When negotiations failed to produce a new contract at a Volvo plant in Virginia this spring, its 2,900 workers went on strike.
FILE - In this June 18, 2021 file photo, UAW Members strike outside the Volvo Trucks North America plant in Dublin, Va. With Help Wanted signs at factories and businesses spreading across the nation, in manufacturing and in service industries, union workers like those at the Volvo site are seizing the opportunity to try to recover some of the bargaining power — and financial security — they feel they lost in recent decades as unions shrank in size and influence. NORFOLK, Va.
With Help Wanted signs at factories and businesses spreading across the nation, in manufacturing and in service industries, union workers like those at the Volvo site are seizing the opportunity to try to recover some of the bargaining power — and financial security — they feel they lost in recent decades as unions shrank in size and influence.
Chris Tilly, a labor economist at UCLA, said the shortages among burger-flippers and cashiers is notable “because those low-end jobs more typically have a labor surplus.” For years, companies in most unionized industries have commanded an upper hand. During the slow, grinding economic recovery that followed the 2008-2009 Great Recession, they negotiated concessions and held down pay raises. Rising health care costs further diluted wages.
During the contract talks with Volvo Trucks, workers felt more confident about demanding a better contract because other jobs were open, noted Mitchell Smith, regional director for the UAW in the South. Still, to gain major victories on a widespread scale, unions will need much more time. Last year, there were only eight strikes involving 1,000 or more workers, said Joseph A. McCartin, a Georgetown University history professor who studies labor unions. From 1960 to 1980, a period when organized labor commanded far more influence, the average annual total, McCartin said, was 282.
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