Labor's March for a Better, Sustainable Future: The United Autoworkers Win Big and More
By Jim Miller
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many in the press wrote about the new activism emerging in the American labor movement when we first witnessed “Striketober” in 2021, which was a wave of union actions across the country.
It was seen by some critical observers as a brief moment of militancy that would surely fade, with many pundits and business writers arguing that the pendulum would soon swing back in favor of employers. Fortunately, the business-as-usual crowd was wrong and in recent months labor has seen not just impressive activism but resounding victories on multiple fronts.
Some of the highlights include impressive contracts for airline pilots, steep raises for UPS drivers, wins for healthcare workers, nurses, educators, screenwriters, and more. It seems that good news from one sector of unionized workers spills over into yet more gains for them elsewhere. It’s like nothing we’ve seen in the United States since the 1930s and ‘40s.
As the headline in the Guardian put it a few weeks back, “US unions winning big gains amid ‘Great Reset’ in worker power.” In that same article one activist put it this way:
“I’ve never seen a moment quite like this. I’ve never seen this level of action and enthusiasm among workers, especially among young workers,” said Lane Windham, associate director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. “People drew a line in terms of their expectations. For 40 years, workers have been putting up with low wages and bad jobs. But after coming through the pandemic, many people said: ‘I’m not going to do this any more. I’m not going to put up with this any more.’”
Windham said many employers had been surprised by the level of labor militancy they are encountering. “Employers are entering negotiations and beginning with their old calculations, but they’re seeing this is not business as usual. They’ve had to recalibrate what they’re willing to give.”
Obstacles remain as unions fight to regain higher density, navigate historic levels of economic inequality, overcome harmful labor laws, and confront the damage that the Federal reserve could do by raising interest rates, but there are still many reasons to remain optimistic. Robert Reich, while expressing worry that the Federal reserve will slow the economy, argues nonetheless that:
[U]nion victories have animated a virtuous cycle – encouraging more workers to join unions and more unions to flex their muscles and demand wage hikes.
And then there’s the tight post-pandemic labor market, in which consumers are spending like gangbusters, the economy is surging, and employers worry about getting and keeping the workers they need.
Of course, the most historic of all the recent wins is the United Autoworkers, under the newly militant leadership of Shawn Fain, who, as I wrote about recently in this space, ignored corporate cries of poverty and job loss and achieved 25% pay increases, more job security, the reopening of a plant, and a road to making the electric vehicle future one that includes solid union jobs.
Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times writes that “American unions have finally remembered how to win” by, as labor historian Thomas Geoghegan says, understanding that their future is best served by aligning with “a left led by people like Shawn Fain” and learning “how stupid it is to keep voting for Trump,” whose economic populism is about as deep as water on a flat rock.
What is most important about Fain’s message is that workers need to stand up against a corporate billionaire class that has been exploiting their weakness for decades and to stop believing that their interests are the same as their bosses’. The auto industry has money and political influence but smart, militant, and strategically employed strikes can put effective pressure on companies while, at the same time, winning workers’ overwhelming public support. Looking back to the CIO thirties, Fain and the UAW relearned some of the key lessons that helped build the union movement in the first place.
In that spirit, Fain has said that what’s next for his union is more organizing in non-union plants and looking to build international labor solidarity to help fight outsourcing threats. This is all good news for the labor movement and the country.
The UAW’s efforts to ensure that the transition to a green economy brings good union jobs is important not just for autoworkers but for most Americans who want to see policies to address catastrophic climate change continue at an accelerating pace. Some more encouraging news on that front comes in the form of a renewed effort to push for a Green New Deal. As the Guardian reports:
The tour, which kicks off with an event in Michigan this month, will aim to showcase widespread support for even bolder federal climate action, and will feature Green New Deal champions including Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and the representatives Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Summer Lee alongside local advocates. It will be led by the Green New Deal Network, a coalition of progressive environmental groups that include the Sunrise Movement, Greenpeace and Climate Justice Alliance, social justice organizations such as People’s Action and the Movement for Black Lives, and the small left-liberal Working Families political party.
The initial campaign for a Green New Deal, while failing to result in legislation, was pivotal in pushing the Biden Administration to take more modest but significant steps to address climate change in the Build Back Better infrastructure package and the Inflation Reduction Act. With the fossil fuel industry investing significantly in the status quo by cutting jobs in the low carbon sector while going big on high profit oil projects in the midst of two dangerous regional wars, the only solution we have is to answer that with a louder collective call for a livable future.
The UAW’s fight to unionize electric vehicle production combined with voices in labor that have previously endorsed a Green New Deal with strong labor provisions offer hope that we can still address economic inequality and the climate crisis with smart, equitable policy.
Along those lines, here in our state, California Labor for Climate Jobs (CLCJ) recently unveiled the California Workers’ Climate Bill of Rights, which argues that there need not be a conflict between job creation and climate action:
Climate change is forcing a massive restructuring of our economy; a worker-led transition provides a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape our economy for working people and our communities while limiting climate dangers. Labor rights are a climate solution: we must increase workers’ voice on the job in all sectors through unionization, and invest in our public sector to build the democratic, clean, green economy we need. Massive investments in our infrastructure, agriculture and public sectors are moving us towards meeting California’s climate goals and can create a million new union jobs for pipefitters, carpenters, manufacturers, electricians, cable layers, public transit operators, agricultural workers and others.
In the Los Angeles Times, Sammy Roth reports that:
The unions behind California Labor for Climate Jobs represent teachers, utility workers, farmworkers, janitors and more. They’re calling their initial policy platform the California Workers’ Climate Bill of Rights. It urges policymakers to invest in safety nets for oil and gas industry employees, including healthcare coverage and relocation, and to fund training programs that prepare those employees for similarly well-paying union jobs in climate-friendly fields.
Nationally, some of the trades involved in solar work have come together to help ensure that the green economy is union by forging an agreement. As the American Prospect reported:
Three major trade unions have negotiated a deal to divvy up work on utility-scale solar plants, and are now shopping it around to developers and contractors. The three-trade agreement, quietly announced earlier this month, has the potential to raise job standards in the solar industry, which has become something of a cautionary tale among labor representatives for how the energy transition can lead to more exploitative jobs . . . The three-trade agreement does not include California, where a five-trade agreement already covers solar work. In addition to the electricians, laborers, and operating engineers, that agreement also includes carpenters and ironworkers.
The BlueGreen Alliance praised this development observing that, “The deal will eliminate any room for a race to the bottom, ensure better collaboration between organized labor and solar developers, and allow each craft to bring their respective skills to the worksite.”
One hopes that initiatives such as these can open more common ground between climate activists and labor unions. Given the grim state of the world presently, this kind of intersectional solidarity is more necessary than ever.
Full disclosure: When I am not on medical leave as I am at present, I represent the CFT as a member of CLCJ and was part of the early stages of the collective process that produced the California Workers’ Climate Bill of Rights.