The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has negotiated a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The strike of 60,000 film workers—which would have massively disrupted the entertainment industry— has been temporarily averted. Their tentative contract, however, must still be voted on by membership, and there remains some doubt about which way the vote may go.
Across several strike actions, workers are rejecting two-tiered wage systems, which give significantly lower wages and benefits to new hires.
Waves of strikes and union actions have been popping up across the country for months now, reaching a crescendo this month in the largest surge in union activity seen in years. IATSE members, like so many union members across the country, are angry and discontented, and they’re ready and willing to walk off their jobs if need be.
If IATSE does ultimately decide to strike, they would join 1,400 workers at Kellogg, more than 10,000 John Deere workers, and more than 2,000 health care workers at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, all of whom have taken to the picket line in recent weeks.
Additionally, 24,000 health care employees at Kaiser Permanente in California and Oregon have authorized a strike. These workers are joining coal miners, bus drivers, and classical musicians in fighting for higher wages and better working conditions.
Across sectors and unions, for both craft and industrial laborers, the working conditions and the contract demands of unionized workers are astonishingly similar. Workers are exhausted from overwork and lockdown conditions. Simultaneously, due to the labor shortage and overtime work driven by the pandemic, workers now have the power to sway employers and enough money in the bank to risk going on strike.
After years of forced quiescence after the “Great Recession,” unionized workers are finally able to exert agency over their working lives through labor actions. As John Deere employee Chris Laursen told The New York Times, “We’ve never had the deck stacked in our advantage the way it is now.”
Workers now are less likely to accept giveaways to their employers in new contracts. Across several strike actions, workers are rejecting two-tiered wage systems, which give significantly lower wages and benefits to new hires.
This system has long driven wedges between newer and older workers and degraded union solidarity. It has allowed John Deere to claim that its workers get paid the highest salaries in the industry, making $60,000 a year. In reality, that higher wage goes to only some workers because of the two-tiered wage system. The average John Deere worker makes about $30,000.
Meanwhile, workers at Kellogg’s—part of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers’ International Union (BCTGM)—are also striking against a two-tiered wage system. In 2015, the union signed a contract in which a two-tier system was instituted, but the lower tier was capped at 30 percent, with newer workers classified as “transitional,” and the higher tier as “legacy.”
The newer workers were to be phased into the higher tier as older workers retired. The new contract would eliminate the cap on transitional workers, who would ultimately phase out legacy workers. Both “transitional” and “legacy” workers do the same kind of work; tiered wage structures are just a pay cut by another name.
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John Deere workers on strike.
In the past, two-tiered systems have been tempting to workers who belonged to the higher tier and were desperate for increased wages to meet their immediate needs. Companies going through financial downturns often insist on two tiers to make up for quarterly shortfalls.
Two-tiered systems were popular during the economic downturn of the early 1980s and made a comeback following the 2008 recession. However, the companies whose workers have either struck or are threatening to strike in 2021 are doing very well financially.
John Deere predicts that it could net nearly $6 billion this year. The health care consortium Kaiser Permanente, which is also trying to force a two-tiered system on its health care workers, made more than $6 billion last year. Kellogg’s, like snack food companies Nabisco and Frito-Lay, had record breaking profits in 2021, as a result of pandemic-era snacking habits.
The surge in demand for packaged foods has also led to twelve-to-sixteen-hour shifts and seven-day-a-week schedules for factory workers. This situation is similar to what has happened to film industry workers in IATSE, who regularly work sixteen-hour shifts. They have had to work longer, harder hours during the pandemic, and their wage increases have not reflected the increased profitability of streaming services—a product that has grown in popularity since the start of stay-at-home orders and lockdowns.
In the health care sector, the pandemic has driven workers—particularly nurses—to extreme overwork and burnout. Even in the face of its overextended employees and a national health care worker shortage, Kaiser Permanente is threatening to cut wages and pensions. Members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) at Catholic Health hospitals in Buffalo are striking now for safe working conditions. Currently, their jobs have driven these workers to their breaking points.
“People are telling us stories about using ripped towels to make washcloths,” Debbie Hayes, a member of the CWA bargaining committee, told The Nation, “using hospital socks for washcloths, not being able to get medical-grade gloves, not being able to get urinals, and using suction canisters for patients to urinate [in].”
In the face of these appalling conditions, workers are being asked to agree to a two-tiered wage system and benefit cuts. While claiming that they have been financially shattered by the pandemic and are unable to meet worker demands, Catholic Health has simultaneously bought land for a new development in the area.
In response to increased profitability, food packaging, farm equipment, and health care companies—instead of increasing wages—are insisting on either creating or entrenching tiered wage systems in new contracts.
However, workers at Kellogg’s, John Deere, Kaiser Permanente, Nabisco, and Frito-Lay are all saying no to these two-tiered systems. They are saying no to unsafe working conditions for themselves or, in the case of health care workers, their patients. The enforced overtime has led to burnout and stress but also to more money in the bank.
Workers have more room to maneuver and, given the labor shortage, they know that they are valuable. Like the film workers in IATSE, they are not allowing their employers to squeeze them dry any longer.