12/4/2023 0 Comments U.s. truckers strike 2022“We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers. The news comes as the reportedly 50,000-strong group of Canadian long-haul truck drivers - dubbed the “Freedom Convoy” - made its way across the country to Ottawa this past Saturday to protest against the vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 government measures. A large number of truckers from the United States has been joining the convoy along the way.Ī rapidly growing Facebook group called “ Convoy to DC 2022” is now calling upon all truckers to join forces against the government overreach in the Land of the Free. With the union withdrawing its labor, militant disruptions, and public sympathy, the company could be forced into major concessions.Īnyone hoping that the trucker convoys will turn into a durable expression of working-class power is deluding themselves, whether they be naive leftists who see a revolution around every corner, or conservative populists offering ludicrous pronouncements about the Republican Party being a "workers' party." But history sometimes takes strange courses, and it is possible to imagine that this display of economic disruption by anti-mandate truckers in Canada and the United States could be remembered as a wake-up call for labor.Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Societyįollowing the lead of their Canadian freedom-loving colleagues, American truckers are planning to form a nationwide chain of semi-trucks and other vehicles in protest of COVID-19 authoritarian policies. The union is unlikely to officially support blockades due to potential liability, but legal mass pickets and community campaigns are likely, and it is possible to imagine some truckers (indeed, possibly some of the same truckers - there are, Sasha notes, labor unionists of all races, genders, and political orientations) taking matters into their own hands and shutting down access to major shipping corridors. The Teamsters facing off against UPS, on the other hand, have better odds. The disruption caused by the trucker protests was not sufficient to force the Canadian government into serious concessions, and they're even less likely to do so in D.C. The Ottawa convoy's target is not the boss, but an elected federal government with an incentive to project strength by rejecting demands of a group that are damaging the economy. The trucker convoy protests have little to do with traditional labor issues, and lots of Teamsters view them with disdain many of those participating in the protests are nonunion owner-operators. Sasha, the California Teamster, says that this is "common sense" with her community when she talks about the issues and notes Americans supported the last UPS strike in 1997, which won part-time workers like her healthcare benefits, among other victories. Workers would likely have political support from the Biden administration, and the sky-high profits reported by UPS may work against the company due to the sentiment that they can afford to give workers a better deal. Teamsters might like their chances in a strike against UPS, especially as memories will be fresh from the disruptions caused by trucker convoys, organized without strike pay or legal protection from a pro-union National Labor Relations Board. The IATSE union, representing film and television production staff, used this tactic to win concessions from studios, authorizing a strike with 98 percent voting in favor at a 90 percent turnout, then cutting a controversial deal passed only by slim majorities within the union. The new leadership, elected on pledges to drive a harder bargain and to prepare the union for a strike if necessary, could simply do these things with the intention of achieving a better deal at the last minute, averting a strike. The big question for workers and their union is, how far are they willing to go to end these practices and win better pay and conditions? The UPS contract expires in 2023, giving the union an opportunity for a do-over on issues such as two-tier pay structures, forced overtime, and harassment by supervisors at a company that increased its operating profits by over 50 percent in 2021. The new leader's agenda includes a promise to involve rank-and-file members on bargaining teams and, crucially, to pay out strike benefits beginning on day one, reversing a policy that had workers go without pay for over a week before the union's strike fund provided them with relief - a policy that O'Brien and allies argue undermines the threat of strikes as bargaining leverage. While Teamster politics have long been contentious and there are multiple reasons for the shift in leadership, O'Brien and his coalition tapped into a sentiment that the union needs to be more aggressive in bargaining and willing to support strikes.
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