We are delighted to introduce the Power At Work Blog's newest feature: #ThrowbackThursday! This feature should spark your interest in looking back at some of the excellent content we have posted since beginning this blog on December 1, 2022.
This week's #ThrowbackThursday focuses on posts about union organizing in 2022 and an interesting look back at union growth and increased collective action during that year. With the Hollywood strikes already underway, the Teamsters-UPS negotiations just wrapping up, and a potential UAW strike, these posts offer some insight into how we got to this moment in history and a few patterns we have seen in the recent past.
Workers by the Numbers: Understanding Union Density’s Tough Math (posted on January 2, 2023)
Before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Union Members 2022 survey results, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris put the survey’s results into perspective. Among other things, he predicted that the success of 2022’s worker organizing would not be fully understood until deep into 2023. As we pass the halfway point of the year, that prediction has proved true, but we can start to see the how this next step of the journey for worker power and unions is developing with help from the insights in this post.
Workers by the Numbers Blogcast #4: Analyzing the Union Members Report with Sara Nelson and Kate Bronfenbrenner (posted on January 19, 2023)
Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants (CWA), and Kate Bronfenbrenner, the Director of Labor Education Research and Senior Lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as they analyze the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Union Members Report 2022. This conversation analyzes the numbers that Harris speculated about in the first item on this list. The Union Members Report is a critical marker of whether the union organizing successes of 2022 have pushed the needle for union membership and union density in America. Using the data provided, Nelson, Bronfenbrenner, and Harris took the temperature of collective action in the labor movement — analyzing the results and assessing what they meant and still mean to the state of worker power.
Workers by the Numbers Blogcast #6: Did Worker Activism and Strike Activity Grow in 2022? An Interview with Johnnie Kallas (posted on February 21, 2023)
There has been a lot of talk about rising worker activism and worker militancy in the United States over the last few years. But did strikes and other work stoppages increase in 2022? Only one organization has the complete information. Watch Seth Harris's interview with Johnnie Kallas of the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker here. Kallas has been counting work stoppages of all kinds since the beginning of 2021 and has issued two annual reports. The report that was the topic of this blogcast confirms 2022 saw substantial increases in the number of strikes and other collective actions. The number of strike days increased by one-third, and total strikes rose approximately 52% from 2021.