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MSU labor expert on strikes and last year’s Big 3 walk out

UAW workers from the Lansing Redistribution Center, represented by UAW Local 1753, walk out on strike at noon, September 22, 2023
Wali Khan
/
WKAR
UAW workers from the Lansing Redistribution Center, represented by UAW Local 1753, walk out on strike at noon, September 22, 2023

On Tuesday, union dockworkers walked off ports along the East Coast and Gulf Coast. The strike isn’t expected to affect Great Lake’s ports. But, over the past month Michigan has seen some union workers call for new bargaining contracts of their own.

WKAR's Melorie Begay spoke with Maite Tapia, an associate professor at Michigan State University’s school of Human Resources and Labor Relations, to learn more about strikes, including last year’s Big 3 UAW walk out.

Full Transcript:

Melorie Begay: What does support for unions look like today, and what does that tell us about the modern-day worker?

Maite Tapia: A lot of times, there’s an important poll that we hear about. So according to a 2022 Gallup poll, about 71% of Americans support unions, and that is at its highest since 1965 so that's pretty significant.

In terms of supporting unions, we can think about that as we see more election petitions with the National Labor Relations Board, we see more workers trying to organize, trying to come together, collectively organize into union, a traditional union, an independent union.

So we'll see a lot of movement from workers, young workers at companies that we might have not seen before, such as Starbucks, Amazon, etc.

Part of what is happening is that there might be this growing sentiment, especially on the heels of the pandemic, for workers to feel squeezed by companies. There’s a perhaps growing sense of injustice in which workers now stand up and are demanding more, or a fair share of the pie from these large companies. So the pandemic, to a certain extent, has triggered that sense of worker power.

Begay: As you mentioned, this sort of encourages other people to kind of join in and maybe think about their own rights. Do you think the UAW strike last year also impacted those perceptions?

Tapia: I think so. The UAW strike last year was very significant for a number of reasons. I mean, there's a new leadership at the UAW that Shawn Fain, who very much focuses on the issue around working-class solidarity. And so other workers might recognize that and find themselves as well thinking about these things.

So you have a new leadership that focuses on issues like solidarity, and then encourages workers to stand up in solidarity with each other going on strike. So a more militant kind of active, proactive approach to demand better working conditions.

The strike itself was also quite innovative in that it was a rolling strike at these three companies. So instead of targeting only one company, UAW actually targeted all three at the same time, and then on a rolling basis, decided to strike at certain plants. Also that kind of experimentation and innovative aspect can kind of be inspiring to some extent, for other workers as well.

And then, of course, the results, right? We see that in this case, workers went on strike for a significant amount of time, but then also got better contracts, a better deal from the employer. Showing that if you stand up and you go on strike and you withhold your labor, it can bring you better conditions.
 
Begay: Now, just this past month in Michigan, we've seen an aerospace company in Jackson go on strike, and the UAW has also threatened to walk out on Stellantis. When unions go on strike, what kind of effect does that have on other workplaces?

Tapia: It can have a ripple down effect, in the sense that when auto workers, for example, go on strike, that effects also can affect also suppliers and other companies around it, right?

It has an effect in terms of that it stops part of the production, stops a part of this in production and within the supply chain. It can also have an effect in terms of, again, kind of that spillover effect of inspiring workers seeing that what is possible when you go on strike, and that these workers, for example, when with UAW, showed that they're not just striking for themselves, but also to build a larger middle class.

For all workers out there, they're striking, because when the UAW and these come and the companies then increase the wages, that often has an effect on the companies around it, in that they will also increase wages, and that's sometimes referred to as the UAW bump by the Union itself.

Begay: Moving forward, is this something that we're going to see more of? Whether it's workers trying to form their own union, or workers preparing to walk out on their companies?

 
Tapia: On the one hand, what we're seeing now might be partially cyclical, meaning that it's the result of coming out of a pandemic. It's a result of a tight labor market, when we tend to see more strikes, and so that can kind of go down.

And again over time, at the same time, we do see through certain polls that, for example, young workers are more likely to see unions as something positive for the economy and society in comparison to other generations of workers. So that might mean that these young workers are now going to keep on essentially engaging in that kind of collective work, and keep on demanding better wages, better deals, through organizing and through collectively coming together.

Whether it's through a union or an independent organization, but realizing that to get a better balance in terms of the power that the employer has versus the workers, that there needs to be some sort of collective organization.

Begay: Maite Tapia is an associate professor at Michigan State University's School of Human resources and Labor relations. Thanks for joining me today.

Tapia: You're welcome.

Melorie Begay is the local producer and host of Morning Edition.
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