{"id":59119,"date":"2023-07-31T14:43:39","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T21:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59119"},"modified":"2023-07-31T14:43:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T21:43:39","slug":"unions-flex-muscle-not-seen-in-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59119","title":{"rendered":"Unions Flex Muscle Not Seen in Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Peter White<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Solidarity across all sectors is making for a hot labor summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the hottest labor summer in 40 years, unions are demanding better contracts for working people who can\u2019t live on their paychecks.\u00a0And solidarity across all sectors is making a difference.<\/p>\n

This is the view shared by veteran union organizers, labor economists, and striking workers alike during a recent\u00a0EMS Zoom bri<\/a>efing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not have shelter, so we were homeless much of the time. We didn\u2019t have access to healthcare,\u201d said California State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, who is the daughter of migrant farmworkers. \u201cAnd, of course, we lived in poverty for poverty wages for a very, very powerful, very wealthy industry,\u201d Durazo said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that the industry couldn\u2019t afford it, she noted. \u201cIt was simply that the workers didn\u2019t have the power of collective bargaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, Durazo organized Latino immigrant workers in California to change that dynamic. \u201cThe labor movement had a vision,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Today, that vision is under threat from an array of forces, including California\u2019s sizable gig economy, which employs some 1.3 million gig workers, about half of them drivers for rideshare companies where they are classified as contractors and are therefore denied worker protections and benefits.<\/p>\n

Workers are increasingly taking to the picket line in response. Actors and writers in Hollywood are for the first time in 60 years striking together. Some 15,000 hotel workers are staging rolling strikes at 43 hotels for a $5\/hr. pay increase; UPS just signed an historic agreement that ends two-tier wages for part-timers; and auto workers at the Big Three could strike in September when their contract expires.<\/p>\n

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