As Big Labor Enjoys a Big Moment, Strikes Paralyze Schools, Hospitals, and Perhaps Railroads

Even as one disruptive labor strike winds down out west, another one is just beginning in Minnesota and officials are scrambling to avert an even larger strike, by railway workers, that could begin as early as midnight Friday.Big labor, it seems, is having a Big Moment in 2022. Recent polls suggest that unions have the support of more than two-thirds of Americans, the highest number since the mid-1960s, even though private sector workers say they have no interest in joining the union ranks and overall union membership has been plummeting since the 1980s. In 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 10 percent of American workers belonged to a union, down from 20 percent in the early 1980s.Late Monday, unions representing about 6,000 teachers in Seattle — who delayed the start of the school year by five days in their push for higher pay and health benefits — announced that they had reached a deal with Seattle Public Schools. About 50,000 students were still locked out of classrooms on Tuesday, though, and the district did not say when schools would open.“For now, the details of the tentative agreement are confidential,” the Seattle school district said in a statement released late Monday. “SEA members will review the proposed contract and vote tomorrow on whether to lift the strike.”Red-shirted members of the Seattle Education Association had been picketing the schools since last week, demanding wage increases above the 5.5 percent cost-of-living adjustments approved by the state, as well as caps on class sizes and more nurses in the schools. Seattle schools had offered to increase pay by an additional 1 percent, to 6.5 percent. Last year, teachers in Seattle earned an average of almost $90,000.The Seattle strike was one of several walkouts in Washington State at the start of the school year. Nearly 4,000 students in Ridgefield, just north of Portland in southern Washington, remained at home Tuesday as teachers and school administrators there continued bargaining. Teachers in the Kent School District settled a strike there last week.In Minnesota, meanwhile, around 15,000 nurses walked off the job at 16 hospitals across the state Monday in what is expected to be a three-day strike over wages and work schedules. The strike is the largest by private sector nurses in America’s history. Nurses in Minnesota make an average of about $80,000 a year and are demanding a 30 percent increase in wages over the next three years.Already, signs are emerging that the strike by health care workers — spread thin by labor shortages attributed to the pandemic — may spread to other states. The 4,000 members of the Michigan Nurses Association voted last week to authorize a strike, and as many as 7,000 health care workers in Oregon did the same. Mental health workers in Hawaii and California have been on strike for more than a month now.According to the labor statistics bureau, work stoppages involving more than 1,000 workers began declining in the 1980s and had dwindled to the low double-digits by 2010. The numbers began ticking up again in 2018 and 2019, which saw 20 and 25 major strikes respectively. In 2021, there were 16 major strikes across the country.The bureau says there have been 19 major strikes so far in 2022, eight at educational institutions and five by workers at health care companies.A strike by freight railroad workers, which has been looming for nearly two months, could be the most disruptive yet. The White House said President Biden, who is famously pro-union, reached out to both sides in the dispute Monday, urging them to come to a resolution and avoid a strike that could affect nearly every corner of the American economy.Federal officials are reportedly drafting contingency plans in case the rail companies are unable to reach an agreement with unions representing about 57,000 conductors and engineers who have been prevented from striking under a federally mandated, 60-day “cooling off” period that ends Friday at midnight.Amtrak announced Monday that it was suspending some of its long-distance services, primarily out of Chicago, in anticipation of the strike. It said a strike would “significantly impact” some 21,000 miles of services outside of the northeast. Because Amtrak owns much of the tracks in the northeast, service there would be less disrupted, the company said.“Amtrak is closely monitoring the ongoing freight rail … labor contract negotiations,” the company said. “While we are hopeful that parties will reach a resolution, Amtrak has now begun phased adjustments to our service in preparation for a possible freight rail service interruption later this week.”

As Big Labor Enjoys a Big Moment, Strikes Paralyze Schools, Hospitals, and Perhaps Railroads

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