There are dangers in companies frustrating workers who unionize

One wonders whether rising rumbles and grumbles within the rank and file of new unions are warnings of a volcanic eruption of outrage.

Too many employers’ labor-relations strategy with a startup union is common – delaying and denying workers' rights – and it will take creative concerted activities to make it too costly to remain effective.

Among the challenges facing is whether the Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Apple, Chipotle and REI workers who have unionized over the past two years will get first contracts, or will anti-union employers defy the law.

The first Starbucks store unionized in December 2021 (in Buffalo, New York). Try to dismiss xx actually more than 9,000 baristas at more than 360 stores where workers have voted to unionize.

The first REI store unionized in March 2022 (in Manhattan), followed by seven other REI stores unionizing.

The first Amazon unionization was in April 2022 (a warehouse on Staten Island). Christian Smalls, who led the Amazon Labor Union’s landmark effort to organize 8,300 workers there, said that no progress has been made toward negotiating a first contract and no bargaining sessions have even occurred.

The first Apple Store to unionize (in Towson, Md.) was in June 2022, and corporate arrogance and vanity have stymied progress.

“They’re the most conceited company I’ve ever dealt with,” said Jay Wadleigh, a business representative with the Machinists’ union, which workers voted to join. “They think they have all the answers.”

(However, bargaining has stepped up since Apple hired a Walgreens executive to run negotiations, replacing attorneys from the notorious Seyfarth Shaw law firm. “I honestly don’t think they want to be compared with Starbucks or Amazon,” he said.)

Workers at Trader Joe’s in Hadley, Mass., became the first Trader Joe’s to unionize in July 2022, and now realize that nonunion workers keen on getting a union contract have to first overcome resistance and retaliation, and then try to bargain with defiant companies that boldly break the law rather than bargain.

None has a contract; few are even negotiating.

Research shows none of these examples is an outlier. In a 2009 study of five years of union elections across the United States, Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, found that slightly more than half of unionized workplaces (52%) didn’t reach a contract within a year of first unionizing. More than one-third (37%) had no contract after two years, and 30% still had no contract after three years, according to The New Republic.

Delays have gotten worse, too. A Bloomberg Law survey showed that between 2005 and 2007, the average or mean amount of time it took to reach a first contract after unionizing was 364 days, but by 2022, the average length was 565 days.

The strategy is absurd but not insane. There are few legal consequences for violating labor law. Also, there’s an ulterior motive in dragging out negotiations. After a year following workers unionizing, the bargaining unit can legally try to decertify the union they chose.

Companies can wait out the clock.

Maeg Yosef, a Trader Joe’s worker in Hadley, told TNR. “They’re absolutely trying to wear us down.”

In Illinois, the National Labor Relations Board last month upheld the results of a union election at a Portillo’s preparation facility in Addison – where workers voted 28-20 to unionize with the Iron Workers last April – after multiple challenges by the company – which immediately said it planned to appeal once more.

Shelly Ruzicka, a spokesperson for Arise Chicago, an independent Chicago-based workers center that’s been organizing with Portillo’s workers for more than two years, described the new appeal as “yet another stall tactic for the inevitable need to sit down and negotiate with their workers.”

There are options for workers facing a company’s refusal to bargain in good faith, but none is foolproof.  “There’s essentially nothing under labor law that forces employers to bargain,” said Bronfenbrenner, co-author with Tom Juravich, of “Union Tactics Matter: The Impact of Union Tactics on Certification Elections, First Contracts, and Membership Rates” for the George Meany Center for Labor Studies.

Everyday workers’ frustration is building, and possible solutions vary:

* Change the law. For instance, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which the House passed in 2021 (but it died in the Senate because it couldn’t get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a GOP filibuster). The PRO Act says that if no first contract is reached within 90 days after negotiations begin, either side can request mediation. If mediation doesn’t succeed within 30 days, they’re to select an arbitration panel that will decide the terms of a two-year first contract.

* The NLRB and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has ruled on multiple Unfair Labor Practice charges, displaying frustration with employer scofflaws. Abruzzo has even proposed eliminating a 1970 decision the board from imposing financial penalties on law-breaking companies. In situations where companies don’t bargain in good faith, she advocates :making employees whole with monetary relief for the lost opportunity to make gains through the collective bargaining process.”

* Go to court. In September, an NLRB judge in Seattle began a trial that could conclude this winter that could determine whether Starbucks failed to bargain in good faith. After the trial began, union organizer Liz Duran said, “It shouldn’t take a year and a half to get to the table just because they don’t like the way that we’ve all decided that we want to bargain with the company.”

* “Corporate campaigns.” Bronfenbrenner said workers “have to find a way that costs the company more not to settle than to settle”—for example, pressuring investors or blocking a company’s expansion plans or interfering with its supply chain. “Unions might have to do all of that,” she told TNR, “before companies come seriously to the table.”

A classic example was the United Farm Workers national grape boycott, a difficult action but one that eventually forced growers to reach a contract in 1970. In fact, after Starbucks workers walked out at more than 200 locations in November and the idea of a boycott was raised, Starbucks wrote to the union in December and claimed it wanted to resume negotiations. However, progress remains elusive.

Clearly, if the pressure continues to increase, more drastic, desperate responses could happen.

No employer is “earthquake proof.”

Looking back, looking ahead - organized labor had gains in 2023

In many ways, 2023 was a great year for labor.

 

There were almost 400 strikes in 2023, according to Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations “Labor Action Tracker,” and the federal Bureau of Labor Relations found that work stoppages involving at least 1,000 workers was the most in 10 years, In 2023, more than 500,000 U.S. workers hit the bricks, reported Bloomberg Law, which also said unionized workers’ wage hikes in 2023 averaged 7% – the most in 16 years.

 

 “Meanwhile, non-union employers feel pressure to raise wages to stop their workers from organizing, when for years declining union density put downward pressure on wages,” commented Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell. Also, “the groundswell of public support for unions also has strengthened labors’ hand in local and state labor policy issues.”

 

Labor increased union members by about 300,000 last year, but the total is still just 10.1% of U.S. workers. Nevertheless, a resurgence has happened before. In the 1930s, the percentage of the work force that was unionized grew from 13% to 27% in two years.

 

Unions are still buzzing about a few huge victories:

 

* Kaiser Permanente health-care workers struck for three days and ended up achieving a 6% raise and improved staffing.

* SAG/AFTRA took on the movie industry – along with the Writers Guild – and arguably won its 118-day strike.

* The Teamsters merely threatened to walk out at UPS and won a new contract that made up for years of concessions.

* The United Auto Workers stood up to the Big 3 in an innovative 46-day strike and reached an historic settlement.

 

The big strikes were against powerful corporations, too – impressive successes built in part on ambitious internal organizing and an increased transparency for the rank and file. It was no coincidence that the major work stoppages were by unions benefiting from new leadership – and new, more militant attitudes – by Fran Drescher (Screen Actors Guild), Sean O’Brien (Teamsters) and Shawn Fain (UAW).

 

“This year alone, 900,000 unionized workers won double-digit wage increases through new contracts. In an era of so much financial uncertainty, union-negotiated contracts are putting money in workers’ wallets that will allow them to pay bills in full, put food on their tables and fuel local economies,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Across the country, we’re seeing the highest level of popular support for unions – especially from young workers – in decades.”

 

Indeed, 67% of Americans approved of union, according to Gallup.

 

Further, President Biden became the first U.S. president to be at a strike’s picket line when he stood with Fain at a UAW rally in Belleville, Mich., and other improvements ranged from African American workers in the South starting to revive organizing in the region, and labor helping to open up the historically anti-union tech sector, and robust unionizing campaigns at many college campuses.

 

Unfortunately, with gains were losses – of key labor leaders and allies, including Illinois leader Ed Smith from Laborers Local 773, Steelworkers President Tom Conway, domestic-workers advocate Myrtle Witbooi, past AFL-CIO President Thomas Donahue, longtime arbitrator Donald Wasserman, AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust CEO Stephen Coyle, Florida AFL-CIO leader Mike Williams, and union activist and writer Jane LaTour.

 

For 2024, the UAW – busy with a continental campaign to organize non-union auto workers and already collecting signature cards at VW in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Rivian in Normal, Ill. – is going to be at or near labor’s vanguard, and it seems promising to see regular working people increasingly engage and energize.

 

Ahead: The Teamsters already have authorized a strike at Anheuser-Busch (their current pact expires next month); the UFCW will take on the Meijer grocery chain (expiration also in February); the UAW at Daimler Trucks (April), CWA at AT&T (also in April on the West Coast, and in the Southeast in August); the Post Office’s Rural Carriers (May) and the APWU (September); 170,000 Theatrical Employees bargaining two national contracts (in May and July); teachers preparing for tough negotiations (June in Chicago and August in Philadelphia); International Longshoremen on the East Coast (September); Machinists at Boeing (September); and Flight Attendants’ unions at different airlines (already working without a contract).

 

“As we know, the power of a membership card goes beyond just a higher paycheck,” Shuler added. “Whether it was watching the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA establish critical contract language around artificial intelligence; United Auto Workers of America’s fight to ensure the future of electric vehicles is union strong; UNITE HERE’s precedent-setting victories in the hospitality industry as we bounce back from the COVID tourism slump; National Nurses United’s (NNU’s) unrelenting advocacy for safe staffing ratios or countless other groundbreaking campaigns, we saw workers join together to demand a fairer, more-democratic economy and future for us all.”

 

It could be another great year.

Some Theatrical Employees may follow other unions’ reform examples

Craig Chladney is busy. The president of Local 193 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), he recently said he “spent most of my day working Nelly at the Civic Center, then I got a call and now I'm running sound for Nelly's sister's girl-group at Big Al's. Running sound for rappers in a strip club one night and for an Indian cultural celebration in an auditorium another – you never know what the day is going to bring.”

 

Another IATSE worker said sometimes it's necessary to work every day for weeks with no days off (much less life outside of the job), and Chaldney said, “It's definitely not unusual to work many days in a row. In our industry, a day can be a 3-4 hour day, and it's not uncommon to do several 18-20 hour days in a row. It's an industry where if there's work, we work it, and if there's not, then we're off, and can be for out of work for quite a while.”

 

During the six-month twin strike by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), many IATSE members weren’t striking but nevertheless were affected, some will not have worked for almost a year because the film/television industry isn’t expected to be back at full production strength until next month.

 

The 170,000-member IATSE – representing sound engineers, stagehands, grips, sound mixers, camera operators, editors, lighting technicians, animators, set builders and more – supported the strike.

 

“It's nothing that directly affects my local,” Chladney said, “but the biggest arguments are the extreme long hours of a filming schedule as well as the crazy uptick in profits versus stagnant wages. It's definitely a national concern for the union.”

 

Meanwhile, some elements of IATSE are advocating for a stronger approach as negotiations on the union’s primary national contracts are expected to start in March.

 

The two contracts are the main pattern-setting agreements they work under: the Hollywood Basic Agreement (HBA) and the Area Standards Agreement (ASA), both of which expire July 31. The HBA covers about 40,000 members across more than a dozen locals; The ASA is patterned after the HBA and covers 20,000 additional workers nationwide.

 

Some members are unhappy with the last bargaining, in 2021. Then, IATSE’s rank and file barely rejected the proposed HBA and only just supported the ASA. But the international’s ratification process – in which members vote for delegates, who ultimately have the final, independent say – approved both tentative agreements, with a combined tally of 349-282.

 

Some IATSE workers have launched the Caucus of Rank-and-File Entertainment Workers (CREW)

“CREW came together [when] we realized that to get the change that we wanted, we had to form and organize outside the union and interlocally,” said sound mixer Victor Bouzi, a CREW member. “The last [negotiation], we got a 3% pay increase, but that did not keep up with inflation. And we need to bring the equity pay scale among the genders.”

 

CREW is advocating stronger contracts, better solidarity, member education and improved union democracy, a change to one member, one vote in direct elections for top leaders.

 

“In mid-state Illinois, the national contracts don't affect most of what we do, but they tend to set some of the standards going forth,” Chladney said. “Recent contracts with Hollywood were more significant than most just due to the fact that they were adding some very large new sections for things like AI and streaming and such, which is something that doesn't currently affect most of the other areas of our industry, but eventually probably will.”

 

IATSE has never gone on strike on a national, industrywide scale, but in a prepared statement a spokesperson for IATSE International said, “We will fight aggressively at the table to achieve a contract that reflects our members’ priorities and their invaluable contributions to the success of the entertainment industry.”

 

Elsewhere, union reform has happened, of course, from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to UNITE HERE, and most notably, and recently shown, in bargaining by the revived Teamsters and successful strike by the UAW.

 

Whether Teamsters for a Democratic Union or Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAW-D), ending corruption has been one key, along with fighting autocracies where workers feel disconnected from union leadership and question the need for labor to organize.

 

Today, some loyal dissidents are reportedly pressing for change in the United Food and Commercial Workers for instance.

 

“Although UFCW has many progressive locals, it’s a complex organization dominated nationally by a culture of collaboration with its members’ employers,” wrote Peter Olney and Rand Wilson. 

 

“In 1979, the more progressive Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen merged with the Retail Clerks International Union to form the UFCW,” continued Olney (a retired ILWU organizing director) and Wilson (a long-time organizer who’s been with the Teamsters and established the Massachusetts Jobs with Justice). “The more conservative culture of the Retail Clerks, which largely favored employers, dominated the merger.”

 

Union democracy and mass participation are practical and strategically essential, argue Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor, co-authors of “Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations.”

 

“There’s so little experience in the United States of workers in the working class getting the experience of what it means to govern and actually run something,” McAlevey says, pointing to efforts within the Amalgamated Transit Workers, which last year began “to move all of their local unions to transparent, big, and open negotiation.”

 

The approach, Lawlor adds, “has three core elements [to] negotiations that are big, open, and transparent.”

From central Illinois, it’s difficult to see the promise and pitfalls of IATSE and its CREW.

 

“The majority of members seem to be happy with the current International leadership,” Chladney said. “No union ever has 100% satisfaction, but it seems the good majority are behind their efforts.

 

“Nationally, there's always grumblings from a portion of the members no matter how good or bad a contract is, so everything is taken with a grain of salt,” he continued. “Every contract could always be better, but sometimes there's a point where you have to make compromises to get the job done.”