Half a Million on Strike: Lessons From the 2023 Strike Wave
By Emily McArthur. Published January 18, 2024
The year 2023 was one for the history books. Nearly half a million workers went on strike, the highest number since the 1980s, in a real step forward for the U.S. working class. But 2023 wasn’t important just for the raw numbers. Drawing on successful tactics from the past, workers began taking up bold demands and organizing among the rank-and-file to fight for them.
The surge in class struggle was fueled partly by workers’ anger at their worsening standards of living, including the historic inflation in recent years, and also by the increased leverage workers held over the bosses in the context of high employment levels.
In the United States and globally, economic conditions remain dire, despite the apparent temporary postponement of a recession. No matter what level of education or training required for your job, wages have, by and large, failed to keep up with the cost of basic necessities like rent, groceries, and transportation, all of which have risen through the roof.
The ending of covid-era programs has had a profound effect as well, and angered millions of workers struck by the sharp contrast between their daily struggles and the historic profits raked in by corporate America.
Workers are also facing dramatically worsening conditions at work. Fewer workers to cover the same shifts leads to exhaustion and long lines at grocery stores, cafes, and hospitals. Amazon warehouses have double the rates of injury compared to other corporations in the industry. Climate change fueled heat is killing logistics workers.
The question has to be posed: how can we change this situation?
Workers will never get to hear this on corporate media, but the best, and really the only, way of making our lives better is to get organized and fight back, especially by going on strike and shutting down the bosses’ profit machine.
We have seen important examples of labor fightback this last year. US auto workers at the “Big 3” auto corporations, who are members of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), went on strike and won crucial victories. Another notable strike was by the writers’ and actors’ unions, WGA and SAG-AFTRA.
The ongoing unionizing effort at Amazon’s largest airhub in KCVG in Northern Kentucky is the most important union drive in the nation. If the workers win a union and succeed in winning the first union contract at Amazon, it would be nothing short of earth shattering.
But to succeed in these battles and rebuild a militant labor movement in America, there are important lessons to be learned from the current and historic experiences.
Working Class Audacity Inspires Broader Action
Victories in workers’ struggles don’t just impact those who go on strike, it serves to inspire other workers to stand up and fight too.
And to some extent, that’s what happened in 2023. Last year’s strike wave stood on the shoulders of Striketober in 2021 and the Red for Ed movement of 2018 where educators unions were forced to strike by rank and file rebellions against bad contracts. 2018 also featured walkouts of non union workers; at tech giants like Google to fast food jobs like McDonalds as part of the Me Too movement demanding an end to workplace sexual harassment.
Then in 2020, the entire capitalist system went into shock. With the pandemic and the shutdowns, the term “essential worker” emerged into the public consciousness. And it quickly became clear that it wasn’t CEOs and middle management that were urgently needed to keep society functioning. It was nurses, grocery workers, and delivery drivers. These workers were praised as “heroes,” but often without any additional compensation. Some were able to win temporary pay bumps in the form of “hazard pay,” but often far from what was needed, while corporations made historic profits. This exposed a major underlying truth: that its workers who make society run, not billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet. They need us, we don’t need them.
We Need to Know Who’s On Our Side
And it’s that growing clarity that workers’ needs are irreconcilable with those of the bosses that is a central jumping-off point for the success of the 2023 strike wave. Newly elected United Auto Workers (UAW) president, Shawn Fain said “There’s been class warfare going on in this country for the last forty years. The billionaire class has been taking everything and leaving everybody else to fight for the scraps.”
Framing things with this level of clarity is unfortunately too rare at present in the labor movement. Too often we instead hear apologies for the mega profits of corporations, and the idea that the bosses and workers have shared interests in that profitability. This is part of the failed ideas of “business unionism” which bases itself on “partnership” between workers and the bosses, and centers around moral arguments at the bargaining table, rather than workers organizing their power and going on strike when needed.
A key example of the irreconcilable interests of bosses and workers was on display in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. One studio boss told the media “the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”.
WGA and SAG-AFTRA showed they knew who was on their side: the unions not only worked together to take on the bosses, they also led an all-out strike. Rather than taking a “one day longer, one day stronger approach,” which mistakenly believes successful strikes are a static war of attrition; they shut down every single jobsite, and actively built strong picket lines with clear messaging of how and why other workers could support them. They also took on the key question of the use of AI, and they won important gains!
A stunning 72% of Americans supported the strikers over the studios. Recognizing the importance of this support, and utilizing it to prevent strike breaking attempts by talk show bosses like Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore was crucial to winning a reported $233 million more annually for WGA members. The cross-union solidarity could have been even more impactful if WGA and SAG-AFTRA had started and ended their strikes at the same time.
Class-Struggle Approach Needed
United Auto Workers (UAW) also waged a fighting strike in 2023. A reform leadership had been elected earlier in the year, led up by new UAW president Shawn Fain, vowing to fight to take back what was lost by past concessionary contracts.
Previously, when negotiating “Big 3” contracts with Stellantis, Ford, and GM, the former UAW leadership reasoned that it was in their interest for the bosses to continue to make profits, and they only targeted one company in any given contract campaign for potential strike action. This business-unionist approach of protecting two thirds of the automaker bosses meant workers fought with one arm tied behind their backs.
This year, UAW went on strike at all three automakers simultaneously, and they fought for bold demands, including 40% raises over the next four years, an end to all tiers, job protections against the growing threat of non-union Electric Vehicle production, and a 32-hour work week with 40-hours pay.
Using their strike and the leverage of autoworkers in the economy, they scored big wins like a 25% pay increase and huge steps towards erasing the viciously divisive system of tiers . The wage gains in the contracts were four times bigger than gains in the 2019 deal. The significance of this victory is enormous, with thousands of non-unionized car makers being forced to give what’s been dubbed the “UAW bump”–between 9-25% immediate raises!
This contract points to what’s possible when fighting demands are paired with militant strike action. This contract rolled back the tier system that had previously locked in all new hires to permanent lower wages. It also won the guarantee to reopening of the Stellantis Belvidere plant which houses thousands of jobs.
But there were limitations to the strike that need to be reflected on in rebuilding a fighting labor movement. Shawn Fain’s limited “Stand-Up Strike” strategy meant that most workers never went on strike and the automakers were under far less pressure to concede to the workers’ demands. The pro-business outlet Automotive News reported, “Fain’s selective strike – which in the end closed nine assembly plants and 38 parts distribution facilities – still allowed roughly two-thirds of the automakers’ plants to continue to churn out cars.”
As the strike dragged on for weeks, UAW members expressed a desire to escalate more rapidly to put pressure on the bosses. Rather than going out one-a-week, there was a hunger to go all-out.
This frustration and a feeling that the strike was settled without mobilizing the full strength of members was shown in the vote on the contract. After a resounding 96% strike authorization vote, some facilities saw as much at 45% of the workforce vote no on the contract. More rank and file involvement in the strike decisions could have brought more pressure to bear and won more concessions from the bosses like the exciting 4-day workweek demand UAW started the strike with, but unfortunately dropped.
One feature of the UAW strike that stands out as a major lesson going into 2024 was how the union navigated the pressures of the Presidential Election cycle. UAW refused to jump on the train of unions offering early endorsements to Joe Biden. Instead, Shaun Fain and UAW demanded political concessions: they wanted Biden to come out publicly supporting the unionization of electric vehicle plants. Using their power this way forced the historic moment of Biden and Trump both being forced to speak at pro-union rallies supporting the UAW strike, increasing pressure on the bosses.
What About 350,000 UPS Workers?
UPS Teamsters, like UAW, also have enormous leverage in the economy. All summer, Teamsters across the country engaged in strike preparations. They participated in “practice pickets”, and walked out on insulting offers from management. Every corporate media outlet offered dire predictions of how UPS workers, who handle six percent of the US GDP, could bring things to a screeching halt.
Just days before the contract would have expired, Teamster president Sean O’Brien accepted a tentative agreement. That tentative agreement included important gains in terms of heat protections, and a 48% wage increase over 5 years for part-time workers.
Those gains showed the UPS bosses’ fear of a strike and the leverage UPS workers had in their contract fight, but they were also far less than workers demands.
Unfortunately, rather than building on their strike preparations to carry out strike action and win more, Teamster leadership carried out a full court press touting how it was the strongest contract in history. The media and Democrats like Biden celebrated that a supposedly calamitous strike had been averted while circulating an image from Teamsters leadership claiming workers would now take home $180,000 a year. But this number isn’t what the majority of workers will take home: only the most senior drivers working substantial overtime will see that kind of money.
A group called Teamsters Mobilize advocated UPS workers should fight for more. They reasoned that if the bosses were already willing to scrap the hated two-tier “22-4” position, strike action could win gains like air conditioning in all trucks rather than only in new trucks as in the tentative agreement.
The UPS contract won substantial gains, including the right not to be monitored by driver-facing cameras, but over 21,000 Teamsters voted “No”.
What’s Next?
One of the key lessons from 2023 is that the strike is the best tool for class struggle to win working-class victories. This is a hallmark of “class struggle unionism,” which is the basis on which the American Labor movement was built. It places the strength of a union on the mobilization of its members and the clear understanding that the interests of the bosses are in conflict with those of the workers. This stands in contrast to business unionism, which places its faith in playing ball with the bosses.
The important union drive at Amazon’s KCVG air hub is a clear example of class struggle unionism. Rank-and-file workers fighting for bold demands like $30 an hour, 180 hours paid time off, and translation services for all who need them. Recognizing that the workplace is a battlefield to fight for the needs of workers, their families, and their broader community makes class struggle unionism a tool that taps into the huge support workers have against the bosses.
Another lesson from last year is that neither the Democratic nor the Republican party is on the side of workers. We’re told by corporate media and the political establishment that voting is the only way to change the state of affairs. But Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which it’s becoming clear are the only choices the major parties can muster, don’t offer any way forward. That’s obvious to many working people from their actual lived experience with both these disastrous administrations in the White House having brought us to where we are. While Trump’s right-wing populism is a continued danger to working people, we also saw how Biden, as the supposedly “most pro-union president in history” was eager to break the rail workers strike to protect rail boss profits.
The power demonstrated by workers in 2023 is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle. The thousands of workers who have submitted union cards to UAW in the wake of their strike is a testament to this. Shawn Fain has announced an ambitious strategy to organize a “general strike” in 2028 by lining up major national contracts.
These developments are exciting, but they won’t happen without successful rank-and-file organizing and clear, bold demands that draw ever-wider layers of workers into the fight.
Winning the inclusion of electric vehicle battery factories under the UAW master agreement is a victory that depends on the essential task of organizing the unorganized. Unionizing the new battery facilities will need to contend with some of the oldest union-busters in the game at Ford and Stellantis. Bosses will not be eager to double the wages for those workers, and will not hold back on intimidation tactics to keep the union out.
And of course there is the issue of the 2024 presidential elections.
Elected officials from both major parties mostly do the bidding of the bosses and at best sit on the sidelines. Workers need a party that is willing to fight. One that will stand with picket lines against the bosses. One that will actually fight for Medicare for all, a $25 minimum wage, and free college education. One that will demand a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US funding for the Israel war machine. But to build such a party, workers need to get organized.
Unpacking the lessons of the 2023 strike wave is central to making sure that working class people and youth continue to gain ground against the bosses.
The time is now, and working people urgently need to get organized to fight for a better future. Join the movement by becoming a member of Workers Strike Back today!
