12/15/2021
This is paywalled (but employee-owned) site has a great piece on Wirecutter's recent union strike:
"The agreement, according to the union’s threaded tweets, includes immediate pay increases, a salary floor, guaranteed annual raises, and a host of other provisions related to hiring, workplace protections, and benefits. It’s a win for the union, which went on strike around the Thanksgiving holiday—leaving managers to run it without the people who do its actual work during what’s typically one of the site’s busiest and most important times of year. The union then filed a labor grievance with the National Labor Relations Board after Times management retaliated by withholding the holiday pay to which the striking workers were entitled.
"[...]
"Then Wirecutter Union went on strike for five days, and got big pay raises. The point here is not to bag on the Wirecutter Union’s willingness to negotiate before striking—the threshold for persuading workers to take such a step is understandably sky-high; its members are heroes, and I want to hug every one of them—but to suggest something about the relative efficacy of two approaches to dealing with management. I don’t think it’s an accident or a coincidence that Wirecutter’s workers got a better deal so soon after removing “…and we’ll continue showing up to work for you day after day even if you don’t give it to us” from the back half of their demands. The moral of this story is: What works isn’t just asking for something, or threatening something, or making public your ongoing dissatisfaction with something; what works is doing something.
"American workers have spent these horrible pandemic months showing that they’re increasingly alert both to the fundamentally sh*tty terms of work in this society—to be clear, one in which workers in an Illinois Amazon warehouse and in a Kentucky candle factory died this week because their bosses wouldn’t allow them to seek safety during a tornado—and to their power to reject those terms. Millions have quit their jobs; workers in fields as disparate as music and tennis have taken big steps toward organization; unionized workers have gone on strike across a host of industries. Amid all this, maybe you’ve felt an impulse to—as the Wirecutter Union admonishes at the end of the thread of tweets laying out the spoils of its victory over Times management—”Unionize your workplace! Come together & demand better.” That’s good, and righteous; I recommend you do it."
Then Wirecutter Union went on strike for five days, and got big pay raises. The point here is not to bag on the Wirecutter Union's willingness to negotiate before striking—the threshold for persuading workers to take such a step is understandably sky-high; its members are heroes, and I want to hug...
