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Jonah Furman Profile picture
@JonahFurman
Oct 14, 2021 • 7 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
For anyone just catching up on the 10,000 worker UAW strike at John Deere -- the largest strike in the US in two years -- here's how you can get up to speed, based on what I've written for @labornotes:
@labornotes In early September, Deere presented a disastrously bad first offer to the membership. They likely wanted to lower expectations by super-lowballing them, but ended up pissing everybody off, and members authorized a strike by 99%.

labornotes.org/2021/09/ten-th…
@labornotes They got to the edge of a strike on October 1st, but at the very last second, the UAW and Deere announced an "extension," averting a strike and further pissing off members. Then a tentative agreement that they wouldn't let anyone see for a week.

labornotes.org/2021/10/surpri…
@labornotes On Sunday, members shocked both the union and the company by rejecting the contract by a whopping 90%, with 90% of members voting. This seems to have been a wake-up call to the UAW, who quickly announced a strike deadline of tonight:

labornotes.org/blogs/2021/10/…
@labornotes Today, management continued to threaten workers and pressure them to settle, while non-union salaried workers began leaking documents to Labor Notes and expressing their support of the union members' cause.

labornotes.org/blogs/2021/10/…
@labornotes Hovering in the background of all of this is a national referendum in the UAW on direct elections for top union officers. This is in response to the historic corruption scandal, but also fueled by members anger at decades of give-backs and concessions.

labornotes.org/2021/09/auto-w…
@labornotes The Deere strike in particular is about:
--> Corporate profits against stagnating wages
--> Decades of two-tier and concessionary contracts coming home to roost
--> A member revolt against the status quo tacitly endorsed by the status quo
--> Tight labor market and the pandemic

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More from @JonahFurman

Jonah Furman Profile picture
Jan 22, 2023
I wrote about the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report on union membership in the US. By the numbers, we're still quite firmly in an era of union decline, with *almost* every union, every industry, and every state facing more or less dramatic declines in unionism.
I think there are plenty of ways to think differently about the US labor movement; the militant minority may be growing, unionism is extending into new sectors, the changing shape of the economy at large is a huge factor. But the bigger, decades-long context is that of decline.
It's most dramatic in manufacturing; we've lost 1.5 million union members in factories alone since the year 2000. But the public sector has gone down too. Even where there's been membership growth, in health & education, density has stayed flat or ticked down.
Read 6 tweets
Jonah Furman Profile picture
Dec 1, 2022
What Congress just did is make a rail strike illegal. They didn't make it impossible. From what I've seen, I wouldn't bet on a wildcat, but I wouldn't have bet on an illegal statewide West Virginia teachers sparking a national strike wave in 2018, either.
The microcosm of the US labor movement here is that every incentive now points to taking an individual way out -- collect your three years of backpay and the contract bonus, and go find another job.
The collective version -- risk it all to shut it down -- is a path rarely taken.
anyway, i don't think it's helpful to wish and hope for workers to do x y z. I do think the contract votes were closer than you'd see if there was coordinated energy for a mass illegal walkoff. i also think the leadership hasn't done any of the wink nod stuff you'd look for.
Read 4 tweets
Jonah Furman Profile picture
Dec 1, 2022
People need to understand that we’ve reached this point in rail bargaining because of a failed union strategy to rely entirely on Democratic Party leadership to get a deal, and to avoid anything that could threaten that strategy, from progressive legislation to going on strike
What happened today was the tail end of years of a union plan to hope the Democratic Party leadership would deliver. Biden sold them out, and they had no Plan B. Progressives scrambled to come up with a Plan B. Union leaders got on board when the Biden path had closed, not before
If the Congressional left failed here it was in not bucking union leaders and the White House in putting forward a bill to avert a strike *plus sick days* (and COLA and other things) before the Walsh-brokered TA. But the union leadership *did not want that*.
Read 6 tweets
Jonah Furman Profile picture
Nov 28, 2022
Full sellout from the White House for the majority of rail workers who rejected the deal the President brokered, preemptively denying them the right to strike.

This was the “which side are you on?” moment, and the White House chose the railroad bosses.

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
It is exceedingly rare in the US for the White House to have direct control over union negotiations. This one was a layup. Put forward a bill to include paid sick days. Costs the rail carriers a fraction of their insane profits. Improves freight rail service. And Biden refuses.
First reactions via text from rail workers:

“He’s a dick head”

“Fucking loser”

“RIP Democrats”

And the Dems wonder why they’re losing the white working class
Read 5 tweets
Jonah Furman Profile picture
Sep 15, 2022
This! This is the most damning thing. The entire rail union strategy was “wait til the Democrats are in charge, they’ll get us a good deal.” And then the Democrats came up with a deal that 80% of rail workers can’t live with. And now there’s nowhere left to go but the picket line
And precisely *because* the rail union leadership strategy was “hope the Dems get us a good deal” they are in a totally deferential relationship to the party, especially with midterms coming up. Their strategy was to buddy up so they can’t now outright say “man, the Dems blew it”
Let alone do something like build a meaningful contingency of Congresspeople to support emergency federal legislation to grant rail workers 15 paid sick days. Instead they have Bernie’s unrelenting pro-worker willingness to buck the party, and no other plan.
Read 5 tweets
Jonah Furman Profile picture
Nov 2, 2021
"Three dozen" workers showed up to a protest at Boeing in Auburn, WA. The company employs over 5,000 workers at that location.

But I guess that's what counts for a rebellion these days?

Meanwhile, 15,000 workers are on strike across the country for wages and working conditions.
It seems to me this is a blue collar rebranding of a longstanding anti-Federal government politics. That doesn't mean it's not real; lots of workers won't take the vaccine.
But until it reaches serious scale and takes on the employer per se, and not just Joe Biden's perceived overreach, it is mostly political theater fed by headlines. Orders of magnitude more people have quit in "the great resignation" than anything vaccine-related.
Read 4 tweets

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