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writers strike
Number of US Workers Who Joined Major Strikes Surged by 280% in 2023
"From the United Auto Workers to nurses across the country, these strikes provided critical leverage to workers to secure better wages and working conditions," said one expert.
Feb 21, 2024
While federal data released on Wednesday shows nearly half a million workers last year participated in 33 major work stoppages—the most since the turn of the century—labor experts still stressed the need for more policies protecting the right to strike.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that there has been an average of 16.7 U.S. work stoppages with more than 1,000 strikers over the past two decades, meaning last year's number was almost double the norm. BLS also said that 458,900 workers joined the 2023 strikes, and nearly 87% of them work in service-providing industries, including 188,900 with jobs in education and health.
In their analysis of the data, also published Wednesday, Margaret Poydock and Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) pointed out that "this is an increase of over 280% from the number of workers involved in major worker stoppages in 2022, which was 120,600. Further, it is on par with the increase seen in pre-pandemic levels during 2018 and 2019."
Poydock, a senior policy analyst at the think tank, said in a statement that "a surge of workers went on strike in 2023 to fight back against record corporate profits, stratospheric CEO pay, and decades of stagnant wages. From the United Auto Workers to nurses across the country, these strikes provided critical leverage to workers to secure better wages and working conditions."
Other notable actions include the actors' and writers' strikes that together effectively shut down television and film production for months. A report released last week by researchers at Cornell University and the University of Illinois—who, unlike the BLS, also tracked smaller U.S. actions—tallied 466 strikes and four lockouts involving a total of 539,000 workers.
"It's a historic moment for the labor movement," declared Robert Reich, a former U.S. labor secretary who is now a University of California, Berkeley professor. "Workers are done letting billionaires and corporations hoard all the wealth and power."
As Poydock and Sherer, EPI's State Worker Power Initiative director, wrote in their report:
It should be no surprise that workers are taking collective action to improve their pay and working conditions—but we should be asking why it is happening now. The U.S. economy has churned out unequal income growth and stagnant wages for the last several decades. Research shows that unions and collective bargaining are key tools in combating income inequality and improving the pay, benefits, and working conditions for both union and nonunion workers. However, the continued rise in collective action is not likely to increase unionization substantially unless meaningful policy change is enacted to ensure all workers have the right to form unions, bargain collectively, and strike.
The BLS said last month that "the union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of
unions—was 10% in 2023, little changed from the previous year."
"In the public sector, both union membership and the union membership rate (32.5%) were little changed over the year," the bureau added. "The number of union workers employed in the private sector increased by 191,000 to 7.4 million in 2023, while the unionization rate was unchanged at 6%."
Stressing that "the increase in major strike activity in 2023 occurred despite our weak and outdated labor law failing to protect workers' right to strike," Sherer argued that "federal and state action is needed to ensure the right to strike."
At the federal level, EPI supports several proposals. As Poydock and Sherer detailed:
- The Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act includes critical reforms that would strengthen private sector workers' right to strike. The PRO Act would expand the scope for strikes by eliminating the prohibition on secondary strikes and allowing the use of intermittent strikes. It would also strengthen workers’ ability to strike by prohibiting employers from permanently replacing striking workers.
- The Striking and Locked Out Workers Healthcare Protection Act would prevent employers from cutting off health coverage of workers and family members in retaliation against striking workers.
- The Food Secure Strikers Act would allow striking workers to qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
- Congress should also pursue policies that extend a fully protected right to strike to railway, airline, public sector, agricultural, and domestic workers. None of these workers has the fundamental right to strike under current federal law.
"Right now, only a dozen states grant limited rights to strike to some public sector workers," the pair also highlighted. "States should also join New York and New Jersey in making striking workers eligible for unemployment benefits."
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Khanna: Rise of AI Must Center 'Dignity and Economic Security of Working Class'
"The Democratic Party cannot claim to be the party of the working class if we allow AI to erode the earnings and security of the working class."
Jan 04, 2024
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, whose California district includes Silicon Valley, warned Thursday that to avoid catastrophic impacts of the artificial intelligence revolution, lawmakers and regulators must learn from "how unfettered globalization hollowed out the working class" in the United States, leaving "shuttered factories and rural communities that never saw the promised jobs materialize."
"Like globalization, AI will undoubtedly bring benefits—tremendous benefits—to our economy, with higher productivity, personalized medicine and education, and more efficient energy use," the congressman wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.
"Generative AI has the potential to help those with fewer resources or experience quickly learn and develop new skills," he noted. "The real challenge, though, is how to center the dignity and economic security of working-class Americans during the changes to come. And unlike the Industrial Revolution, which spanned half a century at least, the AI revolution is unfolding at lightning speed."
"Our generational task is to ensure that AI is a tool for lessening the vast disparities of wealth and opportunity that plague us, not exacerbating them."
Khanna stressed that "today the Democratic Party is at a crossroads, as it was in the 1990s, when the dominant wing in the party argued for prioritizing private sector growth and letting the chips fall where they may," ignoring prescient criticism from former Democratic Sens. Paul Wellstone (Minn.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.), as well as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who then served in the House.
After failing to heed their warnings, he argued, "the Democratic Party cannot claim to be the party of the working class if we allow AI to erode the earnings and security of the working class. The party can be forgiven once for the mistake of abetting globalization to run amok, just not twice."
"Technologies—our technologies—are meant to complement and enhance human initiative, not subordinate or exploit it," he asserted. "We must push for workers to have a decision-making role in how and when to adopt technologies, and we must insist on workers' profiting from the implementation of these technologies. Our generational task is to ensure that AI is a tool for lessening the vast disparities of wealth and opportunity that plague us, not exacerbating them."
Underscoring the urgency of his message, Khanna pointed out that in September, "tech's biggest names trekked to Capitol Hill for a forum on artificial intelligence" that "was reminiscent of Davos conferences in the 1990s and early 2000s," and this year alone, tens of thousands of workers at hundreds of companies could be laid off and replaced with AI.
Already, AI is factoring into labor negotiations and legislative battles. After California legislators last year overwhelmingly approved Assembly Bill 316, which would have required a human driver on self-driving trucks weighing over 10,000 pounds that are transporting goods or passengers for at least five years, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it.
"Tech companies argue that replacing human drivers with AI is feasible, will reduce labor costs, and will therefore make it cheaper to transport goods and services. They lobbied heavily against the bill," explained Khanna. "I supported A.B. 316 because drivers say it's currently an unnecessary risk to have large trucks on public roads without a human on board. This is especially true if there is extreme weather, hazardous conditions, or heavy cargo on board. No one understands the safety risks at play here better than the drivers themselves, and it's both foolish and insulting to suggest they would make up such concerns to keep jobs that do not add value."
"It's not just the AI concerns of truck drivers that are causing divides in the Democratic coalition," the congressman continued, highlighting that the monthslong strikes of unionized writers and actors in Hollywood last year ended with deals that include provisions about artificial intelligence.
The California Democrat—who joined striking writers on the picket line—wrote that "even though writers' jobs are very different from truck drivers' jobs, labor solidarity is one of the few countervailing forces that can blunt the dehumanization of work motivated by short-term profit maximization in a world where AI is capable of suddenly disrupting both blue- and white-collar work."
Khanna—author of the 2022 bookDignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us—published the Times piece amid fears about how AI will impact everything from mass surveillance and misinformation to healthcare and war, not only in the United States but around the world.
His Thursday column won praise from progressives across the country. Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation, said that his piece is "truly a must-read for any policymaker" while Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation's editorial director and publisher, called it an "important read and issue for now and in '28."
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Writers' Strike Ends After Nearly Five Months as WGA Unveils Tentative Deal
"The WGA appears to have won more than analysts initially believed possible."
Sep 27, 2023
Hollywood screenwriters' monthslong strike ended Wednesday after the Writers Guild of America leadership voted unanimously to recommend the tentative three-year contract agreement that the union reached with major studios over the weekend.
WGA members will now vote on whether to ratify the deal, which includes higher pay than the studios were originally willing to offer, improved healthcare benefits, viewership-based streaming residuals, minimum staffing requirements for television writers' rooms, and regulations constraining studios' use of artificial intelligence.
In a statement late Tuesday, the WGA negotiating committee said that union members "will be able to vote from October 2nd through October 9th, and will receive ballot and ratification materials when the vote opens."
"The WGAW Board and WGAE Council also voted to lift the restraining order and end the strike as of 12:01 am PT/3:01 am ET on Wednesday, September 27th," the committee added. "This allows writers to return to work during the ratification process, but does not affect the membership's right to make a final determination on contract approval."
The WGA committee called the tentative agreement an "exceptional deal, with gains and protections for members in every sector of the business."
"The WGA appears to have won more than analysts initially believed possible," The New York Timesreported Tuesday. "Studios suggested early on that they wouldn't bend on issues like residuals or staffing, citing changes streaming has made to their industry. But the strike—coupled with the SAG-AFTRA walkout—has crippled Hollywood, with studio owners like Warner Bros. Discovery predicting big hits to their earnings. Analysts have estimated that studios could lose as much as $1.6 billion in global ticket sales because of movie delays."
According to survey data, the writers' strike was broadly popular with the U.S. public. A Data for Progress poll conducted last month found that 67% of all likely voters backed the strike, while a Gallup survey showed that the public sympathized with screenwriters over Hollywood studios by a margin of 72% to 19%.
SAG-AFTRA actors who joined writers on the picket lines will remain on strike, and the union said Wednesday that it currently has no scheduled dates to meet with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios.
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