A presidential panel reviewing this labor dispute recommended that the two sides agree to a five-year contract that includes an immediate 14 percent raise, a bonus starting in 2020 and a 24 percent salary increase over the course of the contract. That’s less than the 31 percent in raises over five years the union is seeking, but more than the 17 percent previously offered by railroad management. That was enough to get some of the unions to agree to tentative deals, but not the unions representing more than 90,000 workers, including those who make up the two-man freight train crews. They appear poised to strike unless Congress acts to keep them on the job. These unions say they are not rejecting the wage offer. Instead, it’s the work rules, staffing and scheduling proposals they oppose that require them to be on call and ready to report to work, seven days a week for much of the time. If it were just wages, an agreement between the two sides would probably already be in place. “We’re not going to sit here and argue [wages] or health care. We’re beyond that,” said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the union representing the conductors, one of two freight train workers along with the engineer. Unions say the conditions at work are leading thousands of workers to leave jobs they would have previously held for their entire careers, creating unsuitable conditions for the rest of the workforce. Changing these work rules, including the on-call requirement, is the main demand. “The word has gotten out, these are not attractive jobs the way they treat workers,” said Dennis Pearce, president of the union that represents the engineers. “The employees said, ‘I’ve had enough’.”
Non-economic issues leading to other strikes
And it’s not just the railways that have reached this tipping point. On Monday, about 15,000 nurses began a three-day strike against 13 hospitals in Minnesota, saying they needed improved staffing levels and more control over scheduling in order to give patients the care they deserve and keep the nurses they need on the job. “We’re not striking for our wages. We’re fighting for the ability to have some say in our profession and our work-life balance,” said Mary Turner, a Covid ICU nurse and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, the union. the strike. More than 2,000 mental health professionals strike against Kaiser Permanente in California and Hawaii. Union members there say understaffing deprives patients of care and prevents them from doing their jobs effectively. Alexis Petrakis, a member of the union’s bargaining committee and a pediatric therapist at Kaiser for the past three years, said he had never been in a union before and didn’t expect to strike this time. But she said the poor quality of care and the company’s inability to schedule appointments for new patients for up to six weeks due to staffing issues prompted her and her colleagues to leave. “Being away from my patients is heartbreaking. But what I keep coming back to is that they were getting inadequate care,” Petrakis said. “The curtain is coming up on this broken system. It needs to change now. I’m doing everything I can so their care is better.” Teachers in Columbus, Ohio, went on strike at the start of the school year to complain about large class sizes and dilapidated schools where a lack of heating and air conditioning has created miserable classroom environments. The school district, the largest in Ohio, settled quickly.
Organization also increases workplace concerns
Grievances about working conditions, safety and quality of life issues don’t just cause strikes. They are also leading a wave in organizing efforts. These non-economic issues may seem unique to today, but they were behind the very basis of the US labor movement a century ago. Workers fighting for safer working conditions and quality of life issues such as days off, holidays, paid holidays and the 40-hour week helped unions consolidate their power in the US and led to their growth in the first half of the 20th century. Union members are not the only ones expressing concerns about these issues. Some economists attribute the so-called “Great Resignation” that saw a record number of workers leave their jobs starting in 2021, to workers’ greater focus on quality of life issues. And they say the pandemic has brought those issues to light for many workers. Beyond the impact it had on the wider workforce, concerns about working conditions led to a surge in union activism. There have been 263 strikes so far this year, according to a database maintained by Cornell University, up 84 percent from the same period last year. And there were 826 union elections in workplaces from January to July this year, a 45 percent increase from the number held in the same period in 2021, according to data from the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees the polls. The 70% success rate by unions in these votes is much better than the 42% in the first seven months of 2021. Those increases in activity would never have happened without non-financial issues coming into focus, according to union officials. “This is definitely what’s driving the voice of workers across the country. It’s not just about pocketbooks,” said Fred Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. “They want their voice to be heard. They work terrible schedules. Workers find that their bosses don’t respect their voice, they don’t respect them.” Experts agree that unions are finding new success because of workers’ anger over non-economic issues. “Unions are successful when they are based on things that workers are concerned about,” said Alexander Colvin, dean of the school of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. “The timing, the health and safety concerns, are very important,” he added. “There’s definitely an opportunity for unions there.” And experts say these issues bode well for the continued strength of unions going forward. “The rise in importance of non-economic issues … suggests a renaissance of the labor movement,” said Todd Watson, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. “Economic demand for labor will ease. The more it encompasses the demands that labor brings to the table, the better they will be able to deal with changes in the economic economic cycle.”
