Strike at Boeing was part of a new era of labor activism long in decline at US work places

Airplane assembly workers at Boeing plants near Seattle and elsewhere voted in favor end a seven-week strike at night.

Leaders of Seattle’s International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district said 59% of voting members agreed to approve the company’s fourth formal offer and the third was put to a vote.

The organized labor movement has made itself heard in recent years and the number of trade union actions has increased enormously. According to Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, there were 470 work stoppages last year (466 strikes and four lockouts), involving about 539,000 workers. The nearly 500 work stoppages resulted in approximately 24,874,522 strike days.

While the number of work stoppages increased by just 9% between 2022 and 2023, the number of workers involved in these work stoppages skyrocketed 141% to over half a million workers, according to Cornell.

Unions including the UAW, the Teamsters and, most recently, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, say they have made the sacrifices their companies asked of them during the pandemic and previous periods of need for various economic sectors. However, workers have put their foot down lately, saying now is the time for companies, which consistently post billions of dollars in profits each year, to catch up and pay workers what they’re owed.

Here’s a look at some recent conflicts between corporate America and workers.

At the end of last year the United Autoworkers The union overwhelmingly ratified new contracts with Ford and Stellantis, along with a similar deal with General Motors, that would raise wages across the industry and force automakers to absorb higher costs.

The agreements, which last until April 2028, ended controversial talks that began in the summer of 2022 and led to six-week strikes at all three automakers.

The new contract agreements were widely seen as a victory for the UAW. The companies agreed to dramatically increase wages for top workers at assembly plants, with increases and cost-of-living adjustments that would translate into a 33% wage increase.

The top workers at the assembly plant would immediately get an 11% pay increase and earn about $42 an hour when the contracts expire in April 2028.

Under the agreements, the automakers also ended many of the different wage levels they had used to pay different workers. They also agreed in principle to include new battery factories for electric vehicles in the national union contract.

UPS employees who are members of the Teamsters union approved a preliminary contract with the package delivery company last year. The run-up to the approval was acrimonious, resulting in labor negotiations threatened to disrupt parcel deliveries for millions from companies and households throughout the country.

After negotiations broke down in early July 2023, Atlanta-based UPS reached a contract agreement with the Teamsters just days before an August 1 deadline.

At the time the deal was made, full-time and part-time union workers would get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and a total of $7.50 more by the end of the five-year contract. The starting hourly wage for part-time workers was also increased to $21, but some workers said this did not meet their expectations.

UPS said at the time that the average full-time UPS driver would earn about $170,000 annually in pay and benefits by the end of the new contract. It was not clear how much of that figure the benefits represented.

As part of the deal, the delivery company also agreed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a full public holiday, end forced overtime on drivers’ days off and end the use of driver-facing cameras in taxis, among a host of other issues. A two-tiered driver pay system was eliminated and agreements were also made on safety issues, including equipping more trucks with air conditioning.

In September video game artists reaches agreements with 80 individual games having signed interim or tiered budget agreements with the performing artists’ union and accepting the artificial intelligence provisions they were seeking.

The artists have been on strike for more than a month.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists started striking in July after negotiations with gaming industry giants that began more than a year and a half ago stalled over AI protections.

The interim agreement provides wage improvements and all-round protection ‘exploitative use’ of artificial intelligence and safety measures that take into account the demands of physical performances, as well as vocal stress. The tiered budget agreement aims to make working with union talent more feasible for independent game developers or projects with smaller budgets, while also offering artists the protections under the interim agreement.

Thousands of hospitality union workers on the Las Vegas Strip reached a tentative agreement with the Venetian and Palazzo resorts in August, a first for employees of the sprawling, Italian-inspired complex that opened 25 years ago.

The Culinary Workers Union announced on social platform X, the deal was concluded after a year of negotiations. It includes more than 4,000 hotel and casino employees, from housekeepers and cocktail servers to bartenders and porters.

Bethany Khan, spokesperson for the union, said the deal reflects the major victories that have been achieved recent contracts awarded to 40,000 hospitality workers across 18 Strip properties owned or operated by casino giants MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment And Wynn Resorts.

These wins include a 32% wage increase over five years, a reduction in household workload and improved job security advances in technology and artificial intelligence.

Wage increases under these contracts will reach an average hourly wage of $35 by the end of the contracts, according to the union. Employees at these properties earned about $26 an hour with benefits before landing their last contract in November.

Unions representing 85,000 health care workers reached a tentative deal with industry giant Kaiser Permanente in October 2023 after a strike over wages and workforce levels.

The deal included setting a minimum hourly wage of $25 in California, where most of Kaiser’s factories are located, and $23 in other states. Employees would also see a 21% pay increase over four years.

The lead-up to the preliminary agreement included a three-day strike involving 75,000 employees in multiple states.

The preliminary agreement also included protective terms around subcontracting and outsourcing, as well as initiatives to invest in the current workforce and address a workforce crisis.

Hollywoods actors voted to ratify a deal with studios in December 2023 ended their strike after nearly four months, a labor dispute that has rocked the entertainment industry for most of the past year officially ended.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Performers approved a three-year contract.

Control over the use of artificial intelligence was the most closely fought issue during the long, methodical negotiations. The contract called for a 7% across-the-board wage increase, with further increases in the second and third years of the deal.

The agreement also included a hard-fought provision that temporarily derailed the talks: the creation of a fund to pay artists for future viewings of their work on streaming services, in addition to traditional residual flows paid for showing films or series.

About 45,000 longshoremen at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports returned to work in October after their union reached a deal to suspend a strike that could have ultimately caused shortages and higher prices if it had lasted.

A strike would have closed as many as 36 ports that handle almost half of the country’s cargo from ships entering and leaving the country. Such a strike would have ultimately led to shortages that would have hurt the U.S. economy if the International Longshoremen’s Association strike had lasted more than a month.

However, the dispute is not over yet. Longshoremen suspended the strike after three days, but it will only last until January 15, giving more time to negotiate a new contract. The union and the US Maritime Alliance, which represents ports and shipping companies, said in a joint statement that they had reached a tentative agreement on wages.

The conversations are now about… automation of portswhich, according to the unions, will lead to fewer jobs and other bottlenecks.