#SolidaritySeason: Unions fighting for the future of work
UAW
On September 15, 2023, UAW announced its first “Stand Up Strike” – the start of a 6-week, rolling campaign that put the Big Three automakers on their back foot, exposing their unbridled greed and profound miscalculation of worker power. The union’s success at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis has translated into wage increases of at least 25% over the course of the next 4.5 years, with workers poised to earn more than $40/hr with 10% contributions to 401(k) accounts.
In addition, they’ve negotiated for the historic inclusion of non-union workers making EV batteries, engines, transmissions, and other components. The UAW’s so-called “Master Agreement” with the Big Three pulls even more workers under the union’s umbrella, extending remarkable job security and blocking attempts to replace good union manufacturing jobs with low-wage or off-shore battery-making jobs. We’ve seen manufacturing plants close and battery plants open; those wages are historically lower. The UAW draws our attention to a key component of the government’s call for a “just transition” from fossil fuel dependence, a shift that requires batteries for electric vehicles. More than a billion tax dollars per year under the Inflation Reduction Act will go to the production of EV batteries, but with “no requirement to pay good wages to production workers.” These recent union negotiations demand those good wages for everyone.
UAW president Shawn Fain is only getting started in organizing the car industry, citing the astronomical profit increases enjoyed by the Big Three. The Economic Policy Institute notes a 92% increase between 2013 and 2022, in excess of $250 billion. Car manufacturers can afford to pay. They just don’t want to.
To step up the pressure, Fain announced a new campaign at the beginning of December to organize workers at all non-union car manufacturers, like Tesla, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen. “The Stand Up Strike was just the beginning,” Fain said in a statement [in November]. “Now, we take our strike muscle and our fighting spirit to the rest of the industries we represent, and to millions of nonunion workers ready to stand up and fight for a better way of life.”.
SAG-AFTRA
A future forward approach has also driven SAG-AFTRA workers in the entertainment industry to strike (SAG-AFTRA stands for Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). The union represents more than 160,000 actors, stunt performers, and others working for legacy media companies, like Amazon, Comcast Corp., Walt Disney Co., Netflix, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others.
The industry has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. Workers forced studios to acknowledge a consumer shift to subscription-based streaming at home and they point our that wage models that have not kept pace with production demands and inflation. Meanwhile, the top studios have raked in BILLIONS of dollars – Netflix’s revenue in the last quarter of this year was $8.5 billion!
At the table, actors and writers gained over $1 billion in new wages and benefits, including an immediate 7% increase for most members and an 11% rise for background actors. They’ve also secured protections in regards to the introduction of AI generation and have protested any move towards replacing their work with virtual reproductions. Workers raised concerns that studios “proposed paying actors for one day's work and using their digital images in perpetuity.”
The union also insisted that studios meet the broader needs of their members, including the requirement of intimacy coordinators to work with actors and landmark language on textured hair and make-up:
"If the producer is unable to provide qualified hair and/or makeup personnel to work with the performer, production shall reimburse the performer for the pre-approved cost of obtaining such services. The performer will also be entitled to no less than two hours of compensation for the time spent in such services.”
SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations closed in early November, following a 118-day strike that produced historic gains and coincided with the Hollywood writer’s strike. Together the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild of America strikes over the summer and autumn represented the first time these Hollywood unions stood on a picket together in 63 years. Summarizing the effects of their joint efforts, The Hill observed: “Between the two strikes the industry has been at a standstill for six months, with effectively no scripted films or television shows in production since May.”