strikes

By Peter Mencini, et. al. - Amazon Watch, May 31, 2023

By Penny Logsdon, Jeff Kurtz, and Carrie Duncan et. al. - Fight for Two Person Crews, May 17, 2022

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, April 30, 2022

In an act of solidarity with Chevron workers fighting for a new labor contract as executives boast of a record-breaking quarter, Greenpeace USA campaigners joined United Steelworkers Local 5 union members on Friday to expand the picket line onto the waters of San Francisco Bay.

Nearly 500 workers from Chevron's oil refinery in Richmond, California have been on strike for more than a month in what USW Local 5 vice president B.K. White calls "a movement of working people rising up to challenge a corporation." 

Chevron announced Friday that its profits surged to $6.3 billion during the first three months of 2022—four times as much as the fossil fuel giant pulled in over the same period last year, as Common Dreams reported. That prompted fresh calls from progressives for a windfall tax to prevent further price gouging and war profiteering by Big Oil and underscored one of the reasons why workers are demanding better pay.

"What's the answer to corporate greed?" Greenpeace asked on social media. "Solidarity!"

By Braxton Wright - Facing South, April 20, 2022

This month marks one year since 1,100 members of the United Mine Workers of America went on strike at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama following the failure of the union and company to agree on a labor contract. The strike continues today.

Warrior Met was created to buy the assets of Walter Energy after that company declared bankruptcy in 2015. A number of hedge funds own shares in Warrior Met, with New York-based BlackRock — the world's largest asset manager — controlling the most, at about 13% at the end of 2021.

Earlier this year, Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) held a hearing on Wall Street greed and growing oligarchy in the United States that used Warrior Met as a case study. Sanders invited the CEO of BlackRock to appear at the hearing, along with those from two other hedge funds and Warrior Met, but they all declined to testify.

When Warrior Met was facing bankruptcy, workers agreed to an across-the-board wage cut of 20% along with cuts to their health care and retirement benefits as part of a restructuring deal made by the private equity firms, saving the company an estimated $1.1 billion over the past five years. Since 2017, Warrior Met has paid over $1.5 billion in dividends to its shareholders while paying its CEO over $4 million per year.

"Yet, now that the company has returned to profitability and has seen its stock price skyrocket by 250% during the pandemic, Warrior Met has offered its workers an insulting $1.50 raise over five years and has refused to restore the health care and pension benefits that were taken away from them five years ago," Sanders said in a statement announcing the hearing. "Outrageously and unacceptably, the company has also demanded the power to fire workers who engage in their constitutional right to strike and give seniority to new hires, rather than miners who have given their adult lives to Warrior Met."

Among those who spoke at the hearing was Braxton Wright, a Warrior Met miner and striking UMWA member. He called on lawmakers to support the "Stop Wall Street Looting Act," a measure sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, both Democrats, to help to reform the private equity industry and to give employee compensation higher priority in bankruptcies. This is Wright's written testimony from the hearing.

By Kim Kelly - The Real News, April 13, 2022

It was supposed to be a terrible day. Thousands of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) members and supporters were scheduled to convene in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, on the morning of April 6, 2022, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Warrior Met Coal strike. But, much like the coal bosses themselves, the forecast was not cooperating. The weather report, in typical fickle Alabama fashion, had been fluctuating between rain, more rain, and certain waterlogged doom; the union had bought ponchos in bulk to prepare. As UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said before the rally, “A little bad weather isn’t going to slow us down.”

.@HaedenWright and I talk every day, so we got a little goofy when it was time to do an interview. She and the local UMWA auxiliary have kept the miners’ families fed throughout this very difficult year; Warrior Met tried to starve them out, but as she says, “We’re not starving.” pic.twitter.com/GtUFv6GO7U

— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) April 13, 2022

By the time I arrived at Tannehill State Park that morning, I was fully prepared to spend my day stuck in the mud impersonating a drowned rat. I was not surprised to see that the day’s schedule had been moved up in a bid to outrun the rain. The original start time was slated for 11AM, but the rally was already in full swing by 10:30AM. Like all UMWA rallies, this one opened with a prayer, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in the crowd hoping (or praying) that the universe would see fit to send us some good luck after all.

Buses were still arriving as speakers took the stage; according to an emailed UMWA press release, at least 1,200 UMWA members and retirees had bused in from Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, and they were joined by union members from across the South. It was a family reunion, with a greater purpose—when the call for solidarity went out, folks listened. They came to pay their respects by the hundreds, traveling across rivers and valleys and up from hills and hollers to be there alongside their afflicted siblings.

By collective - Earth Strike UK, April 10, 2022

Recently, P&O Ferries laid off 800 members of staff without a moment’s notice over a video call. While this has been widely condemned as both immoral and illegal, P&O have continued to refuse to reinstate the sacked workers. This is the latest in a string of brutal mass sackings and fire and rehire schemes, which will become increasingly common unless organised labour are able to resist it here and now.

For a company that saw its revenue reach more than $10 billion in 2021, there is no reason why 800 members of staff should be cast aside only to be replaced by contract workers who will be paid next to nothing. Capitalists don’t see ferries as an essential public service but as a means to accumulate profit. They don’t see workers as people who deserve dignity, respect and the means to live a good life, but as parts in a profit making machine. It is this same philosophy that is driving the destruction of the environment. Companies like DP World (P&O’s parent company) are among the richest in the world, incorporating ever-larger supply chains and workforces, while at the same time causing more and more damage to the environment (while shareholders receive greater and greater profits).

The way forward is for workers to utilise our power through collective action. Corporations will try relentlessly to divide us, to undermine our unions, to cut our pay and worsen our working conditions, all in the pursuit of power and profit. But workers are the ones with real power. We keep the wheels of industry turning and we can pull the brakes. This is especially the case for seafarers and dockworkers who can shut down world trade, hitting the capitalists where it really hurts.

We have already seen powerful acts of solidarity in support of the P&O seafarers: dockworkers in the UK and the Netherlands refusing to handle P&O ships stopping them from sailing, agency workers refusing to replace their fellow workers, and thousands of supporters protesting at the ports and corporate offices. We have also seen brave acts of defiance from the seafarers themselves – who initially refused to leave their ships when instructed by handcuff equipped security. Some were forcefully removed.

Earth Strike UK extends our solidarity to the P&O workers. We support the P&O boycott and call on all workers to continue to support the struggle however they can. Join the pickets, join the protests, join the boycott. Justice for the P&O seafarers!

By staff - Extinction Rebellion, April 8, 2022

Extinction Rebellion UK stands in solidarity with the 100 or more workers at Fawley Oil Refinery who will be taking strike action on 8th April. The strike is in response to the offer of a “pathetic” 2.5 per cent pay offer and a lack of company sick pay, despite Exxon’s profits in 2021 topping an eye-watering £6.75 billion.

Exxon’s business model is not built to benefit the workers who without which, they wouldn’t be able to make record profits. XR UK recognises that Exxon’s business practices not only destroy the planet but oppress and marginalize the workers that enable their activities. They choose to underpay workers and maintain the fossil fuel economy, rather than seeking to facilitate a just transition, which our own Office for Budget Responsibility says is affordable and would create thousands of jobs and save billions of pounds for the UK public.

Solidarity with workers at Fawley Oil Refinery on strike today.@exxonmobil destroy our planet, oppress their workers & prevent a #JustTransition

Today @xr_TradeUnions will visit the picket line to show our support #ClimateJustice = #SocialJustice
https://t.co/EuRhBX0Vgv

— Extinction Rebellion UK (@XRebellionUK) April 8, 2022

By Workers' Voice, East Bay - Socialist Resurgence, March 28, 2022

On March 23, members of Workers’ Voice went out to support striking refinery workers at the Chevron facility in Richmond, Calif. This strike is taking place in the wake of the United Steel Workers’ national oil pattern bargaining agreement with the oil companies, which covers some 30,000 workers at refineries and chemical plants across the country. The pattern bargaining agreement now only covers those 30,000 USW-organized oil and chemical workers whose contract expired this year on Feb. 1, which union locals had to ratify.

In Richmond, over 500 oil workers represented by USW Local 5 rejected the tentative agreement, as it was insufficient to meet their needs. They are thus striking over wages, hours, and other workplace issues, including being forced to work during the peak of the COVID pandemic. They have set up 24-hour pickets, with six-hour shifts. The union has created a solidarity fund and will cover basic expenses of workers who can’t pay their mortgage or get health care or food costs covered.

When we visited, the workers were picketing in shifts of a few dozen workers in front of the refinery gate, keeping up an optimistic mood of camaraderie and humor on a chilly, foggy day.

Many of the drivers of vehicles passing by the picket line honked their horns in support. However, a bothersome Richmond cop and one or two surly truckers wanting to drive into the facility—which the workers were trying to block—attempted, unsuccessfully, to dampen the positive atmosphere.

The grievances of the workers relate to wages and to other grievances as well. They need a raise to keep up with cost of living increases, especially in the brutally expensive Bay Area. They’re also confronting increased health-care costs. A worker told us that their new health-care plan would barely be covered by the wage increase of 2.5% currently on offer. This increase would also not keep up with inflation, which was 7% last year alone. Shopping for groceries is much more expensive now, workers we talked to said. In fact, they added, everything is more expensive.

Workers also talked about a manager who got a 10 percent raise to move up from Los Angeles. This upset workers because that manager is already making a good salary. Moreover, Chevron recently reported billions in profits, the most since 2014; but the boss always says there’s no money for workers.

But workers say they’re not just striking about money.

By Eric Dirnbach and Ksenia Fir - Labor Notes, March 24, 2022

This is part of an occasional series where we look back at the “labor episode” of a TV show. The Star Trek series Deep Space Nine has a great union episode with lessons about organizing in a customer service industry. Spoilers ahead for the fourth-season episode “Bar Association”!

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) is generally considered the most overtly political of the Star Trek franchise. Unlike other iterations of the show, it is set not on a Federation Starfleet ship, but a space station populated by individuals of diverse races whose cultures are often in stark contrast with the post-scarcity, post-capitalist Federation.

The fourth-season episode “Bar Association”—a must-watch for Trekkies interested in unions—depicts a labor struggle at the station’s prominent entertainment spot: Quark’s Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade. Bar owner Quark (played by Armin Shimerman) is a Ferengi—a member of a non-human species whose culture is very capitalistic and misogynistic. Their behavior is strictly controlled by The Rules of Acquisition, a set of tenets like “Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success—don’t hesitate to step on them.”

The workers at Quark’s Bar fall into two categories: Ferengi male waiters (Ferengi women are forbidden to work) and “Dabo girls”—a diverse group of beautiful women from non-Federation planets who act as eye candy and encourage guests to spend more at a roulette-style game. Dabo girls experience frequent sexual harassment from patrons and Quark himself.