they all now have more on the table than a month ago,” notes Ms. Schurman.

After 41 days of strike, an “agreement in principle” was announced Wednesday evening with Ford “which put on the table 50% more than when we walked out”, rejoiced Mr. Fain.

President Joe Biden, who participated in a picket outside a GM plant in late September, immediately praised a “historic” agreement.

He did the same in July with the agreement at UPS, which avoided a strike with disastrous consequences for the American economy.

The defense and aerospace group General Dynamics sold at the last minute.

United, Delta and American airlines gave their pilots total pay hikes of about 40%.

They are now negotiating with their cabin crew. At American, they have already validated the principle of a strike.

The branch of the Blue Cross Blue Shield group in Michigan, presented as its largest private insurer, has been disrupted by a strike since mid-September.

Nearly 4,000 employees at three Detroit casinos have been on strike for a week.

Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s largest private health networks, capitulated to a week’s strike notice in early November, following a work stoppage in early October by more than 75,000 of its 85,000 employees.

Those at the Walgreens pharmacy chain are taking walkouts for a few days, with the next one scheduled for the end of October.

In Hollywood too: the writers were on strike for almost five months, the actors started in July.

© 2023 AFP

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