#hot labor summer

[hashtagloveloses]

NEW UNION JUST DROPPED

LET'S GOOOOOOO

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Housing is a labor issue

There's a reason Reagan declared war on unions before he declared war on everything else – environmental protection, health care, consumer rights, financial regulation. Unions are how working people fight for a better world for all of us. They're how everyday people come together to resist oligarchy, extraction and exploitation.

Take the 2019 LA teachers' strike. As Jane McAlevey writes in A Collective Bargain, the LA teachers didn't just win higher pay for their members! They also demanded (and got) an end to immigration sweeps of parents waiting for their kids at the school gate; a guarantee of green space near every public school in the city; and on-site immigration counselors in LA schools:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Unionization is enjoying an historic renaissance. The Hot Labor Summer transitioned to an Eternal Labor September, and it's still going strong, with UAW president Shawn Fain celebrating his members victory over the Big Three automakers by calling for a 2028 general strike:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/uaw-general-strike-no-class

The rising labor movement has powerful allies in the Biden Administration. NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is systematically gutting the "union avoidance" playbook. She's banned the use of temp-work app blacklists that force workers to cross picket lines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

She's changed the penalty for bosses who violate labor law during union drives. It used to be the boss would pay a fine, which was an easy price to pay in exchange for killing your workers' union. Now, the penalty is automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And while the law doesn't allow Abruzzo to impose a contract on companies that refuse to bargain their unions, she's set to force those companies to honor other employers' union contracts until they agree to a contract with their own workers:

https://onlabor.org/gc-abruzzo-just-asked-the-nlrb-to-overturn-ex-cell-o-heres-why-that-matters/

She's also nuking TRAPs, the deals that force workers to repay their employers for their "training expenses" if they have the audacity to quit and get a better job somewhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

(As with every aspect of the Biden White House, its labor policy is contradictory and self-defeating, with other Biden appointees working to smash worker power, including when Biden broke the railworkers' strike:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

A surging labor movement opens up all kinds of possibilities for a better world. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, UNITE Here attorney Zoe Tucker makes the case for unions as a way out of America's brutal housing crisis:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/why-unions-should-join-the-housing-fight/

She describes how low-waged LA hotel workers have been pushed out of neighborhoods close to their jobs, with UNITE Here members commuting three hours in each direction, starting their work-days at 3AM in order to clock in on time:

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1669088899769987079

UNITE Here members are striking against 50 hotels in LA and Orange County, and their demands include significant cost-of-living raises. But more money won't give them back the time they give up to those bruising daily commutes. For that, unions need to make housing itself a demand.

As Tucker writes, most workers are tenants and vice-versa. What's more, bad landlords are apt to be bad bosses, too. Stepan Kazaryan, the same guy who owns the strip club whose conditions were so bad that it prompted the creation of Equity Strippers NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, is also a shitty landlord whose tenants went on a rent-strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

So it was only natural that Kazaryan's tenants walked the picket line with the Equity Stripper Noho workers:

https://twitter.com/glendaletenants/status/1733290276599570736?s=46

While scumbag bosses/evil landlords like Kazaryan deal out misery retail, one apartment building at a time, the wholesale destruction of workers' lives comes from private equity giants who are the most prolific source of TRAPs, robo-scabbing apps, illegal union busting, and indefinite contract delays – and these are the very same PE firms that are buying up millions of single-family homes and turning them into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Tucker's point is that when a worker clocks out of their bad job, commutes home for three hours, and gets back to their black-mold-saturated, overpriced apartment to find a notice of a new junk fee (like a surcharge for paying your rent in cash, by check, or by direct payment), they're fighting the very same corporations.

Unions who defend their workers' right to shelter do every tenant a service. A coalition of LA unions succeeded in passing Measure ULA, which uses a surcharge on real estate transactions over $5m to fund "the largest municipal housing program in the country":

https://unitedtohousela.com/app/uploads/2022/05/LA_City_Affordable_Housing_Petition_H.pdf

LA unions are fighting for rules to limit Airbnbs and other platforms that transform the city's rental stock into illegal, unlicensed hotels:

https://upgo.lab.mcgill.ca/publication/strs-in-los-angeles-2022/Wachsmuth_LA_2022.pdf

And the hotel workers organized under UNITE Here are fighting their own employers: the hoteliers who are aggressively buying up residences, evicting their long-term tenants, tearing down the building and putting up a luxury hotel. They got LA council to pass a law requiring hotels to build new housing to replace any residences they displace:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-28/airbnb-operators-would-need-police-permit-in-l-a-under-proposed-law

UNITE Here is bargaining for a per-room hotel surcharge to fund housing specifically for hotel workers, so the people who change the sheets and clean the toilets don't have to waste six hours a day commuting to do so.

Labor unions and tenant unions have a long history of collaboration in the USA. NYC's first housing coop was midwifed by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1927. The Penn South coop was created by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. The 1949 Federal Housing Act passed after American unions pushed hard for it:

http://www.peterdreier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Labors-Love-Lost.pdf

It goes both ways. Strong unions can create sound housing – and precarious housing makes unions weaker. Remember during the Hollywood writers' strike, when an anonymous studio ghoul told the press the plans was to "allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses?"

Vienna has the most successful housing in any major city in the world. It's the city where people of every income and background live in comfort without being rent-burdened and without worry about eviction, mold, or leaks. That's the legacy of Red Vienna, the Austrian period of Social Democratic Workers' Party rule and built vast tracts of high-quality public housing. The system was so robust that it rebounded after World War II and continues to this day:

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/

Today, the rest of the world is mired in a terrible housing crisis. It's not merely that the rent's too damned high (though it is) – housing precarity is driving dangerous political instability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Turning the human necessity of shelter into a market commodity is a failure. The economic orthodoxy that insists that public housing, rent control, and high-density zoning will lead to less housing has failed. rent control works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

Leaving housing to the market only produces losers. If you have the bad luck to invest everything you have into a home in a city that contracts, you're wiped out. If you have the bad luck into invest everything into a home in a "superstar city" where prices go up, you also lose, because your city becomes uninhabitable and your children can't afford to live there:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

A strong labor movement is the best chance we have for breaking the housing deadlock. And housing is just for starters. Labor is the key to opening every frozen-in-place dysfunction. Take care work: the aging, increasingly chronically ill American population is being tortured and murdered by private equity hospices, long-term care facilities and health services that have been rolled up by the same private equity firms that destroyed work and housing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

In her interview with Capital & Main's Jessica Goodheart, National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo describes how making things better for care workers will make things better for everyone:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-13-labor-leader-ai-jen-poo-interview/

Care work is a "triple dignity investment": first, it makes life better for the worker (most often a woman of color), then, it allows family members of people who need care to move into higher paid work; and of course, it makes life better for people who need care: "It delivers human potential and agency. It delivers a future workforce. It delivers quality of life."

The failure to fund care work is a massive driver of inequality. America's sole federal public provision for care is Medicaid, which only kicks in after a family it totally impoverished. Funding care with tax increases polls high with both Democrats and Republicans, making it good politics:

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/7/voters-support-investing-in-the-care-economy

Congress stripped many of the care provisions from Build Back Better, missing a chance for an "unprecedented, transformational investment in care." But the administrative agencies picked up where Congress failed, following a detailed executive order that identifies existing, previously unused powers to improve care in America. The EO "expands access to care, supports family caregivers and improves wages and conditions for the workforce":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/18/executive-order-on-increasing-access-to-high-quality-care-and-supporting-caregivers/

States are also filling the void. Washington just created a long-term care benefit:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-long-term-care-tax-disability-cb54b04b025223dbdba7199db1d254e4

New Mexicans passed a ballot initiative that establishes permanent funding for child care:

https://www.cwla.org/new-mexico-votes-for-child-care/

New York care workers won a $3/hour across the board raise:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/new-york-budget-fair-pay-home-care/

The fight is being led by women of color, and they're kicking ass – and they're doing it through their unions. Worker power is the foundation that we build a better world upon, and it's surging.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

[thaumatologist]

working timeline of (us) hot labor summer wins

May 1, 2023: rail companies grant paid sick leave after public and political pressure

May 2, 2023: wga east and west go on strike

May 25, 2023: delta flight attendants begin holding rallies calling for flight attendant union (delta being the only major american airline without one)

June 15, 2023: three labor unions (iam, ibt, and afa-cwa) rally at delta stakeholder meeting in an effort to stop delta union-busting

June 24, 2023: teamsters amazon goes on strike at DAX8 in palmdale, ca

July 13, 2023: sag-aftra goes on strike

July 20, 2023: iatse threatens strike on broadway, and pressure lands them contract wins

August 22, 2023: threat of ups teamsters strike enough to land massive gains in new contract (even for part time employees)

August 25, 2023: nlrb passes down a ruling requiring any company that participates in union-busting to immediately recognize and bargain with the union

September 13, 2023: marvel vfx workers unanimously vote to unionize with iatse

September 16, 2023 (and prior): just a whole lot in cali (fast food minimum wage raise, striking workers eligible for unemployment assistance, five paid sick days, raising healthcare workers' minimum wage to $25, and more)

September 25, 2023: wga reaches tentative deal with amptp after historic 146 day strike

September 26, 2023: uaw strike receives historic backing from sitting president joe biden

September 26, 2023: sag-aftra authorizes strike against video game makers to bring pressure to negotiating table

[reasonsforhope]

Version that doesn't require sign-in.

"Hot Labor Summer just became a scorcher.

[On August 25, 2023], the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith [a.k.a. immediately] into bargaining.

The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers’ ability to delay them, often indefinitely.

Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation’s rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today...

“This is a sea change, a home run for workers,” said Brian Petruska, an attorney for the Laborers Union who authored a 2017 law review article on how to effectively restore to workers their right to collective bargaining enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which was all but nullified by the act’s weakening over the past half-century. Taken together, Petruska added, last week’s decisions recreate “a system with no tolerance for employers’ coercion of their employees” when their employees seek their legal right to collective bargaining...

Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, every time that the Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they’ve tried to put some teeth back into the steadily more toothless NLRA. But they’ve never managed to muster the 60 votes needed to get those measures through the Senate. The Cemex ruling actually goes beyond much of what was proposed in those never-enacted bills."

-via The American Prospect, August 28, 2023

--

Note: I didn't include it because the paragraphs about it went super into the weeds, but the reason all of this is happening is because of the NRLB's general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by Biden. In fact, according to this article, this "secures Abruzzo’s place as the most important public official to secure American workers’ rights since New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who authored the NLRA in 1935." Voting matters

[politijohn]

Source

Source

Let’s go!

[yusuke-of-valla]

UPDATE 9/26/2023

Strike authorization has passed by 98.32% and SAG leadership are returning to negotiate with game companies to secure a fair deal for voice actors and mocap actors

This DOES NOT MEAN that a strike is happening, it simply means that members are willing to go on strike and leadership can use this as leverage when negotiating. The deadline to come to a deal is is 9/28. If a deal is not reached THEN will there be a strike.

Please remember that the best outcome is that there is no strike and companies simply give workers a fair deal. A strike is a last resort.

While this does not directly affect developers in the game industry, that does not mean it's not important. Voice actors have been treated like shit in the game industry and are under threat by AI. The more people that are unionized, the easy it is for others to unionize. Do not dismiss it just because it is not developers.

The companies that would be affected by a hypothetical strike are:

Activision Productions Inc.,

Blindlight LLC,

Disney Character Voices Inc.,

Electronic Arts Productions Inc.,

Epic Games, Inc.,

Formosa Interactive LLC,

Insomniac Games Inc.,

Take 2 Productions Inc.,

VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and

WB Games Inc.

At the moment, no boycott has been called so there is nothing for consumers or anyone not involved with SAG-AFTRA to do, other than to be supportive on social media and report unauthorized AI recreation of voice actors work. Otherwise sit tight.

I'd really appreciate it if people who reblogged the last post also reblog the update

[itsbansheebitch]

"Imagine if every teacher in America went on strike at the same time? Society would crumble in like, an hour. Their demands would be met immediately. It's the perfect crime! :D" - Drew Gooden

[thesepaintedhands]

The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative deal to end the writer's strike 146 days after it started.

This is incredible news. As someone in the film and TV industry, I'm thrilled and I applaud the members of the WGA for their tenacity. They truly showed up and fought to make things better for future generations of writers, and they deserve everything they asked for (and hopefully won) with this deal. Fingers crossed that a similar deal will be reached soon between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA to end the actor's strike.

That being said, as someone working in VFX, I'm imploring everyone to be kind to VFX artists in the coming months. We all want the industry to make a comeback and to be part of bringing back the media we all know and love, but I can guarantee that the big studios of the AMPTP that contract out work to smaller VFX shops like mine are now going to try to make up as much lost revenue as possible. Shows that had production grind to a standstill are going to come back on condensed schedules, and since all the smaller shops have been hit hard by the strikes, they're going to take up as much work as possible. And VFX folks don't have unions. We don't have protections against gross amounts of overtime to stop the client studios from simply pulling a show from us if we can't bend over for a wildly unrealistic production schedule.

Again, I'm thrilled the WGA strike has an end in sight, but I'm also mentally preparing for a sucky few months ahead for myself and my friends and colleagues in post-production. And the work will suffer for it; it always does. So if the CG in your favorite shows or that movie you're looking forward to looks kind of wonky in the coming year, please be kind to the VFX artists. We're always doing the best we can with what we're given, and I think we're about to be given a lot less than usual.

[thefirsthogokage]

(Link to Tweet)

[Image ID: A tweet from Jenny Klein that reads:

Now 100 days into the strike, here is a roundup of places you can donate to help entertainment worker relief (all workers not just WGA) - [Click this sentence to go to the Google document] #WGAstrong #unionstrong

/End ID]

In case you can't open the link:

We are more than 75 days into the WGA strike, and now SAG-AFTRA has joined us too. Unite Here 11 hotel workers have been out all month. Teamsters and IATSE have been out of work. Here's some funds you can donate to to support everyone. I will update this often as more funds pop up!

WORKER SUPPORT

THE UNION SOLIDARITY COALITION FUND

TUSC is raising money for direct aid to IATSE and Teamsters crew -- they are notably covering people’s health insurance premiums while they’re out of work. Donate here. [501c3 - tax deductible]

ENTERTAINMENT COMMUNITY FUND

Most importantly, EntertainmentCommunityFund.org gives financial aid to entertainment workers all over the industry, both WGA and non-WGA. It's a big source of assistance for IATSE people especially. [501c3 - tax deductible]

SAG-AFTRA FOUNDATION

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation provides financial assistance to members of their union in need. https://members.sagfoundation.org/donate [501c3 - tax deductible]

HUMANITAS GROCERIES

Humanitas Groceries For Writers. This helps staff writers and other early career WGA members with $100 grocery gift cards. Donate here (and select Groceries For Writers from the dropdown): https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=AVJ6TL2YYPX2A

INEVITABLE FOUNDATION

Inevitable Foundation has a financial aid fund for WGA writers with disabilities. [501c3 - tax deductible] You can donate to support here: https://www.inevitable.foundation/emergency-relief-fund-donate?form=webdonate

GREEN ENVELOPE GROCERY AID

WGA captain Joelle Garfinkel helps run a grocery aid fund for entertainment workers. You can learn more about it here: https://twitter.com/msjoellegarf/status/1678522919780069377 Donate by sending money on venmo to @ Joelle-Garfinkel and if you need aid you can apply by emailing greenenvelopegroceryaid@gmail.com

FOOD BANK GROCERIES FOR ACTORS/WRITERS

World Harvest Food Bank in Mid City LA is giving away free groceries to writers and actors on strike. You can donate to support those efforts here: https://www.worldharvestla.org/donate-now [501c3 - tax deductible]

UNITE HERE 11 MUTUAL AID STRIKE FUND

Unite Here 11 hotel workers, who staff many of the hotels used by the major studios for production, are on strike. If you would like to donate to their strike fund, you can do so here: https://www.unitehere11.org/donate-to-the-unite-here-local-11-strike-mutual-aid-fund/

MOTION PICTURE TELEVISION FUND

MPTF (formerly known as the Actors Fund) provides a variety of services including grants for people on strike. You can donate to MPTF here: https://mptf.com/donate/ [501c3 - tax deductible]

HOLLYWOOD SUPPORT STAFF RELIEF FUND

This is an MPTF fund specifically for Hollywood assistants impacted by the strike. https://secure2.convio.net/afa/site/Donation2;jsessionid=00000000.app20023a?8217.donation=form1&8217_donation=form1&NONCE_TOKEN=12A38B8E80F6E4250888E4E44BE1190D&df_id=8217&idb=182923308&mfc_pref=T [501c3 - tax deductible]

PICKET LINE SUPPORT

PIZZA FUND - ALL LA LOTS

Comedy writer Jess Morse maintains a pizza fund that delivers to all of the Valley pickets. You can send money to @ Jess-Morse on Venmo or paypal.me/pizzastrikefund on Paypal ($10.97 buys one pizza)

FOX LOT FOOD FUND (LA)

I run a food fund to help feed our picket line at Fox, where I am an assistant coordinator. My Venmo is @ OlgaLexell and we love to use this money on catering from local businesses so we can support them while their business is down too.

SONY LOT FOOD FUND (LA)

The folks coordinating the Sony lot started a food fund via GiveButter. https://givebutter.com/sonypicketlines

NETFLIX LOT FOOD FUND (LA)

Lot coordinator Danny Tolli runs a Venmo fund for food and beverages at Netflix. You can Venmo him @ dctolli to contribute.

DISNEY LOT FUND (LA)

Lot coordinator Carlos Cisco started a Venmo fund for supplies like water at Disney, which has extremely high temperatures in the summer. Venmo him at @ Carlos-Cisco to contribute.

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY PROJECT (LA)

CSP has been delivering hot meals like breakfast burritos to all of the LA lots. Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-entertainment-workers-on-the-strike-line

TARGET REGISTRY - ALL LA LOTS

Official Target registry run by the WGA West Lot Coordinators. This is to get supplies for our check-in stations, ranging from snacks to first aid to garbage bags and beyond. https://www.target.com/gift-registry/gift-giver?registryId=079d5420-f35e-11ed-989e-f9022739cfe2&type=CUSTOM

NYC STRIKE SUPPLIES

NY Strike captain Steph Deluca offered to receive incoming funds to buy picket line supplies, which is something the WGAe needs help with. They are fundraising via her venmo @steph_deluca

FEEDING THE NYC STRIKERS

A group sending food and water to NYC strikers has set up a Cashapp and Paypal fund. You can send the money at $NYCStrikeFund via Cashapp or feednycstrikers@hotmail.com via Paypal.

[mrsbeef]

Canadian union actors have been locked out of commercial work by union-busting agencies for over 500 days.

Because a lot of people don't really understand what is happening here, I'm going to take a moment to talk about what a lockout is.

A lockout is like the opposite of a strike: in a strike, workers withhold their labour until employers agree to their demands for improved conditions, while in a lockout employers essentially starve workers of work-- and by extension, crucially, wages-- to force them into accepting unacceptable conditions.

In the context of a factory, it might look like literally shutting down the factory because the owner can afford to simply eat the short-term loss while they sit and wait for the workers to grow desperate. Or they may bring in what are euphemistically referred to as "replacement workers". You may know them by the more familiar term: scabs. Those who are willing to put up with more for less, and in so doing worsen labour conditions across the whole industry. This is economically advantageous to the employers, and they can just sit there in comfort while they wait for the union and its members to break.

A lockout is a cruel power play in what is already an unequal relationship. It is intentional infliction of desperation and psychological distress.

The Institute of Canadian Agencies' lockout of ACTRA members has been going on for more than 500 days. It has intentionally inflicted more than 500 days of psychological distress and existential threat on thousands of people. And in the midst of this the ICA has done little but employ DARVO strategies (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender), when it has initiated this essentially in protest of not being given the freedom to slash union commercial actors' compensation by 80%. ACTRA has been ready and willing to bargain this whole time, but the ICA insists it's ACTRA holding its own members down.

The ICA's client companies are hugely recognised brands whose CEOs take home untold millions every year in salaries while the average ACTRA commercial actor makes well under 10k a year. Professional actors' work is important and needed-- if it wasn't the agencies wouldn't be bringing in scabs-- and yet they are forced into conditions where they literally cannot live. They cannot afford to put a roof over their heads and food on the table in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

PLEASE share this and let union actors know you stand with them. Boycott these companies who hire union-busting agencies. Write to them and let them know why. This fight has been long and demoralising, and folks are exhausted and sad, and given all the attention that has rightly been on the striking WGA and SAG-AFTRA members (with whom ACTRA has been rallying together in solidarity), their Canadian sibling union needs your solidarity and support too.

[writergeekrhw]

I hope this is ok but what are your thoughts on this post about the strike? https://www.tumblr.com/cardassiangoodreads/722760134055559168/some-of-you-might-remember-a-couple-of-years-ago

I think it's a good reminder that the studios will definitely try to portray striking actors as greedy, when the entertainment corporations are the ones who regularly engage in borderline illegal accounting practices and look to screw creatives every chance they get. They'd much rather smear the WGA and SAG-AFTRA than negotiate in good faith.

[iww-gnv]

Labor unions successfully organized more than 58,000 workers through the National Labor Relations Board’s election process in the first six months of 2023, a massive influx of workers on a scale that we’ve rarely seen before—but that we’re likely to see again. The 662 NLRB representation elections won by unions in the year’s first half covered a total of 58,543 workers, according to Bloomberg Law’s just-released NLRB Election Statistics report. That’s the second-highest first-half organizing total in this century. By itself, this statistic isn’t the surest measurement of labor strength; all it takes is one freakishly large election result to make a six-month period appear a lot more impressive than it really was. (This is exactly what happened in May 2013: A bargaining unit of nearly 45,000 already-unionized workers switched representation from one union to another through the NLRB election process, raising the midyear total to 67,687.) No such anomaly is present in 2023. The sheer number of union wins so far this year, surpassing even last year’s Starbucks-studded total, makes it plain that this current wave of organized workers is no fluke.

[Read the rest]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There is nothing harder to kill than an idea whose time has come to pass

53% of U.S. adults support the auto strike, compared with

22% who oppose it.

While 36% of U.S. adults say the labor union is asking for too much, slightly more say it’s an appropriate amount or too little.

Roughly 3 in 5 Americans say worker pay should increase whenever CEO compensation does, and that companies should provide strong worker protections even if it means higher costs for consumers.

A slim 53% majority of U.S. adults surveyed over the weekend support the UAW’s decision to go on strike on Sept. 15 amid protracted negotiations with the automakers. Support for the strike remains consistent among those who identify as members of a union and those who do not. By contrast, just 22% of U.S. adults oppose the UAW strike, even though a larger share believe the union leadership’s demands are excessive.

"Slim majority" is a legit bullshit framing. 53% support and 22% opposition is a "slim majority" in a technical sense, but it would be just as true to say that only a tiny minority of capitalism-poisoned freaks oppose the UAW.

Asked whether “worker pay should increase whenever CEO pay is increased to prevent inequality” or “worker pay should not increase whenever CEO pay is increased because the work that they are doing is different,” 62% chose the former, while only 17% chose the latter. 

I've seen kitten-tormented yarn-balls that were more straightforward than this. Translation: Most Americans agree that when the boss gets a raise, the workers should get the same raise.

A similar 61% share said “companies should provide strong worker protections even if it means higher costs for consumers” over the 15% who said they should provide weaker protections to lower costs for consumers.

Despite 40 years of economists insisting that we see ourselves as "consumers" (that is, ambulatory wallets) the evidence is overwhelming - we know we are WORKERS. https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/uaw-strike-polling

[karlmarxmaybe]

Source

[ID: the Destiel "I love you" meme, with Dean subtitled as saying "MARVEL VFX ARTISTS ARE UNIONIZING" in bold capital letters. /End ID]

[reasonsforhope]

BTW: the Hot Labor Summer is 100% real

[politijohn]

Source

“While workers contend with higher costs of living as inflation and interest rates rise but their paychecks remain the same, top CEOs’ pay continues to increase steadily—with barely any regard for how their companies perform.”

It’s time to serve these CEOs for dinner