Labor News & Commentary April 7, 2024 data shows large unions grew their membership in 2023 & more

https://onlabor.org/april-7-2024/

By Gilbert Placeres

Gilbert Placeres is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News & Commentary, Sarah Jaffe argues the 32-hour workweek has the potential to unite the working class, data shows large unions grew their membership in 2023, and Leticia Miranda argues fast-food is turning into higher-skilled work.

In In These Times, Sarah Jaffe writes about how the demand for a 32-hour workweek has the potential to unite the working class. She traces the history of demands for shorter working hours, from Philadelphia carpenters striking for 10-hour days in 1791, to workers being killed for demanding “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will” at Haymarket Square in 1886, to workers eventually winning the 40-hour workweek but then largely abandoning demands to shorten it further. This included the 1950 “Treaty of Detroit” between UAW and GM, where “the union made a major decision not to contest so-called management rights,” and rather “restricted its struggles to the size of its slice of the proceeds of workers’ labor, rather than fighting to control the workplace itself.”

However, Jaffe argues the Covid crisis revived the issue of a shorter work week, as “essential” workers worked overtime while risking life and health. Workers forced to work 28 days straight at a Nabisco plant in Oregon went on strike, eventually winning concessions as well as state legislation restricting the use of forced overtime for bakery workers. The UAW included a demand for a 32-hour workweek in its recent negotiations with the Big Three, because too many workers do not have enough time to spend with family, friends and “just pursuing things that you love doing,” according to President Shawn Fain. “[The Covid crisis] really made people reflect on what’s important in life,” he argues. The issue raises workers’ relationship to management’s control over production as well as to technology and automation. Jaffe argues the 32-hour work week has the potential to unite the working class because it can cut across industries, profession, countries, and unionization status.

FULL story at link above.