Posts tagged strike pay
A Taft-Hartley Roundup of Recent Labor News
June 25, 2025 // For just shy of 80 years, conservative Americans and the Republican Party that provides their imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance a policy consensus on labor relations based on three principles: ensuring union membership and participation is voluntary, scrutinizing unions’ operations in exchange for their government-granted powers, and protecting the public from the fallout from labor disputes. As America sits by the pool at the beginning of what might prove to be a long, hot summer, what news is there about the Taft-Hartley consensus?
Employers shouldn’t pay workers not to work: Paying people to strike should be a union’s job
April 14, 2025 // The bill is even worse than a similar one last year that would have allowed people on strike to collect UI benefits for four weeks. This year’s bill would allow for 12 weeks. You can imagine how harmful it would have been to the UI fund if this law had been in place in 2024 when Boeing machinists went on strike for more than seven weeks. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. The Employment Security Department (ESD) crunched the numbers related to providing UI benefits to striking workers in a large Boeing-style work stoppage last year. Paying 30,000 workers the max benefit under this year's version of the bill — three months — would have cost the fund around $367 million dollars.
‘Puts everything we hold dear at risk’: Libbey Glass workers frustrated after 6 months of contract negotiations
March 18, 2025 // "If people vote to strike, there will be no strike pay, there will be no unemployment," the employee said. "What's going to happen? Are they eventually going to close the plant or what?" they added. "Anything could happen. Look what's happened with other places that have closed. Our plant manager has closed plants before, so what's going to happen with us? It's scary." That employee said many people they know are looking to find other jobs, worried about their job security.
Unionized Grocery Workers Are a Sleeping Giant
February 5, 2025 // A coalition of UFCW Locals 7, 324, 770, and 3000 helped defeat the largest proposed grocery merger in US history between Kroger and Albertsons. Now these locals are collaborating on contract negotiations and sending support to the King Soopers strike in Colorado
Strike by workers at a casino near the Las Vegas Strip enters 2nd day
November 18, 2024 // After the breakthrough deals last November, the Culinary Union quickly reached similar agreements for the rest of its members at major hotel-casinos on the Strip, downtown and at off-Strip properties — with the exception of Virgin Hotels. The contracts on the Strip alone cover more than 40,000 workers. While the union pays striking workers $500 per week for picketing shifts for at least five days, union members at the picket line on Friday said that they were expecting financial pain while being out of work.
Boeing Worker Side Hustles Could Drag Strike Out for Months
September 23, 2024 // But as workers stare down the embattled manufacturer for better pay and benefits, the 33,000 members of IAM District 751 have the full benefit of a tight labor market and gig economy that provides a quick transition into jobs that help make ends meet. That gives the union bargaining leverage, potentially frustrating Boeing’s effort to swiftly end a conflict that’s costing it an estimated $100 million each day. While the battle between one of the world’s largest exporters and its blue-collar workers may look like an uneven fight on its surface, Boeing finds itself in an increasingly untenable situation with its finances so dire that it can ill afford a drawn-out paralysis.
UAW strike grows by 4,000; now affects 29,000 workers
October 11, 2023 // The 4,000 workers at Mack Trucks will join the 25,000 UAW members who’ve joined the strike since Sept. 15. The “stand up strike,” as Fain has called it, has employed selective strikes, wherein members are called to “stand up” to strike, rather than taking all 150,000 UAW members out of work simultaneously. The strike started at three facilities but has now expanded nationwide. UAW members who go on strike earn $500 per week in strike pay, paid out by the union.
Ford union hosts strike authorization vote at Louisville Assembly and Kentucky Truck Plant
August 23, 2023 // Ford Motor Co., which operates both the Louisville Assembly Plant, LAP, and the Kentucky Truck Plant, KTP, in Louisville is facing a strike authorization vote from union members at UAW Local 862 as national UAW negotiations continue ahead of a nationwide contract expiration on Sept. 14. UAW Local 862 represents roughly 12,000 rank and file workers at both LAP and KTP. The LAP and KTP union halls were open for members to cast their strike votes from 11:30 a.m. Monday to 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. According to a UAW Local 862 News Letter [sic], polling hours were increased from previous strike authorization votes with the hope of allowing more members an opportunity to vote. "Typically, elections have very low turnouts ... but strike authorization votes typically have a much different, stronger turnout, because the strike authorization affects every single member," Sheckles said.
With strike talk prevalent as UAW negotiates, labor expert weighs in
August 8, 2023 // “The biggest tool that management has in an economic strike is it can replace these workers permanently, and so the workers may never get their jobs back even if they want them back. The strike wasn’t per se illegal, but that doesn’t mean they have a permanent right to their job back if the strike ends,” Masters said. Not all workers face the same risk of replacement, however. It’s impractical to contemplate permanent replacement workers at companies like UPS, where Teamsters members are currently voting on a tentative agreement, because of the scale of that operation and the pressure to settle a contract because of the potential loss of business, Masters said. In the case of the auto industry, Detroit Three automakers can do some stockpiling of vehicles but would likely have limited capacity to prepare that way for an extended strike and would risk losing too much business to competitors as well should a dispute drag on too long. Those same factors might not favor Hollywood actors or writers, who are currently engaged in their own high-profile strikes, Masters said, noting that some of the companies involved in those sectors might be more motivated to try to break the unions. “Not all workers are equal in terms of their replaceability. I think that’s the touchstone,” he said, noting the 1981 strike by air controllers that ended in a mass firing by then-President Ronald Reagan as an example of what can go wrong for workers in a strike.
Union workers at Clarios automobile battery manufacturer go on strike
May 9, 2023 // "One of the problems is it's a concessionary contract," he said. "We're not in the mood for concessionary contracts. Today's economy is strong and our members have taken concessions when the economy wasn't. They want a fair contract and the company isn't willing. We're not going backwards in today's economy." According to the Clarios website, the company is responsible for batteries in one-third of vehicles on the road. The Holland Clarios plant was formerly owned by Johnson Controls, which was founded in 1885.