The United Auto Workers strike against the Big Three automakers expanded to 38 General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution centers across 20 states Friday. However, the expansion did not include Ford. Kris Van Cleave reports.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Workers at Apple stores across France have gone on strike, demanding more pay. The nationwide strike by some 2,100 workers was timed to coincide with the Friday store release of Apple’s latest phone, the iPhone 15, in France. Eager customers had to cross picket lines outside stores to be among the first to buy the new phone.
At the company’s flagship store in central Paris, around 40 shoppers braved the strikes and heavy rain to line up to buy the iPhone15. About the same number of Apple workers were outside, too, holding placards demanding bigger pay checks.
French labor unions say they want a 7% pay hike for Apple store employees, across the board, to compensate for rising inflation. Union leaders said Apple offered an average 4.5% increase for employees in the country, which they rejected.
Striking Apple store workers hold a picket line in front of the flagship Apple Store in central Paris, Sept. 22, 2023, as customers wait behind them to get into the store on the release day for the new iPhone 15.
Chesnot/Getty
The U.S. tech giant’s offer is below the current rate of inflation in France, which is 4.9%.
The strikers also want an end to a months-long hiring freeze within the company.
The main union for Apple employees in France, Cidre-CFTC, issued a statement saying:
“Apple has often been exemplary, and the vast majority of its employees are proud to work there. However, for the past several months, dialogue has been at a standstill. Obligatory annual negotiations have been swept aside without any real discussion during two meetings.”
The strike is just the latest headache for the tech company’s French operations.
Is the iPhone 12 banned in France?
Apple was forced to stop selling its iPhone 12 model in France earlier this month after it was found to have radiation levels above the European Union safety threshold. France’s government minister for digital technology said the company had agreed to implement changes so that the iPhone 12 complies with the EU regulations going forward.
Apple always maintained that the iPhone 12, which debuted in 2020, is safe. The company said the test results in France were “related to a specific testing protocol.”
The French unions representing Apple store workers have also said they believe the company’s employees should get a greater share of the company’s huge profits.
In June, Apple made Wall Street history as the first company with a market value over $3 trillion. That’s slightly higher than the GDP of France, which the World Bank put at $2.78 trillion in 2022.
Talks between United Auto Workers and automakers resumed Monday, the fourth day of UAW’s strike. The union is ready to expand its walkout if no deal is made this week, and leadership says the two sides are still far apart. Kris Van Cleave reports.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
About 13,000 United Auto Workers at plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri walked off the job Friday as a historic strike got underway against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. President Biden is sending top aides to Detroit to help aid in negotiations. Kris Van Cleave reports.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Autoworkers in Detroit are planning to walk off the job Friday if their union leaders can’t agree on a new labor contract with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said during a Facebook Live event late Wednesday that members will use a so-called “stand up” strike strategy in which employees “at a limited number of targeted locations” will be ready to leave their posts starting at midnight ahead of Friday morning. The walkouts will happen at assembly plants and parts distribution centers across the Big Three automakers, he said.
“Then, based on what’s happening in bargaining, we’re going to announce more locals that are going to bw called to stand up and strike,” Fain said. “These locals will join others that are already on strike, so that our strike at each company will continue to grow over time.”
Fain said more employees will strike if the Big Three stall the negotiations or continue to send “insulting offers” that don’t meet union members’ requests.
If both sides fail to ink a new deal, it would mark the first UAW strike since auto workers walked out on GM in 2019 and culminate in the nation’s largest strike by active employees in 25 years. The strike could cause a surge in car prices, result in $5.6 billion in economic losses for the automakers, according to one forecast and reduce the nation’s GDP by as much as 0.3%, according to Oxford Economics.
What are their demands?
At the top of UAW’s list of demands are hefty pay raises for members.
The UAW began this week asking for a 46% pay raise over four years. However, the union has backed off that number and is now asking for a 36% wage increase, said Garrett Nelson, an automotive analyst for CFRA Research. That would play out as an 18% immediate raise followed by annual increases of 4% or 5% for the remainder of the contract, Nelson said in a research note Tuesday.
Union demands also include pension benefits for all employees; limiting the use of temporary workers; more paid time off, including a four-day workweek; and more job protections, including the right to strike over plant closings.
The UAW also wants the two-tiered pay system present at all three companies eliminated because members say it unfairly reduces some of their colleagues to second-class workers. Higher tier workers — anyone who joined the company before 2007 — make roughly $33 an hour while anyone who joined after that year is part of the lower tier and make around $17 an hour. Lower tier employees also don’t receive defined benefit pensions and their health benefits are less generous.
“Most generous offer in 80 years”
The Big Three haven’t been willing to fully meet union demands, but said they’ve made reasonable counteroffers and are willing to negotiate further. The companies argue that they’re under tremendous pressure to keep costs and car prices low in order to compete with Tesla and overseas automakers.
Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley said earlier this week that the company offered UAW members pay increases, elimination of tiers, inflation protection, five weeks of vacation, 17 paid holidays and bigger contributions for retirement — a package he described as the “most generous offer in 80 years.” Farley said Ford made four offers in total but hasn’t heard back from the UAW since its latest offer.
“It’s hard to negotiate a contract when there’s no one to negotiate with,” he said Wednesday night. “It was fully competitive with all of the UAW-negotiated settlements, sometimes after strikes, with other industrial companies and we heard nothing.”
Stellantis said it’s also waiting on the UAW to respond to its latest offer.
“Our focus remains on bargaining in good faith to have a tentative agreement on the table before tomorrow’s deadline,” Tobin Williams, senior vice president of human resources, said in a letter to employees Wednesday. “The future for our represented employees and their families deserves nothing less.”
Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley said earlier this week that the company offered UAW members the “most generous offer in 80 years,” but hasn’t heard back from the union.
Paul Sancya/AP
Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the Big Three can afford to pay workers more. In a blog post Tuesday, Hersh noted that the Big Three saw combined profits of $250 billion between 2013 to 2022 and expect to bring in more than $32 billion in additional profits for 2023. Hersh said in the post that the Big Three is arguing that paying workers more would jeopardize their efforts in producing more electric vehicles.
“Despite all the company tricks, there is more than enough money for them to make EV investments, to pay their workers a fair share, and to maintain healthy profits,” Hersh wrote in the post.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering business, consumer and financial stories that range from economic inequality and housing issues to bankruptcies and the business of sports.
Automaker Stellantis on Friday offered the United Auto Workers a new four-year deal that would increase employees wages by 14.5%, the latest back and forth between the company and its employees as they try to hammer out a new labor contract before the current one expires.
The wage increases, which would be for most workers, wouldn’t include any lump sum payments, Mark Stewart, chief operating officer of Stellantis North America, said in a letter to employees.
The proposal by Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, is a counteroffer to the UAW, which is seeking much heftier pay bumps. The proposal also includes a $6,000 one-time inflation protection payment in the first year of the contract and $4,500 in inflation protection payments over the final three years of the contract.
In addition, the counteroffer includes boosting hourly wages from $15.78 to $20 for temporary workers and speeding up the progression timeline from eight years to six years for employees who are moving through the pay scale from starting wages.
The proposal from Stellantis, formed in a 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Peugeot, is closer to the union’s demands of 46% across-the-board increases over four years, but both sides still are far apart.
The union’s demands also include a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, restoration of traditional pensions for new hires, union representation of workers at new battery plants and a restoration of traditional pensions. Top-scale UAW assembly plant workers make about $32 an hour, plus annual profit sharing checks.
About 146,000 UAW members at the three Detroit automakers could go on strike when their contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
“We remain committed to bargaining in good faith and reaching a fair agreement by the deadline,” Stewart said. “With this equitable offer, we are seeking a timely resolution to our discussions.”
In a statement Friday, the union called counteroffers from Stellantis, General Motors and Ford “disappointing” and said President Shawn Fain will discuss them with members.
Fain warned earlier this week that the union plans to go on strike against any Detroit automaker that hasn’t reached a new agreement by the time contracts expire.
Chances of a strike
Even though wage increases are still being negotiated, there’s still a 60% to 65% chance the auto workers will strike next week, said Benjamin Salisbury, analyst at Height Securities. The UAW is financially prepared for the strike to be lengthy, Salisbury said in a research note.
“The UAW reportedly has an $825 million strike fund, which it uses to pay eligible members who are on strike,” Salisbury said. “The strike pay is $500 per week for each member. If all UAW members at GM, Ford, and Stellantis, strike and make use of the strike fund, it would last approximately 11 weeks.”
Detroit’s big three automakers would lose more than $5 billion if union employees stopped working after 10 days, according to analysis from Michigan consulting firm Anderson Economic Group.
A strike against all three major automakers could cause damage not only to the industry but also to the Midwest and even national economy, depending on how long it lasts. The auto industry accounts for about 3% of the nation’s economic output. A prolonged strike could also lead eventually to higher vehicle prices.
Ford’s counterproposal offered 9% raises and lump sum payments over four years, while GM’s offered 10% plus lump sums.
The head of the United Auto Workers warned Wednesday that the union plans to go on strike against any Detroit automaker that hasn’t reached a new agreement by the time contracts expire next week.
“That’s the plan,” President Shawn Fain responded when asked if the union would strike any of the companies that haven’t reached a tentative deal by the time their national contracts end.
A strike against all three major automakers — General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — could cause damage not only to the industry as a whole but also to the Midwest and even national economy, depending on how long it lasted. The auto industry accounts for about 3% of the nation’s economic output. A prolonged strike could also lead eventually to higher vehicle prices.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Fain left open the possibility of avoiding a strike. He acknowledged, more explicitly than he has before, that the union will have to give up some of its demands to reach agreements. Contracts with the three companies will all expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14.
“There’s a lot of back and forth in bargaining,” he said, “and naturally, when you go into bargaining, you don’t always get everything you demand. Our workers have high expectations. We made a lot of sacrifices going back to the economic recession.”
Still time to strike a deal
In the interview, Fain did report some progress in the negotiations, saying the union will meet Thursday with GM to hear the company’s response to the UAW’s economic demands. In addition, discussions are under way with Ford on wages and benefits. Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, has yet to make a counteroffer on wage and benefit demands, he said.
Last week, the union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Stellantis and GM, and it said Ford’s economic offer fell far short of its demands.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said he thought Fain’s latest remarks suggest “that he is opening up to the realities of bargaining” as the strike deadline nears.
“As you get close to the deadline,” Masters said, “you begin to realize the importance of trying to resolve a problem rather than make a point. Strikes are painful, especially for workers, and also for companies.”
Fain’s willingness to acknowledge publicly that he isn’t going to achieve all the union’s demands shows there is more flexibility in his approach than previously thought, Masters said.
Some signs of movement in the negotiations have emerged, raising the possibility, Masters said, that an agreement might be reached with one automaker that would set the pattern for the others.
“I think if they can avoid having to go out on strike and the pain that occurs and still get a very good bargain, I think they’ll be better off,” he said.
The union’s demands include 46% across-the-board pay raises, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, restoration of traditional pensions for new hires, union representation of workers at new battery plants and a restoration of traditional pensions. Top-scale UAW assembly plant workers make about $32 an hour, plus annual profit sharing checks.
“Wages aren’t the problem”
iIn his remarks to the AP, Fain argued that worker pay isn’t what has driven up vehicle prices. The average price of a new car has leaped to more than $48,000 on average, in part because of still-scarce supplies resulting from a global shortage of computer chips.
“In the last four years, the price of vehicles went up 30%,” he said. “Our wages went up 6%. There were billions of dollars in shareholder dividends. So our wages aren’t the problem.”
While saying a strike by up to 146,000 members against all three major automakers is a real possibility, Fain said the union doesn’t want to strike and would prefer to to reach new contracts with them.
President Biden spoke to a crowd of union workers in Philadelphia on Monday to commemorate Labor Day. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes has more.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
A 46% pay raise. A 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay. A restoration of traditional pensions.
The demands that a more combative United Auto Workers union has pressed on General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — demands that even the UAW’s own president calls “audacious” — are edging it closer to a strike when its contract ends September 14.
The automakers, which are making billions in profits, have dismissed the UAW’s wish list. They argue that its demands are unrealistic at a time of fierce competition from Tesla and lower-wage foreign automakers as the world shifts from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. The wide gulf between the sides could mean a strike against one or more of the automakers, which could send already-inflated vehicle prices even higher.
“Our employers only value one thing, profit; they do not value us. And the only way the working class advances is if we stand together,” Shawn Fain, the pugnacious new leader of the UAW, said in a Facebook Live Friday morning.
A potential strike by 146,000 UAW members comes against the backdrop of increasingly emboldened U.S. unions of all kinds. The number of strikes and threatened strikes is growing, involving Hollywood actors and writers, sizable settlements with railroads and major concessions by corporate giants like UPS.
Fain has characterized the contract talks with Detroit’s automakers as a form of war between billionaires and ordinary middle-class workers. Last month, in an act of showmanship during the Facebook Live event, Fain condemned a contract proposal from Stellantis as “trash” — and tossed a copy of it into a wastebasket, “where it belongs,” he said.
Shawn Fain, the pugnacious new leader of the UAW, last month, condemned a contract proposal from Stellantis as “trash” — and tossed a copy of it into a wastebasket, “where it belongs,” he said.
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Robust profit-makers
Over the past decade, the Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They’ve collectively posted net income of $164 billion over the past decade, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all three major automakers earn multiple millions in annual compensation.
Speaking last month to Ford workers at a plant in Louisville, Kentucky, Fain complained about one standard for the corporate class and another for ordinary workers.
“They get out-of-control salaries,” he said. “They get pensions they don’t even need. They get top-rate health care. They work whatever schedule they want. The majority of our members do not get a pension nowadays. It’s crazy. We get substandard health care. We don’t get to work remotely.”
UAW members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize its leaders to call a strike. So, too, have Canadian auto workers, whose contracts ends four days later and who have designated Ford as their target.
The UAW hasn’t said whether it will select one target automaker. It could strike all three, though doing so could deplete the union’s strike fund in under three months.
On the other hand, if a strike lasted even just 10 days, it would cost the three automakers nearly a billion dollars, the Anderson Economic Group has calculated. During a 40-day UAW strike in 2019, GM alone lost $3.6 billion.
Union accuses Stellantis, GM of unfair labor practices
Last week, the union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Stellantis and GM, which it said have yet to offer counterproposals. As for Ford, Fain asserted that its response, by rejecting most of the union’s demands, “insults our very worth.”
All three automakers have countered that the union’s charges are baseless and that they’re seeking a fair deal that would allow them to invest in the future.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, suggested that the strong U.S. job market and the companies’ outsize profits have given Fain leverage in negotiations. In addition, he noted, the automakers are poised to release a slew of new electric vehicles that would be delayed by a strike. And they have only a limited supply of vehicles to withstand a prolonged walkout.
“They are vulnerable,” Masters said.
“The question really is,” he said, “are the parties willing to move on some of these things at the table? That hasn’t been evident yet.”
Fain, who won the UAW’s presidency this spring in the first direct election by members, has set expectations high. He has assured the workers that they can achieve significant gains if they’re willing to walk picket lines.
Yet even Fain has described the union’s proposals as “audacious” in demanding the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires; an end to tiers of wages; pension increases for retirees; and — perhaps most audaciously — a 32-hour week for 40 hours of pay.
Currently, UAW workers who were hired after 2007 don’t receive defined benefit pensions. Their health benefits are less generous, too. For years, the union gave up general pay raises and lost cost-of-living wage increases to help the companies control costs. Though top-scale assembly workers earn $32.32 an hour, temporary workers start at just under $17. Still, full-time workers have received profit-sharing checks ranging this year from $9,716 at Ford to $14,760 at Stellantis.
Chris Lindsey, a union member who builds Ford trucks at a Louisville plant, argues that workers deserve a larger share of Ford’s sizable profits.
“We keep giving up, but nothing in return,” Lindsey said. “We just want something fair.”
Perhaps the biggest issue blocking a contract agreement is union representation at 10 EV battery plants that the companies have proposed. Most of these plants are joint ventures with South Korean battery makers, which want to pay less.
“These battery workers deserve the same wage and salary standards that generations of auto workers have fought for,” Fain told members.
The union fears that because EVs are simpler to build, with fewer moving parts, fewer workers will be needed to assemble them. In addition, workers at combustion engine and transmission plants will likely lose jobs in the transition; they’ll need a place to go.
Fain, a 54-year-old electrician who came out of a Chrysler factory in Kokomo, Indiana, is among several labor leaders across the economy who have been escalating their demands and flexing their muscles. So far this year, 247 strikes have occurred involving 341,000 workers — the most since Cornell University began tracking strikes in 2021, though still well below the numbers during the 1970s and 1980s.
Masters suggested that the automakers wouldn’t be able to quickly replace striking workers. The tight job market, diminished interest in manufacturing jobs and comparatively modest wages would make it difficult to hire enough workers.
Some auto workers regard the UPS contract, with a $49-an-hour top wage for experienced drivers, as a benchmark for their negotiations. Others say they’re just hoping to get near that figure.
But automakers say a generous settlement would stick them with costs far above their competitors’ just as they start producing more EVs. The inability to bring Hyundai-Kia, Nissan, Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota factories into the union has weakened the UAW’s leverage, said Harry Katz, a labor professor at Cornell.
Current U.S. automakers salary: $60 an hour
If you include the value of their benefits, workers at the Detroit 3 automakers receive around $60 an hour. The corresponding figure at foreign-based automakers with U.S. factories is just $40 to $45, Katz said. Much of the disparity reflects pensions and health care.
If the Detroit companies end up with higher labor costs, they’ll pass them on to consumers, making vehicles more expensive, said Sam Fiorani, an analyst with AutoForecast Solutions, a consulting firm.
“More than half of the vehicles built in the U.S. are in nonunion plants,” he said. “So if you raise the price to build a unionized vehicle, you could price yourself out of competition with vehicles already built in North America.”
A strike of more than a couple of weeks would reduce still-tight supplies of vehicles on Detroit automakers’ dealer lots. With demand still strong, prices would rise.
The UAW’s members are “reminding management that management can’t operate those factories without a settlement,” Katz said.
Masters and Katz say there’s still time to settle without a strike. Katz predicts a settlement short of UPS numbers, possibly with 3% general pay raises plus cost-of-living adjustments, increased company contributions to 401(k) accounts for newer workers and faster transitions to top pay.
That said, Katz suggested, Fain has to back up his tough talk: “He’s got to prove himself.”
Flight attendants at American Airlines voted overwhelmingly to authorize union leaders to call for a strike, a move designed to put pressure on the carrier during negotiations over pay raises.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants said Wednesday that more than 99% of members who voted recently favored giving the union power to call a strike. The union backed up the vote with picketing at several airports.
“Today, we sent a clear message to American Airlines management: We are fired up and ready for a contract. They ignore this strike vote at their peril,” APFA National President Julie Hedrick said in a statement. “Our contributions to the success of American Airlines must be recognized and respected.”
The carrier’s flight attendants haven’t gotten a raise since 2019, she noted. In the union’s initial proposal, it demanded a 35% increase in pay along with a 6% annual increase moving forward, along with enhanced sick leave and vacation pay.
— Association of Professional Flight Attendants (@APFAunity) August 30, 2023
American Airlines said it is making progress in talks with the APFA. “We look forward to reaching an agreement that provides our flight attendants with real and meaningful value,” the company said in a statement. “We understand that a strike authorization vote is one of the important ways flight attendants express their desire to get a deal done.”
Why a walkout is unlikely
The vote does not mean that a strike is imminent or even likely. Federal law makes it difficult for airline unions to conduct legal strikes. Under the Railway Labor Act, they need a decision from federal mediators that further negotiations would be pointless, which rarely happens. The president and Congress can also get involved to delay or block a strike.
Hedrick acknowledged Wednesday that flight attendants cannot walk off the job unless given the green light by the National Mediation Board and only after a formal 30-day “cooling off” period has elapsed. “But if management continues proposing concessions coupled with meager improvements to compensation and retirement, we will not hesitate to request a release to strike if necessary,” she said.
Earlier this month, American’s pilots ratified a contract that will raise average pay more than 40% over four years. Flight attendants are not expected to reap that kind of increase, as they have less leverage than pilots, who are in short supply.
Other airline unions are also pushing for new contracts. Pilots at Southwest Airlines and flight attendants at United Airlines plan to picket at airports Thursday.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
Striking Hollywood writers have rejected a proposal from production studios. The Writers Guild of America says the proposal “failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place.” Elaine Low, a staff writer for The Ankler, joined CBS News to discuss.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
U.S. entertainment companies are widely expected to see a quarterly earnings bump driven by the ongoing strikes. The Writers Guild has been on strike for more than three months and the Screen Actors Guild voted to join them in July. Alex Weprin, media and business writer for the Hollywood Reporter, joined CBS News to discuss where the money is going.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The union representing thousands of film and television actors announced that they will go on strike beginning Thursday at midnight, leaving the Hollywood industry at a standstill. The SAG-AFTRA national board said its members will join Hollywood writers, who have been on strike since early May, on the picket lines. Elaine Low, staff writer for “The Ankler,” joined CBS News to unpack the sticking points actors are fighting for, and what the dual strikes could mean for the future of the industry.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
United Postal Service (UPS) workers are gearing up for what could be the largest U.S. labor strike in decades.
The Teamsters Union which represents roughly 340,000 full- and part-time drivers, loaders and package handlers reported Wednesday that the United Parcel Service “walked away” from efforts to iron out a new contract. UPS denied the claims, alleging the union is stalling negotiations.
“UPS had a choice to make, and they have clearly chosen to go down the wrong road,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement.
A contract is due to expire at the end of the month. The package delivery giant’s employees have authorized a work stoppage should the parties fail to strike a deal.
Failure to finalize the contract could precipitate the largest U.S. labor strike since 1959, jeopardizing millions of daily deliveries. UPS workers last striked for 15 days in 1997, in a walkout that led to $850 million in company losses, Reuters reported.
Demonstrators during a rally outside a UPS hub in the Brooklyn, New York, in April. Failure to finalize a contract by end of month could precipitate largest U.S. labor strike since 1959, jeopardizing millions of daily deliveries.
Paul Frangipane/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Fight for full-time jobs and higher pay
The union is trying to secure higher pay and more full-time jobs for UPS employees. It has also requested delivery trucks’ surveillance cameras be removed and that employees, regardless of their tenure, be paid the same wages for working the same job.
Workers are largely unhappy with their current contract, which the union’s former leaders secured on a technicality. Discontent over the contract inspired union members to push out their former leaders and install the group’s current president, O’Brien, who has embraced the possibility of a strike.
“Threatens to disrupt the U.S. economy”
Union members on Wednesday unanimously rejected UPS’ offer, prompting the company to walk away from negotiations, the union said in a statement.
The Teamsters Union did not immediately reply to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment.
However, UPS argued its “historic” offer was competitive in a statement on Wednesday, asking the union to return to the bargaining table.
“We have not walked away, and the union has a responsibility to remain at the table,” the company said in a statement seen by CBS MoneyWatch.
It added, “refusing to negotiate, especially when the finish line is in sight, creates significant unease among employees and customers and threatens to disrupt the U.S. economy.”
London — Many Americans who visited Europe in 2022 saw their summer vacation plans marred by travel chaos. Strikes, staff shortages and canceled flights mired the first full-fledged season of summer travel after the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic ground tourism to a halt.
This year, Americans and Europeans alike are still clearly eager to get back out and explore the world. Data from online travel agency Hopper shows demand for international trips already outpacing the summer of 2022. Despite the average cost of airfares increasing to a six-year high, Europe is still the number one region of choice for Americans planning vacations.
Lingering staff shortages in the wake of the mass layoffs and career changes among airline and airport support staff during the coronavirus lockdowns, coupled with rebounding demand, made for grueling waits at security checkpoints last year. With gaps in rosters and new staff lacking experience, many major airports were simply unable to cope with the demand after COVID restrictions were lifted.
But Senior Vice President of Communications for the European division of Airports Council International (ACI) Virginia Lee told CBS News that those staffing issues have been “largely overcome” and people should “travel with confidence.”
“Airports have been going to extraordinary lengths to improve [employment] packages where they can, to look at employment conditions where they can, and doing everything in their power to make them attractive places to work,” Lee said.
But staffing isn’t the only concern, and there have been warnings that Americans flying around Europe this summer may not find things much better than last year.
Passengers line up to board a Ryanair flight at Paris-Beauvais airport, June 20, 2023, in Tille, France.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Getty
Eurocontrol, the agency that manages airspace and flight traffic control for most of the continent, has warned that the war in Ukraine and the subsequently higher number of military flights around Europe have reduced the space for civilian flights by as much as 20%.
Britain’s The Times newspaper said important regions like Marseille, Athens and Budapest would likely experience “high overloads” of air traffic on most days, and that many other European travel hubs, including London, Barcelona and Brussels, could also experience major congestion on peak days such as Fridays and weekends.
There’s also the looming threat of industrial action by air traffic controllers, security workers, baggage handlers and other vital staff, particularly in France and Britain, which have both been hit by repeated strikes over the last year and which both have airports that serve as key entry points and hubs for travelers from the U.S.
Aviation consultant John Strickland told CBS News that while strikes are unlikely to affect flights arriving from the U.S., they could disrupt people’s travel plans within Europe.
“If [passengers] are flying on flights like, U.K. to Spain, Portugal, or Italy, those are more susceptible if there is a French air traffic control strike or manpower shortages,” Strickland said. “It can certainly cause delays and, maybe in extreme, force cancellations.”
Strickland said there’s little passengers can do to avoid getting caught up in strike action, so “it’s more about being informed and aware, than concerned.”
“Sometimes we don’t know about these strikes until the last minute, or if you get a combination of bad weather and manpower shortage, that can cause problems, but they’re a bit unpredictable.”
Supply chain issues similar to those currently affecting U.S. airlines could also cause problems in Europe. New aircraft not being delivered on time means airlines are “having headaches” planning their peak season schedules, according to Strickland, while a lack of spare parts is delaying repairs.
But despite the warnings, airports in Europe have expressed confidence that the scenes of chaos seen at check-in lobbies and baggage carousels in the summer of 2022 will not be repeated this year. Thousands of Americans with itchy feet will be hoping that confidence is not misplaced.
According to Eurocontrol data, travel between Europe and North America has already returned to pre-pandemic levels with around 1,500 flights crossing the Atlantic daily, while most other regions have been slower to recover.
Claire Irvin, who leads travel coverage for The Times and The Sunday Times, said the soaring demand is to be expected.
“Post-pandemic pent-up demand continues with demographics less affected by the cost-of-living crisis intent on living out the adventures they dreamed of during lockdowns,” she told CBS News. “They are taking their families with them, with multi-generational trips on the rise around the world.”
Irvin pointed to another growing trend that could reflect some level of heightened caution on the part of globetrotters after the mayhem of last summer: More people appear to be opting for the help of travel agents and tour operators, who can provide extra reassurance and support in the event of unforeseen disruptions.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a concrete company could sue a union after striking employees walked out and left concrete running in trucks, a ruling that labor advocates fear could more broadly weaken worker rights.
The 8-1 decision in Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174 opens the door for employers to sue workers for damages if they believe that their activism hurt the business. The decision, which comes as strikes across the U.S. are at a 15-year high, could make walking out much riskier for workers, labor activists fear.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers have a legal right to strike, except in cases that include deliberate property destruction and violence. The 1935 law puts most workplace disputes outside the reach of state courts and under the purview of the National Labor Relations Board.
Noel Francisco, the attorney representing Glacier, said the decision “vindicates the longstanding principle that federal law does not shield labor unions from tort liability when they intentionally destroy an employer’s property. Our client is entitled to just compensation for its property that the union intentionally destroyed.”
Teamsters International president Sean O’Brien decried the Supreme Court’s ruling as “throwing out long-standing precedent and legislating from the bench.”
“The ability to strike has been on the books for nearly 100 years, and it’s no coincidence that this ruling is coming at a time when workers across the country are fed up and exercising their rights more and more,” O’Brien said in a statement. “Make no mistake — this ruling has everything to do with giving companies more power to hobble workers if any attempt is made to fight back against a growing system of corruption.”
Protecting company property
The truckers strike case stemmed from a 2017 labor dispute in Washington state between workers represented by Teamsters Local 174 and their employer, Glacier Northwest, a Seattle concrete manufacturer. When negotiations over a new contract reached an impasse, the employees walked off the job while their trucks were filled with concrete — a perishable substance that quickly becomes unusable.
Glacier then sued the union in state court, claiming the strike was timed deliberately to destroy its “property” — the concrete and trucks.
The lawsuit was initially dismissed, with the state court saying that it should be decided by the National Labor Relations Board. But the Supreme Court in October of 2022 took up Glacier’s appeal.
The question for the high court was how should the case proceed. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the lower court was wrong in dismissing the suit and that the Glacier workers’ actions were not protected.
“[B]y reporting for duty and pretending as if they would deliver the concrete, the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product. Then, they waited to walk off the job until the concrete was mixed and poured in the trucks,” she wrote. “In so doing, they not only destroyed the concrete but also put Glacier’s trucks in harm’s way.”
Four other justices joined Barrett’s decision; three others filed or joined concurring opinions.
In a lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the decision would “erode the right to strike” and undermine the National Labor Relations Board’s oversight of workplace law.
“Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the NLRA even if economic injury results,” she wrote.
Chilling effect?
The decision is the latest in a series of measures taken by the conservative-leaning Supreme Court that weaken existing labor protections. In 2021, the court rolled back union organizers’ ability to meet with farm workers at their worksite during off hours. And in Janus v. AFSCME, the court ruled in 2018 that public-sector unions may not make nonmembers pay for the cost of collective bargaining.
The latest decision is likely to chill employee activism because it could make workers financially liable for damages to their employer if they stop work, according to Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.
“In contemplating whether to go out on strike or not, that’s another risk factor that union members have to weigh,” Block told CBS MoneyWatch.
“It’s creating a further responsibility for workers to mitigate the impact of the action they’re deciding to take. That’s inherently a confusing thing they have to do,” she added. “I think it will make the decision to go out on strike much harder.”
A North Hollywood strip club has become the only unionized adult joint in the nation after a prolonged battle between the dancers and management.
Dancers at Star Garden Topless Dive Bar voted unanimously to unionize with the Actors’ Equity Association, with 17 votes in favor, according to a ballot count held by the National Labor Relations Board Thursday afternoon. The vote was emotional, with observers in the room and on Zoom crying and cheering after the votes were counted.
“The NLRB just counted our votes and it’s official!! We are UNIONIZED!! We did it!!” the dancers said via a Twitter account.
The NLRB just counted our votes and it’s official!! We are UNIONIZED!! We did it!!! 🙌🥹 https://t.co/nqTdYLyfXH
— Stripper Strike Noho (@stripstrikenoho) May 18, 2023
The NLRB held a union election last year, but the vote count was held up by a challenge from workers at the bar. As part of a drawn-out legal battle between Star Garden and its performers, the venue had filed for bankruptcy. Star Garden settled with the labor board earlier this month and agreed to drop the bankruptcy proceedings, reinstate eight fired dancers, give workers back pay and immediately begin negotiating with the union if it were to win, according to the NLRB.
The club will reopen within 30 to 60 days of the bankruptcy’s dismissal, according to Actors’ Equity. The club’s lawyers previously told CBS News they were “committed to negotiating in good faith with Actor’s Equity a first-of-its-kind collective bargaining agreement which is fair to all parties.”
According to Actors’ Equity, the fight to unionize began in March of last year, after patrons of the bar exhibited “threatening and abusive behavior” toward dancers against which security failed to intervene. The dancers also said they’ve experienced wage theft, and that they were fired after bringing their concerns to management.
“Strippers are live entertainers. While some elements of their job are unique, they are essentially performance artists and have a lot in common with other Equity members who dance for a living,” said Actors’ Equity President Kate Shindle said in a statement. “Every worker who wants a union, deserves a union.”
According to the NLRB, this isn’t the first time strippers have engaged in collective bargaining. Dancers at the Lusty Lady in San Francsico organized the Exotic Dancers Union in 1997, but the venue closed in 2013.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
TV and movie writers went on strike Tuesday for the first time in 15 years after negotiations with film studios failed to reach a new contract.
History suggests the walkout could last weeks or even months, meaning a hiatus in production for everything from favorite late-night shows to hit streaming series. Here’s how we got here and what could happen next.
Who is involved?
Some 11,500 film and TV writers belonging to the Writers Guild of America are negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents eight major studios: Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount and Sony. (CBS News and Paramount+ are owned by Paramount Global.)
WGA members work in film, TV, animation and fiction podcasts, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Which shows are affected by the writers’ strike?
Late-night shows, which are written daily, are expected to stop production immediately. “The Late Show” on CBS, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, “The Tonight Show” on NBC, “Late Night” on NBC and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” are expected to turn to reruns starting Tuesday.
Less clear is how daytime talk shows, which tend to rely more on chit-chat by hosts and celebrity interviews, could be affected. Production on ABC’s “The View” continued uninterrupted during the last strike in the 2007-08 season, for example.
Meanwhile, streaming networks aren’t likely to see an immediate impact given that they work on longer timelines than late-night shows.
Some TV show hosts have voiced support for the striking writers. On “The Late Show” Monday night, host Stephen Colbert expressed support for the union.
“Everybody, including myself, hopes both sides reach a deal,” he said. “But I also think that the writers’ demands are not unreasonable. I’m a member of the guild. I support collective bargaining. This nation owes so much to unions.”
Speaking on “Late Night” on Friday, host Seth Meyers, a WGA member, also expressed support for striking writers, while saying a strike “would really be a miserable thing for people to have to go through.”
Writers “are entitled to make a living,” he said. “I think it’s a very reasonable demand that’s being set out by the guild. And I support those demands.”
Why are writers striking?
At the core of the dispute is the explosion in streaming services and its effects, including the erosion of writers’ pay and job security, according to the WGA.
Even as budgets for series have grown, writers are making a smaller share of the money, the guild said. Streaming services use smaller writing staffs, which the industry calls “mini rooms,” and also tend to have shorter seasons than broadcast shows. That leaves some writers scrambling to put together several sources of income in a single season.
On average, showrunners for streaming series make less than half of what showrunners for broadcast series do, the WGA said. And because writers on streaming shows don’t get the back-end payments that have allowed broadcast and screenwriters to make a living, such as syndication and international licensing, the WGA is seeking to secure more pay on the front end for its members.
Since 2018, inflation-adjusted pay for screenwriters has fallen 14%, according to the guild. For writer-producers, pay has sunk 23%.
What are the writers asking for?
The Writers Guild wants total pay increases for members amounting to about $429 million per year, according to the WGA, while the AMPTP’s counter would run $86 million per year.
The number of writers working at guild minimum pay has risen from about a third to about half in the past decade. Meanwhile, writers for comedy-variety shows for streaming services have no minimum pay protections and tend to get paid less than their counterparts in broadcast.
The minimum pay for WGA members varies based on a writer’s title and the length of the individual’s employment contract, but the minimum for the lowest-paid writer is $4,546 per week, according to Variety.
The studios “have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession,” WGA leadership said Monday in a statement. That has created a “gig economy inside a union workforce,” it added.
Studios counter that they are thinking about the long-term health of the industry. The AMPTP said Monday that the primary sticking points to a deal revolved around the guild’s request for a minimum number of scribes per writer room. The group added that its offer “included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.”
A key industry dynamic behind the labor dispute: Hollywood is under increased pressure from Wall Street to turn a profit. After years of lavish spending to expand streaming services, many studios and production companies are slashing spending. For example, the Walt Disney Co. is cutting 7,000 jobs, Warner Bros. Discovery is slashing costs to lessen its debt and Netflix has pumped the brakes on spending growth.
“The current streaming services are largely not profitable. Only Netflix is turning a profit right now,” Alex Weprin, media and business writer at the Hollywood Reporter, told CBS News. “These large entertainment companies, they don’t really have a good sense of how profitable these services are going to be and how much they can afford to pay the writers.”
What does AI have to do with it?
Artificial intelligence is another point of contention in the labor talks, with guild writers asking for strict limits on AI use in scripts. They don’t want to rewrite material generated by AI, nor for AI to rewrite human-created scripts, and they want union-covered material to be excluded from training AI models.
The studios have so far rejected these demands, a position one writer described as “insulting.”
“We are fighting for nothing less than the survival of writing as a viable career,” writer and comic Adam Conover tweeted.
We proposed that AI not be used to undermine our work; they rejected our proposal, and offered an “annual meeting to discuss advances in technology.” Wow, a MEETING?!? Thank you ever so much!!
An insulting counter, just dripping with contempt.
Staff writers, the lowest-paid roles, typically work an average of 29 weeks on a network show for $131,834 annually, or an average of 20 weeks on a streaming show for $90,920. For a writer-producer, the figure is $6,967 per week, according to the trade magazine Variety. For a writer-producer, the figure is $6,967 per week.
Advocates for the studios and producers say that pay is far from the poor-house picture writers present publicly. AMPTP leaders say their priority is “the long-term health and stability of the industry” and that they are dedicated to reaching “a fair and reasonable agreement,” according to the Associated Press.
What are writers allowed to do during the strike?
According to the WGA’s strike rules, writers cannot do any writing or rewriting during the strike. They are barred from attending meetings or negotiating with the studios, pitching new projects, entering agreements to option their work or even attending promotional events for existing projects.
By contrast, they are allowed to accept payment for any writing that’s already been completed. Writer-producers, writer-actors and writer-directors are allowed to do the non-writing part of their job during the strike, but they’re banned from doing any writing no matter how minor, such as revising dialogue or tweaking stage directions.
When was the last writers’ strike?
The last time the film and TV writers put down their keyboards was in 2007-08 in a strike that lasted 100 days.
During that labor action many shows, such as “30 Rock,” “CSI,” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” shortened their seasons while studios pumped out more unscripted reality shows. “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race” both increased their output. “The Apprentice,” hosted by Donald Trump, got new life when a celebrity version of the shelved show was created to help fill the scripted void.
Among the main concessions the writers won that time were requirements for fledgling streaming shows to hire unionized writers if their budgets were big enough. It was an early harbinger of nearly every entertainment labor fight in the years that followed.
How often have writers gone on strike?
Writers have gone on strike more than any group in Hollywood, according to the AP, with six strikes since 1960. The first strike, in 1960, lasted nearly five months; strikes followed in 1973, 1981 and 1985.
The longest work stoppage, lasting 153 days, came in 1988.
Rutgers University and union representatives have announced an agreement on a framework for new contracts with several faculty unions, allowing a halt to a five-day strike that was the first such job action in the 257-year history of New Jersey’s flagship university,
Rutgers said early Saturday that the agreement on the framework on economic issues was reached late Friday night with the aid of Gov. Phil Murphy, and closure on that framework “will allow our 67,000 students to resume their studies and pursue their academic degrees.”
“Nothing we do is as important as living up to the expectations that our students and their families have of us to be fully supportive of them and nurturing of their academic ambitions and dreams,” the school said in a statement.
The unions representing professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers told members that they had agreed to suspend the strike and return to work, but more issues need to be resolved before members would have a tentative agreement to vote on.
“Our historic strike got us to this point. And let us be clear, a suspension of our strike is not a cancellation. If we do not secure the gains we need on the open issues through bargaining in the coming days, we can and will resume our work stoppage,” they said, also vowing informational pickets as classes resume next week.
Strikers march in front of Rutgers’ buildings in New Brunswick, N.J., Monday, April 10, 2023. Thousands of professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers at New Jersey’s flagship university have gone on strike — the first such job action in the school’s 257-year history.
Seth Wenig / AP
Three unions, which represent about 9,000 Rutgers staff members, have been involved in the strike: the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and some counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents part-time lecturers; and the AAUP-BHSNJ, which includes faculty in the biomedical and health sciences at Rutgers’ medical, dental, nursing and public health schools.
The unions said the framework included “significant” pay increases for adjuncts and substantial raises for graduate student workers, as well as more job security for adjunct and nontenure-track faculty, union representation for graduate fellows, and other improvements.
Rutgers said the pact, retroactive to July, will increase salaries across the board for full-time faculty and EOF counselors by at least 14 percent by July 2025. It will also provide a 43.8 percent increase in the per-credit salary rate for part-time lecturers and strengthen their job security, increase minimum salaries for postdoctoral fellows and associates and substantially increase wages and other support for teaching assistants and graduate assistants.
Picket lines went up Monday at the New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses as students were finishing their spring semester and preparing for finals and commencement. NJ.com reports that some said they went to classes as usual because some professors were still teaching or handing out assignments, while others said classes were called off or they decided to stay away or even walk picket lines in support of the walkout.
Andre Blount has been serving food to dignitaries at World Bank headquarters for nearly 10 years and says he has gotten exactly one raise — for 50 cents.
This week, as leaders from around the world are in D.C for the spring meeting of the poverty-fighting organization, Blount and his coworkers are trying to bring attention to what they see as a galling situation: The workers who put food on the table for an organization whose mission is to fight poverty are themselves struggling to get by.
Union leaders say a quarter of the World Bank food workers employed as a contract laborers through Compass Group North America receive public benefits — like SNAP, or food stamps — just to make ends meet.
“It’s sickening,” Blount, 33, said as he joined red-shirted union members this week on a picket line outside the development bank on a hot afternoon. “They go around the world looking for how to help people, but you have hundreds of employees in D.C. who are struggling.”
Workers who are contracted to feed World Bank employees through a firm called the Compass Group, protest for higher wages and affordable healthcare benefits, Wednesday, April 12, 2023, outside of the World Bank in Washington.
AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
Inside, meanwhile, suited-up professionals were striding through a lobby where “End Poverty” T-shirts and tote bags are for sale.
Hummus and tabouli station
The building’s expansive cafeteria overlooks an indoor pond and caters to even the most particular palates. There’s a soup station called “Ladle and Crust,” a “Mediterranean Table” station serving hummus and tabouli, and a sushi chef offering made-to-order rolls and sashimi.
A nearby fine dining room for diplomats and special guests of the bank was hosting lunch for delegations from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
Many of the food service workers, it turns out, come from countries to which the development bank sends missions.
Blount, after a decade on the job, says he’s paid $18 an hour, above D.C.’s minimum wage of $16.10. He says feeding some of the world’s most important people in a variety of service and catering roles should pay more than the legal minimum.
Blount, a member of the Unite Here Local 23 chapter, is one of roughly 150 Compass workers employed at the World Bank. They are in the midst of contract negotiations, seeking higher wages and better health care benefits.
Workers who are contracted to feed World Bank employees through a firm called the Compass Group, protest for higher wages and affordable healthcare benefits, Wednesday, April 12, 2023, outside of the World Bank in Washington.
AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
Bank not involved in contract negotiations
World Bank spokesperson David Theis said that while the bank is not a party to talks between the union and Compass Group, the bank’s staff has “deep admiration and respect” for their food service colleagues. He said the bank ensured the workers were paid throughout the pandemic.
While $18 per hour may seem like a lot in some areas, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “living wage ” index lists $22.15 per hour for D.C., one of the most expensive metro areas in the U.S.
Beginning July 1, the minimum wage in D.C. will increase to $17 per hour for all workers, making it one of the highest minimums in the country. The increase comes as persistent high inflation eats at workers’ paychecks and the median rent in Washington is $2,571, according to Zillow.
“The World Bank says its mission is to promote shared prosperity by increasing the incomes of the poorest 40% of people in every country,” Unite Here President D. Taylor said on a call with reporters. “We think that first starts in the United States, by compensating food service workers here. They work hard every day yet struggle to pay their bills.”
Workers who are contracted to feed World Bank employees through a firm called the Compass Group, protest for higher wages and affordable healthcare benefits, Wednesday, April 12, 2023, outside of the World Bank in Washington.
AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
Cost-of-living crisis
Compass Group spokesperson Lisa Claybon said the firm was bargaining in good faith and eager to reach a fair agreement. She added that the company has “long history” of working to “do what’s best for our employees and clients.”
The current negotiations also cover Compass workers who serve food at the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Institutes of Health.
Alex Campbell, director of the International Trade Union Confederation’s D.C. office, said workers around the globe “are suffering from a cost-of-living crisis that they didn’t cause.”
“To end poverty and promote shared prosperity in this turbulent moment, workers everywhere need decent living standards, basic rights on the job, and collective bargaining,” Campbell said. “That’s true from Compass employees here in D.C. to workers on projects funded by the World Bank Group anywhere in the world.”
Blount said he simply believes that his job should pay him what he’s worth. He added, “If I were to get a raise from Compass Group, it will help with saving up emergency funds, paying my bills on time instead of being late.”
