Can Workers Organize a Black Friday Strike?
WireCutter strike, grassroots organizing, and Black Friday Blackout
Unsafe working conditions coupled with low pay during the pandemic has created a potential new wave of organized labor. Unions are mobilizing across the country at big name employers, like John Deere, and capturing media attention with their month-long strikes.
Perhaps the most controversial strike is a planned Black Friday Blackout on November 26th. Last year, Black Friday 2020 was the second-largest online spending day in U.S. history. If this fledgling labor movement succeeds, there’s no telling what the impact will be on the economy and workers’ rights.
Mass resignations and shifting power
The pandemic shined a spotlight on the hardships of “essential workers” in healthcare and retail. With some high fives and symbolic acknowledgement from management, these workers found themselves at risk during the worst stages of the pandemic.
Twenty-one months later, we’ve seen a massive increase in resignations as more and more workers decide that keeping their jobs is not worth their physical and mental wellbeing. The Department of Labor reported that in August, 4.3 million people quit their jobs.
Many of these resignations are in accommodation, food services, wholesale trade, and state or local government education. The regions with the largest increase are the American South and Midwest.
Today, we have a labor shortage with 69% of employers reporting they can’t find the skills they need. To entice new hires, some employers are offering higher wages, more vacation time, and even signing bonuses.
What these incentives aren’t addressing, however, is the abuse workers experience at their job which includes aggressive shoppers, insufficient PPE, understaffing, bullying, and sexual harassment.
Grassroots organizing on Reddit
American workers used to have a more powerful position for collective bargaining through union memberships, which peaked during the 1940s and 1950s. Over the last seven decades that power has eroded, bringing us to our current economic system of poor working conditions, below cost of living wages, and minimal or no benefits.
Reddit, an anonymous social media site designed around community subreddits that range in topics from international news to niche hobby groups, has risen into the spotlight as a grassroots organizing platform for workers.
The subreddit r/antiwork, a self-described group of economic radicals, has a rapidly increasing subscriber list. It’s a forum for people to talk about bad managers, broken promises, and blatantly illegal actions of their employers. Since all posts are anonymous, we can’t validate the authenticity of every claim, but their substance is still resonating with readers.
Posts include common experiences, like being bullied out of overtime pay, forced to come into work on days off, and punished for speaking up about harassment and OH&S violations.
Black Friday Blackout
From the r/antiwork subreddit, a new community and movement is growing – a spin off called r/blackfridayblackout. Redditors are urging retail workers to go on strike or call out sick on Black Friday, and for consumers to boycott the day, as part of a nationwide protest.
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year and news programs love to showcase the mayhem when consumers start shoving and trampling each other to get their hands on the best deals. Over the years dozens of people have been injured and 11 people have died.
Leading the charge for Black Friday Blackout are the employees at WireCutter, a publication that tests and reviews products. The WireCutter Union announced their intent to go on strike against the website’s parent company, The New York Times.
Their Twitter announcement said that, “WireCutter continues to bring in record revenue for the Times, which is sitting on over $1 billion in cash. Yet our members have seen next to no financial benefit from their vital contributions to this success.”
According to the union, Times management has only offered wage increases of 0.5%, despite inflation and available cash. 90% of union members voted to walk out before Black Friday if a deal is not reached.
More workers are striking
WireCutter employees aren’t the only ones going on strike. There are a number of protests across the country happening right now. Some of these unions have recently reached a deal with their employers, while others are hotly contested and may continue for weeks.
Fast food employees
Fast food workers don’t usually have access to organized labor support. But there is a growing group of workers in California who are going on strike anyways. Organizers leading the charge include employees at McDonald’s who experience serious health violations that are not being addressed, like working for locations with no AC and 16 hour workdays.
McDonald’s responded saying that the current franchise model is highly successful and that passing AB257 would make it harder for small business owners (franchisees) to manage their restaurants and teams.
Organizers are asking lawmakers in California to pass State Assembly Bill 257 (also called “FAST Act”) which would create a council that to establish, “industry-wide minimum standards on wages, working hours, and other working conditions related to the health, safety, and welfare of, and supplying the necessary cost of proper living to, fast food restaurant workers.”
United Auto Workers strike at John Deere
Negotiations are not going well for John Deere, a farm and construction machinery company. Over 10,000 members of the United Auto Workers union have been on strike for about one month – and recently rejected a tentative deal with John Deere.
Marc Howze, Chief Administrative Officer at John Deere, told CNN that, although Deere has recently made record profits, “that doesn't mean it can agree to everything that some rank and file want in a contract.” Negotiations have reached a standstill.
The company is considering using strikebreakers to keep production moving forward and increasing overseas factory production. Unfortunately for John Deere, the current labor market is making it hard to find people willing to cross the picket line and international supply chain interruptions are slowing down shipping schedules.
Kellogg workers’ union strike
Food company Kellogg Co. is dealing with a workers’ union strike that will have a serious effect on annual profits. The union recently rejected a revised offer on pay and benefits which has extended the month-long strike of 1,400 workers across their four cereal plants.
Kaiser Permanente strike
Engineers in charge of running plumbing, electricity and heating/cooling at Kaiser Permanente have been on strike for weeks. A second group, represented by the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which includes 32,000 pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare workers, has also announced that they’ll be striking from November 15-22.
This is in response to Kaiser offering, what they consider, an unfair contract amidst an historic labor shortage of healthcare workers. This strike includes thousands of workers in California, Oregon, and Washington.
The AHC Union released a strike notice that stated the recent proposal by Kaiser Permanente is coercive and “asking workers to sell out future colleagues for a 2% one-time bonus.”
Reno and Sparks bus drivers union strike
The union representing bus drivers in Reno and Sparks, Nevada has gone on strike for the third time over the last four months. They’re in disputes with the France-based parent company over wages, benefits, and scheduling. Gary Watson, President of Teamsters Local 522, said 90% of union members rejected the latest offer during a vote.
Mercy Hospital strike in Buffalo, New York
The Communications Workers of America, and their 2500 workers, have finally ratified new labor contracts with Catholic Health Systems after a 35 day labor strike. It was a highly combative negotiation with accusations from both sides.
Catholic Health accused striking workers of “brutish behavior on the picket line,” and the union says that Catholic Health had cut the health insurance of the workers on strike – and only reinstated insurance after the union ratified the new contracts. The strike resulted in the hospital having to spend millions of dollars to replace workers during the strike to operate at one third of its normal capacity.
Awaiting Black Friday
We’ll have to wait and see if Black Friday Blackout has the momentum to succeed. Workers are in a historically unique position to demand more from their employer so if companies can compromise, they may be able to avoid tanking sales and understaffing in the coming months.