The Historic Battles of “Hot Labor Summer”

August 1, 2023 11:01 AM

TODAY: 99-year-old trucking company Yellow shuts down, putting 30,000 out of work, including 22,000 Teamsters. NPR reports that both the Teamsters and Yellow's management blame each other for the shutdown, with the freight company claiming that the threat of a strike induced volatility and crashed the stock price. What else is going on in organized labor in the U.S.?

(Title courtesy of The New Yorker's "Political Scene" podcast)

Previously on Metafilter: SAG/AFTRA goes on strike along with WGA, who began striking in May

Early July: Thousands of hotel workers in southern California returned to work Wednesday after a three-day strike demanding higher wages and better benefits, but the union says the walkout was just “the first wave” of action. The Westin Bonaventure, L.A.'s largest hotel, avoided a walkout by agreeing to wage increases, pension contributions and scaled-back hours.

JUNE: United Auto Workers, whose contract expires in September, prepares to strike against Big Three automakers. Electric vehicles are expected to be a contention point.

Starbucks workers join in a weeklong strike over stores not allowing Pride décor. Meanwhile Starbucks workers in Farmingville, NY strike over union organizer's firing. [Archive link]

“Starbucks has employed both legal and illegal tactics in its effort to prevent workers from organizing,” said the Economic Policy Institute. Examples include requiring workers to attend “captive audience meetings,” a common union-busting tactic during which employers can discourage employees from joining a union, interrogate workers about the organizing campaign, and distribute anti-union materials. Starbucks is also alleged to have hired out-of-state support managers to monitor employee behavior and discourage unionization.

This week: UPS workers reach a tentative contract deal with management days ahead of strike deadline

Communication Workers of America files another unfair labor charge against eBay-owned TCGplayer.

In total, CWA has filed four ULP charges with the NLRB against TCGPlayer. These include interfering with, restraining and coercing employees engaging in protected and concerted union activity, interrogating workers, surveilling employees wearing insignia identifying them as supporters of TCGunion-CWA by management and CEO Chedy Hampson, as well as illegally forcing employees to attend mandatory anti-union meetings to influence their decision about whether or not to join a union. (via CWA's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees)

It is thirty-four days until Labor Day!

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (22 comments total)

I almost made a post about this yesterday, but glad I didn't cuz you did a much, much better job than I would've. The mainstream coverage I've been reading about the collapse of Yellow implies (and sometimes directly blames) the Teamsters and unions in general were at fault.
posted by slogger at 11:22 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

another quality post from The PG

this is lots to dig into, thank you!
posted by elkevelvet at 11:26 AM on August 1, 2023

The article I read about Yellow was saying they have been running on fumes for quite some time, with pandemic loans delaying their inevitable demise, trying to outcompete other shippers on price and not meeting their own expenses.

Although that might have been a labor-friendly news source I was reading, I don't recall where now.
posted by Foosnark at 11:32 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

CNN:

The closing is bad news not only for its employees and its customers, who generally used Yellow because it offered some of the cheapest rates in the trucking sector, but also for US taxpayers. The company received a $700 million loan from the federal government in 2020, a loan that resulted in taxpayers holding 30% of its outstanding stock. And the company still owed the Treasury department more than $700 million according to its most recently quarterly report, nearly half of the long-term debt on its books.

Trump's Solyndra?

Yellow’s stock lost 82% of its value between the time of that loan and Thursday close after reports of the bankruptcy plans, closing at only 57 cents a share. It bumped up 14 cents a share on Friday, but still remained a so-called penny stock.

It has since bounced back up to $3.15. Up nearly 80% since open today. Hmm.

Reuters: Apollo leads deal for trucking firm Yellow's bankruptcy loan
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:37 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

This wouldn't be a tactic to shed the union staff while retaining the durable, contractual and financial assets, would it?
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2023 [15 favorites]

Power to the People! Right On!

Seriously, 1.2bn in debt? Unbelievable. But those damn unions...

And we all get to pay for it, because, reasons.
posted by Windopaene at 11:50 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

NYC public hospital nurses win a new contact (twitter link)
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:17 PM on August 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

yeah, that debt load caught my eye...i don't think blaming teamsters is so accurate.
posted by j_curiouser at 12:17 PM on August 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Meanwhile in LA the Medieval Times knights are still on strike! And the company is suing the union for trademark infringement for use of the Medieval Times name and "middle ages themed" logo.

My husband is in his first year as partner at a union-side labor law firm. He's... busy!
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:24 PM on August 1, 2023 [16 favorites]

A 700 million loan.

A few years ago.

I smell a rat.

GET THE GIANT INFLATABLE RAT
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:39 PM on August 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

I've seen some talk from science fiction convention-runners that Yellow had become unreliable.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:43 PM on August 1, 2023

Related, one of my very earliest posts, to the green, in 2005: Why do some American transport companies named "Yellow" paint their vehicles orange? Received its Best Answer in just 9 minutes.
posted by Rash at 1:08 PM on August 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

When I worked at a warehouse, we got a delivery from Yellow, a 2-1/2" high pallet of metal bathroom partitions that was just mangled, crunched and had forklift tire marks over the top. As much work as that particular shipment created for me, I do have to say that I was impressed by that feat.
posted by azpenguin at 1:32 PM on August 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Trump's Solyndra?

You know the media will somehow make it be Biden's fault, same as COVID.
posted by spitbull at 1:51 PM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

There’s also a strike at Leinenkugel brewery; skip that Summer Shandy, folks!
posted by TedW at 4:04 PM on August 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

Nurse strikes earlier this summer in Kansas and Texas
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:04 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you want a union alternative for Magic the Gathering cards to TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom's new union just managed to negotiate a contract.

Mind you, given how many months of heel-dragging by management it took, I'd take the "excited" part with a grain of salt XD
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:41 PM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Card Kingdom has been my FLGS for many years. Glad to see they are doing the right things.

Of course when I asked if they had Big Boss the salesperson had no idea what I was talking about, but...
posted by Windopaene at 8:24 PM on August 1, 2023

After one of my favorite boardgaming podcasters bemoaned that shipping to Canada is fraught right now “Because of the dockworkers strike — which I support, of course!”, I started substituting “consequence for managerial incompetence and corporate greed” for “strike”, so as to make it more obvious where the problem lies.
posted by Etrigan at 4:36 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Kaiser Permanente workers picket across California, claim unsafe staffing levels, CBS:

Workers say there has been a health care staffing crisis at Kaiser for years, exacerbated by the pandemic with many departments constantly short-staffed. They say this makes it difficult to provide quality care, leading to long wait times, mistaken diagnoses and neglect.

US healthcare workers focus on pay and understaffing in fight for new contracts, The Guardian:

Unions representing more than 85,000 healthcare workers have held pickets at 50 facilities across California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado amid new contract negotiations as their current union contracts are set to expire on 30 September.

The negotiations at Kaiser Permanente are the third largest set of contract negotiations in the US in 2023, behind the 340,000 workers at UPS who will be voting on a tentative agreement this month that was reached days before planned strike action, and 150,000 autoworkers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis whose contracts are set to expire on 14 September.

posted by kristi at 1:46 PM on August 3, 2023

SAG/ WGA Strike Solidarity poster
posted by Artw at 9:41 AM on August 16, 2023

AP headline: Americans are divided along party lines over Trump’s actions in election cases, AP-NORC poll shows

Actual poll:
Overall, 35% of Americans have a favorable view of Trump and 62% unfavorable. Among Republicans, though, seven in 10 view the former president favorably, and about 6 in 10 say they want him to make another run for the White House.
posted by Artw at 10:10 AM on August 16, 2023