Rolling Labor Action Thread

lmao Deere itself put out a graphic in August to show how much better their employees have it, because of their pension -

Here's another great image from Deere management.

In August, they told UAW members how much better they had it than at competitors CAT and CNH, because of the pension.

Now Deere wants to eliminate the pension, and the stool is collapsing; but not in the way the company thought! pic.twitter.com/uLJ9BiERIo

— Jonah Furman (@JonahFurman) October 13, 2021

sorry just restated the tweet there, so you get the drift, doubly

John Deere is trying to break a strike by having salaried office workers operate heavy machinery, let’s see how that’s going— pic.twitter.com/Yb1JkoFAH8

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 15, 2021

So happy for the IATSE strike. My union’s working conditions are way better than theirs and I’m still reeling after each film shoot, it’s a very tough industry. I can’t imagine what IATSE members have been going through and I really hope the strike brings about change.

A few days ago the nurses union for Kaiser-Permanente, a very big health care provider on the US west coast, voted to authorize a strike whenever their leadership decides that contract talks have broken down completely. The management was offering them a 1% raise!

btw, they're my provider. if they screw this up I'll be mad as hell at management not the nurses.

Looks like a whole lot of people aren’t taking it anymore

There was a regular at the bar who I hadn't seen for months. He was in Thursday, said he'd had enough of 70-80 hour weeks and had quit his job. I said "way to go, comrade, I love seeing power swing from mgmt to labor." He's a typical white middleaged southern conservative and was extremely uncomfortable with this.

this little wave of strikes is literally the only thing giving me any kind of hope at all about making a better world

xp lol

So IATSE tweeted this out, but a lot of tweets saying the deal sucks and/or isn’t much better than the previous one and that they plan to vote no:

“We went toe to toe with some of the richest and most powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world, and we havenow reached an agreement with the AMPTP that meets our members’ needs.”https://t.co/861fwvQNii

— IATSE // #IASolidarity (@IATSE) October 17, 2021

BREAKING: @BVWU_IWW has reached a tentative agreement with Burgerville. If ratified, 100 workers at five Oregon locations will become the only fast food workforce in the U.S. to be covered by a union contract. They’ve been in contract negotiations since 2018. A historic moment! pic.twitter.com/ujUJaGenLp

— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) November 12, 2021

the wobblies??

the workers at the local bathhouse here in Toronto won their union drive!!!

we won 🥲 https://t.co/VjscVj78gP

— graeme lamb (@_gmlamb) November 12, 2021

yup. the wobblies are still out there.

Activision action

https://www.polygon.com/22786117/activision-blizzard-walk-out-bobby-kotick-resignation-demands

https://lbo-news.com/2021/11/12/striketober-wasnt/

As marvelous as it would be to see a revival of labor militancy, people got a little ahead of things calling last month “Striketober.” According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stats, it was a blip by historical standards.

Here’s a graph of the number of workers involved in strikes or lockouts (the BLS counts them together) since 2000. There were 57 months with higher numbers of workers off the job. At the high point of this graph, May 2018, there were over fourteen times as many workers on strike as there were last month.

https://doughenwood.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/stoppages-monthly.png?w=1280

Here’s another measurement—what the BLS, in nice Victorian fashion, calls “days of idleness” as a percent of total days worked throughout the economy. It was 0.01% in October, a level that’s been matched in 39 other months since January 2000. And as the bottom graph shows, back in the old days when strikes were frequent, lost workdays were many times 0.01%. Before 1980, the low was 0.07%, set in 1957. From 1948 to 1979, it averaged 0.16%. In 1959, just two years after the pre-neoliberal era low, it was 0.43%, the series high.

there's always hope for strikevember

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/kaiser-nurses-to-hold-sympathy-strike-in-solidarity-with-engineers/

BREAKING: The 10,000 striking John Deere workers voted to approve a third contract offer 61%-39%, ending the 5-week strike & solidifying major concessions from the company.

The big wins include:
- $8500 bonus
- Immediate 10% raise
- Another 10% raise by 2025
- Improved pension

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) November 18, 2021

nice

I think the disproportionate attention is because — at least for the moment — there's a lot of focus on workers, or lack of workers. But it's a good opportunity to get people thinking about it. And publicity for something like the John Deere deal is worth a lot in making people think organizing could work for them.

yeah if it sticks, more media focus on strikes is a welcome trend

i saw some people who cover labor complaining about erasure in this piece, but the fact that it's getting written about as a media trend is a sign something is different (for now) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/business/media/labor-unions-media-coverage.html.

my guess is labor power is about to begin a secular increase for the next few decades, not just for political reasons but because the US is trending towards labor scarcity. the trump/stephen miller reductions in legal immigration (which reduced refugee/asylum-seeker inflows by 100% and green cards by 50%) is now consensus policy, and birth-rates are below replacement. the working-age population started to shrink around 2018-19 and will probably accelerate

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=J3eH

we named the cc https://t.co/3bcwZPZjmN

— Michael Rose (@dcmichaelrose) December 13, 2021

sorry, posted reply instead of tweet

Wow. An NLRB employee has been charged with bribery and fraud. Charging doc alleges she was selling non-public info on potential union elections and ULP's to an outside labor consultant who would then sell the info to law firms https://t.co/6ybLIeD3Q8 pic.twitter.com/hh7k8Nxkp1

— Dave Jamieson (@jamieson) December 13, 2021

look at the world's tiniest legal notice on the bottom

That last bullet point is fucking despicable.#SupportWorkers #FredMeyerStrike pic.twitter.com/ydAG1aJCOC

— Shawn Levy (@shawnlevy) December 17, 2021

oh, you have to click the photo to see it taped on there

I saw someone say that line was a legal requirement in the state where that store is located.

re: crossing a picket line

it is, it lists the state statute making them say it
xp oh i'm referring to the thing taped under there, yeah

The UFCW is the only union* I've belonged to, at a Kroger. Never saw a union rep or heard from them again after the first sign-up meeting, somewhat disappointing as a 16-year old who had just read A People's History for the first time.

*excluding the IWW for ten years which was basically like a yearly PBS donation

about the only good news i see in my feed these days is labor action stuff

https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/268148823_251494930420109_4847124755181834689_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=QyC3uHr4pn0AX9h9yfu&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.xx&oh=00_AT_ZIt9Qz3-s-9jeis_ybVN2CwoVqAimeFjucTdY1RVHZA&oe=61C6FD7E

no deal until they bring back Product 19

number of american workers covered by a union fell in 2021, percent of workers covered also fell relative to 2020 but flat compared to 2019, according to BLS

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

good write-up https://www.epi.org/publication/latest-data-release-on-unionization-is-a-wake-up-call-to-lawmakers/

thanks for that flopson

You can follow the ongoing Starbucks actions at this Twitter account: https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited

Not only did REI make a union busting website, they already have a union busting podcast episode that starts with a fucking land acknowledgement!!

Liberalism is a disease, folks! https://t.co/5sp9T2O8pL pic.twitter.com/1ProLoaZQN

— Honda Wang 王宏达 (@HondaWang) February 7, 2022

How can this be, I was assured all corporations are now woke.

"chief diversity and social impact officer"

I'm a little unclear where Honda Wang's sympathies lie

Memphis Starbucks has fired 7 of its employees involved in unionization

https://news.yahoo.com/starbucks-fires-union-leaders-memphis-204249934.html

minneapolis federation of teachers on strike now, here's a recap of the last week:

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/minneapolis-teacher-strike-week-one-update/89-95a9dd41-2bbe-4724-9ef5-2be2b0738dc5

really good deep dive into the people behind the vote

https://www.thecity.nyc/staten-island/2022/3/24/22995196/amazon-workers-staten-island-union-vote

Current Vote Totals:
2050 Yes
1574 No

476 votes in ALU’s favor after resuming the count today on the last box.

— Amazon Labor Union (@amazonlabor) April 1, 2022

Memphis Starbucks has fired 7 of its employees involved in unionization

Former CEO and also former vaporware presidential candidate Howard Schultz has returned as CEO in order to crush the unionising push and its going great

If @SBWorkersUnited can win new benefits with just 9 unionized stores, imagine the gains Starbucks workers can win with hundreds of unionized stores. https://t.co/VFQF9fRb2F

— Josh Miller-Lewis (@jmillerlewis) March 31, 2022

Starbucks' appeal of a decision ordering a union election, which was due last Friday, was mislabeled and filed with the wrong part of the labor board, Starbucks' law firm Littler said in a new NLRB filing today that ends "Thank you in advance for your...professional cooperation"

— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) March 30, 2022

^ this is the second SBU union the law firm has failed to stop in recent weeks due to misfiling an appeal. Labor and employment law specialists Littler Mendelsohn PLC… welcome to the resistance

From earlier this month, guess the union busting podcast didn’t work.

VICTORY: by a vote of 86%, workers have voted to unionize with @RWDSU, officially making REI SoHo the first unionized @REI store in the nation! We go further together! #REIunion pic.twitter.com/tywvPzZAf9

— REI Union SoHo (@reiunionsoho) March 3, 2022

https://apnews.com/article/las-vegas-strip-culinary-union-casinos-hotels-804fafe363e0bc593084ab17531b2e25?link_source=ta_bluesky_link&taid=68908bb9c3133d000116313f&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

💪🏾

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/video/thousands-of-boeing-workers-strike-after-rejecting-4-year-labor-agreement/

disheartening

Teamsters pour money into GOP, shifting away from Dems
After years of loyally backing Democrats, Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien is diversifying the union's PAC to support Republicans, too.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/11/teamsters-donations-00502709

Gross.

Let's see how that works out for them.

Lining up to be the “official” (and only legal) union in the corporatist state a la Francoist Spain

oh hell yeah: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/air-canada-flights-sunday-1.7611078

Air Canada flight attendants will defy the back-to-work order and remain on strike after the federal government ordered binding arbitration to end the work stoppage, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) told Radio-Canada on Sunday.

CUPE said in a statement that members would remain on strike and invited Air Canada back to the table to "negotiate a fair deal."

"We will be challenging this blatantly unconstitutional order that violates the Charter rights of 10,000 flight attendants, 70 per cent of whom are women, and 100 per cent of whom are forced to do hours of unpaid work by their employer every time they come to work," it said in a statement.

This feels right somehow

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-09-12/sag-aftra-names-next-national-president

h/t Ned

‪More Perfect Union‬
✧@moreperfectun✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 23m
BREAKING: Starbucks workers have just authorized a massive strike.

Union Starbucks baristas voted to authorize the strike by 92%.

Now baristas in over 25 cities could launch an unfair labor practice strike on Thursday, November 13th.

get em

Rubs hands in anticipation

I mean, this should be a union issue

https://www.semafor.com/article/11/06/2025/cond-nast-abruptly-fires-4-staffers-after-hr-confrontation

Oh this is the thread for union stuff is it? I've been on strike since last week, strike ends on Friday. Been on the picket five or six times. Our CEO just resigned (or was persuaded to resign) halfway through the strike so it looks like it's chaos in the organization!

solidarity, comrade <3

Awesome, good work!

Take it easy, Tom, but take it!

Solidarity with you, Tom.

sky-high meat prices on the way

About 3,800 workers at JBS USA, the world’s largest meat producer, are set to strike on Monday in what will be the first labor strike in the industry in decades.

The walkout threatens to put further strain on US meat prices – ground beef prices soared 15% last year – and could prove a headache for the Trump administration as it struggles with poor polling on cost of living issues.

Pilgrim’s Pride, a subsidiary of the JBS Brazilian meat processing conglomerate, donated $5m to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, making it the largest single donor.

warehouse fires seem to be trending

do data centers next

organizing my co-workers to join the union so we can get recognized and start collective bargaining. am I a hero? well, if you say so.

yes, you are.

Yup

Stealing this from someone else, not my joke, but I look forward to a Hot Warehouse Summer.

ha i was being egotistical (I am trying to organize my unit but my wife who works for the same org has signed up more people than I have because she has better people skills), but thanks!

xp lol