Labor flexes its muscle as leverage tips from employers to workers

[Omaha Steve]

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business

Updated 10:16 PM ET, Sat October 16, 2021

New York (CNN Business)Workers are saying enough is enough.

And many of them are either hitting the picket lines or quitting their jobs as a result.

The changing dynamics of the US labor market, which has put employees rather than employers in the driver's seat in a way not seen for decades, is allowing unions to flex their muscle.

Already on strike are 10,000 workers at John Deere (DE), who hit the picket lines early Thursday after rejecting a tentative deal which would have improved wages and benefits. They joined 1,400 strikers at Kellogg (K) who are upset with seven-day work weeks and a two-tier retirement system. Other unions are preparing for walkouts of their own.

The overwhelming majority of strikers and potential strikers are doing so for the first time in their careers. Many say they are driven not just by wages or benefits. They say they are striking, or planning to strike, in a bid to do their jobs the way they believe they should be done, and to gain basic improvements in the quality of their lives, such as time with their families, which they say they deserve.

FULL story and video: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/16/economy/workers-strike-john-deere-iatse-kellogg/index.html

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R!

[onecaliberal]

2. K&R

I hope the sentiment spreads.

[multigraincracker]

3. Damn Capitalist workers.

They are teaching owners about supply and demand. Even the cost of scab workers has sky rocketed. Hello free market. Seems it applies to labor too. About time.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Wa Po with a similar story

Strikes are sweeping the labor market as workers wield new leverage

Marcial Reyes could have just quit his job. Frustrated with chronic understaffing at the Kaiser Permanente hospital where he works in Southern California, he knows he has options in a region desperate for nurses.

Instead, he voted to go on strike.

While Americans are leaving their jobs at staggering rates — a record 4.3 million quit in August alone — hundreds of thousands of workers with similar grievances about wages, benefits and quality of life are, like Reyes, choosing to dig in and fight. Last week, 10,000 John Deere workers went on strike, while unions representing 31,000 Kaiser employees authorized walkouts. Some 60,000 Hollywood production workers reached a deal Saturday night, averting a strike hours before a negotiation deadline.

All told, there have been strikes against 178 employers this year, according to a tracker by Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which records only large work stoppages, has documented 12 strikes involving 1,000 or more workers so far this year. That’s considerably higher than 2020, when the pandemic took hold, but in line with significant strike activity recorded in 2019 and 2018.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/strikes-are-sweeping-the-labor-market-as-workers-wield-new-leverage/ar-AAPCOoa