Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned in Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Labor strikes in the US, with roots in the colonial period, have historically held the power to paralyze industries and trigger major economic, societal, and political repercussions. Last week, UPS and the Teamsters Union, which represents roughly 340,000 UPS workers, negotiated a pivotal agreement. The tentative deal averts a nationwide strike that could severely impact the economy and your deliveries. Union members have now a few weeks to ratify the contract.

Meanwhile, President Biden, who has called himself the most pro-union president, has faced the challenge of balancing his position with the likely economic fallout of a strike. The UPS deal comes as other major strikes persist, like the actors and writers strikes in Hollywood, which have halted many productions indefinitely with no agreement in sight. Union membership, meanwhile, has steadily dropped since its 1950s peak, but perhaps we’re in a period of inflection. Are unions making a comeback?

Lauren Kaori Gurley is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. She’s been closely following these strikes and some broader US labor market trends. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Thanks for having me on, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

So, there are a lot of different issues I want to talk about with the economy and with striking and labor and unions generally, but let’s begin with the most recent news. I don’t know if you were surprised that there was a resolution, or a seeming resolution of the UPS Teamsters dispute. What was at stake there and why do you think it resolved itself days in advance of the deadline?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Yeah, I think this was a huge surprise to a lot of people who were following it. They thought this was really going down to the wire, that we’d have a deal right before the clock struck midnight.

Preet Bharara:

Usually, right? Doesn’t it usually come at like 11:58?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Yeah, it’s the 11th hour sort of a situation, as far as I’ve seen how these things play out. But a deal was struck last week, and it has huge wins for workers. So, I guess I should back up a bit and talk about why this is important. The UPS union contract is the largest private sector union contract in the United States, and it determines working conditions such as wages and benefits for 340,000 UPS employees, including the delivery drivers you see in those iconic brown package cars. But it also has sort of, for many, many decades, served as a contract that sets and raises standards and creates standards for workers around the United States, both in transportation and warehousing, but in all sorts of different industries. And it has been sort of this model of a employment contract where workers can be guaranteed sort of a middle class livelihood without a college degree.

So, this battle has been, or sort of the lead up to this has been playing out for the past few months. UPS workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, which people may have heard of back from the Jimmy Hoffa era, who was once the president of the Teamsters. And this go-around, they have new leadership come in. This new President, Sean O’Brien, sort of promised to have the best, win the best contract for these workers in the history of the Teamsters, which goes back 100 years. And they ended up winning a ton of major gains. So historic wage gains, I think people are getting $7.50 an hour raises. They edit-

Preet Bharara:

$7.50.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

… $7.50 raises.

Preet Bharara:

Is the most important development, and I’m saying this because we are in New York in the middle of broiling heat, a requirement that vans be air-conditioned?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

It’s an important one. A lot-

Preet Bharara:

But that just struck me in the middle of this very, very hot summer.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

… I think it surprises a lot of people that in 2023, UPS delivery vans are not equipped with AC. I will say, so it’s important and it’s something that is impacting sort of workers all around the country right now, and sort of sets a new standard in that way. I think there is some level of, and this will be very expensive for UPS to do. I will say, at the same time, there is a level of disappointment that all of the package cars that are out there right now won’t be getting those AC units and they won’t start installing them until 2024. So some drivers who’ve been out there for years may never see one before they retire.

Preet Bharara:

So, both sides seem to be touting the agreement as a win. I was always taught that when a negotiation concludes, when both sides are not happy, that probably means it was a pretty fair outcome, fair resolution. Is it your view, as you’ve suggested already, that it’s the workers who won here?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I think that when you compare it to previous contract battles they’ve had and compare it to what other workers are getting in terms of wage increases, this is a really big victory for the workers. Some workers are seeing not 3% raises, but 50% raises over the life of this contract. That’s gigantic.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I will say, at the same time, which we can discuss more later, we’re at this moment where the labor market is very tight. Workers are feeling emboldened to demand more, and there are still workers who are upset with this contract. There are workers who say, “Okay, my wage will go up to $21 an hour. That’s not enough to survive in this economy.”

Preet Bharara:

So the deal is not fully done. Is the likelihood overwhelming that the deal will be ratified, or is there still some possibility it falls apart?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

So, there is definitely still some possibility that workers could strike. Over the next three weeks, they will be voting on this contract. And I’ve been hearing mixed responses from workers on the ground about how they’re feeling about this. I think there’s a sense that it’s likely to pass just because it’s the best deal they’ve had in decades, and because leadership tends to do a pretty good job of selling these things to the workers. But nothing is guaranteed.

Preet Bharara:

Right. You said a few minutes ago that this is a particularly important union and this is a particularly important labor dispute because of how large it is and how much of an impact and how much influence this is as a model for other unions. So, given how this has resolved itself apparently, are there other unions on the horizon or labor disputes on the horizon that may go one way or another because of this settlement?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

That’s a great question. So, one big thing that the leadership of the Teamsters, this union was saying as they were sort of building up this contract battle, was that they want to go to Amazon workers who are not unionized right now, and Amazon is the second-largest employer in the United States, and also opposes unionization at its facilities, and show them what a great contract they got. And show them like, “Hey, this is what it looks like if you join a union. You could get a pension, you can be making $25 an hour.”

So there could be some impact there. I think we’re also looking ahead to a potential UAW, so United Auto Workers strike against the big three Detroit automakers on September 14th. And if workers don’t get a deal as good as the Teamsters, they might be looking to strike as well.

Preet Bharara:

Does the White House have anything to be proud of or to be grateful for in this? The president does not have a role. The White House as a general matter does not have a role in labor disputes. How does this play out politically?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I think this looks like a, this could be a win for Biden. Like you said, Biden has promised or pledged to be the most pro-union president in the history of the United States. There was-

Preet Bharara:

But is there any action that the Biden administration took to cause this to happen?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

… They were in behind the scenes conversations urging this along. But the Biden administration, unlike other labor disputes like the railroad workers last year, they do not have the authority under, I mean, I guess there is a loophole there. Generally, they do not have the authority to intervene in this sort of situation. It’s not typical for them to intervene. So, there was some urging, I think, from Biden’s labor advisors to facilitate this, but I don’t think they can declare huge victory here or anything like that.

Preet Bharara:

So there’s been a lot of discussion about some other strikes. There is the nursing strike. There is, as we speak, an ongoing writer’s strike and actor strike in Hollywood. Is it our imagination that there are a lot more strikes going on, or is it just the case that there are conspicuous industries and it seems that way?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

So this month that’s coming to a close, July, maybe August now, but looking back at July, July was one of the biggest months for strikes in the past three decades. So, there’s definitely something unusual going on, and if we end up getting UAW, the auto workers on strike as well, it will be even a bigger year for strikes. I will say, it is nothing compared to what we were seeing in the ’60s and ’70s when half a million workers were going on strike. So there is a heightened level of activity. And I would also caution that, at the same time as these strikes are going on, union membership in the United States is actually declining.

Preet Bharara:

Right. I definitely want to talk about that in a moment. But is part of the reason for the uptick related to the tightness of the labor market and the low unemployment rate?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Yeah. So, I would really point to two things. One is the tightness of the labor market. So coming out of the pandemic, there have been more jobs available than people looking for jobs, which has given workers a lot more leverage to demand higher wages and better working conditions. May have heard of the great resignation where people are quitting their jobs, switching jobs. The workers have a lot of leverage right now, and part of that leverage, one way that they can use that leverage is by organizing unions and going on strike. And so, I think that’s where a lot of this is coming from.

I would say another part of it is this cultural shift that’s going on. Unions right now are the most popular among Americans, according to a Gallup poll, than they have been since 1968. And I think there’s this heightened awareness toward income inequality sort of coming out of the 2008 recession, and then again during the Covid-19 pandemic, that has really made unionization, union efforts like very popular.

Preet Bharara:

You cited a poll a second ago, Greg Rosalsky from NPR said in February of this year, referring to that high level of popularity, “Call it the union paradox, near record high popularity, but record low participation.” How do you explain that paradox?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

It does seem sort of contradictory, but since the 1980s, union membership in the United States has fallen by 50% in terms of percentages. So, right now, about 10% of workers in the United States are in unions. And part of that drop is sort of attributed to laws that have been passed that sort of make it more difficult for workers to join unions, like right-to-work laws that have been passed in a number of states. Also, just this booming industry, what they call union avoidance industry, where companies hire consultants and law firms that help them fight union drives.

But there’s generally, yeah, been a lot of that going on. At the same time, income inequality has risen significantly in this country as union membership has declined, almost in lockstep. And so, at the same time, there’s growing awareness of income inequality, growing sort of sense of outrage about how much employers are taking home versus, and how profitable companies have been during Covid, versus how pay has been relatively stagnant except until recently. And so, I think that’s where you get the disconnect.

Preet Bharara:

Going back to the writer strike and the actor strike, what’s at stake in both of those and what’s the degree of overlap in the issues that the striking folks are worried about?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Great question. Writer strike and the actor strike really are sort of coalescing around two main issues that are also reflected as sort of in the broader labor movement right now as issues that people care about. The first one is pay. People are-

Preet Bharara:

It’s always pay. The writers are not asking for air conditioning though.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

… No, the writers are not asking for air conditioning.

Preet Bharara:

They have that already.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Hopefully those writer’s rooms have air conditioning. So, specifically to the show business, for many years, writers and actors sort of depended on these things called residual checks for steady income when maybe they’re not working on a big show. So that’s when someone watches your show, you get some money. In the streaming era, the unions, the union members, these actors have said that their paychecks have gotten a lot smaller. People get paychecks that are literally $1, and the way that these paychecks are calculated is different. And so, residual, I should say, it’s sort of royalties, but it’s something that’s mandated in union contracts. And so, a big part of this fight is to get bigger residual payments.

Preet Bharara:

Isn’t the other problem, I was reading, and I hadn’t thought about this in terms of how it affects people who are working in the industry, but when I was young, if you were a writer on a sitcom, there were, I don’t know, 22, 24 episodes. And now, to be a very successful, financially lucrative successful streaming series like Barry or some others, there’s eight episodes. So there’s just less work.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Right. The writer’s rooms are a lot smaller. They do something called mini rooms. There are fewer episodes, like you said, I think back in the day, they would stretch on 20,30 episodes. And so, the payments that come out of these are a lot smaller. And then the payments going forward, even after the show ends, are a lot smaller as well. So, I recently talked to someone who, one year as a screenwriter, one year goes from making $60,000 a year, and then maybe has a less good year and is taking home around $18,000 a year, which even $60,000 a year was hard to get by on in Los Angeles, but it’s a tough situation.

Preet Bharara:

So pay is one thing. Is the other issue AI and technology?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

You got it.

Preet Bharara:

So, explain how that’s a problem.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

So, for screenwriters, they’re very worried about AI writing scripts and getting credit where writers used to get credit for scripts, both scripts and sort of general ideas for shows and movies. And then for actors, the issue is what they call, I guess replicas, production studios using replicas of their voices, of their bodies, what they call likenesses. So they want war safeguards around these things. They’re not saying, neither union is saying we shouldn’t do this at all, but they’re saying, “Hey, can we have some guardrails in here?” And I think for the studios, they say, “Well, it isn’t our intention to sort of exploit this. We want to do this with your consent, but we want to be able to experiment with this new technology, and any restrictions could really hurt our business.”

Preet Bharara:

Could you address a myth, something that I think is a myth. So a lot of people will say, “Well, Matt Damon or Ben Affleck or these other famous wealthy stars who people go flock to see at the cinema, they’re spoiled brats and make a lot of money. What are they complaining about?” Could you explain to folks what the vast majority of people who act in Hollywood actually make?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

The vast majority of actors and screenwriters are working class people. They may hold two or three jobs. They may be sort of scrambling to string together gigs where they’re not even an employee, but they’re sort of on a contract. And so, if you think about it, 170,000 actors are on strike right now. How many of those people do you know the names of?

Preet Bharara:

They don’t all get $20 million per movie, right?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

Right. No, I mean, a lot of them are extras, a lot of them are background actors.

Preet Bharara:

How do you think it’s going to play out?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I’m not going to make any predictions. I think that they’re prepared for this to go on through the end of the year. And so, there will be massive disruptions. Right now, I think it’s just TV shows, but eventually movies as well, which sort of are more scheduled ahead, will be impacted. I think there was news today that they’re going to sort of postpone the Emmy’s. And also, the last time these groups went on strike, it lasted for several months, so I think we could expect this going on for a bit longer this time.

Preet Bharara:

Does one side or the other, you think, at this moment, have the upper hand?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I think that both sides have leverage. The studios can sort of wait it out until workers really don’t have any money anymore. They’re not getting paid right now, right? They’re living off of a strike fund or other side jobs they’ve picked up. But it could be sort of a waiting game for them because they do have, the studios do have money. On the other hand, workers have a lot of leverage. These aren’t… There are many more UPS drivers, but I think people care a lot more, for better or worse, about Hollywood screen actors going on strike. It’s a flashy story and it’s surprising. And so, I think they have sort of the media on their side in a way, and a lot of visibility. And I think it’s not necessarily an even playing field, but the workers in this case do have a lot of leverage.

Preet Bharara:

I’ll tell you an interesting thing that maybe isn’t an odd thing to have heard someone say. As people may recall, the writer strike commenced first and was in progress for a while before the actors decided to strike. And the question I asked somebody in the industry was, “Well, does that make a resolution more difficult?” And this person said, “Well, now that the pretty people are striking, there’s a better chance for a resolution of both.” What does that mean and do you agree with that, and do you have a comment on that phraseology?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

I heard that as well. I thought it was funny. I mean, I guess, like I was just saying, actors are a lot more high profile. I think people recognize their faces, their names, whether or not they’re good-looking. I don’t… Better looking than the screenwriters, I can’t tell you. But I would guess that there’s a lot more visibility. And also, that union is 10 times bigger than the screenwriter’s union, so it’s a lot more people.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve been covering labor for a while, not just particular strikes, but overall trends. Do you think there’s going to be a longer lasting trend of increased membership in unions? And regardless of that, what kinds of things should we be looking for in the labor market and how it affects the country?

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

So I think for about the past year, maybe more than year, people have been sort of warning constantly that there’s going to be a recession, that there’s going to, and as the fed has been, Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates, it has seemed inevitable that the economy is going to tank at some point. Unemployment is going to go up. This leverage that workers have to form unions and go on strike is going to sort of evaporate. A lot of financial firms have sort of postponed their prediction for a recession happening, or have said that it might not happen at all at this point.

And so, that’s been an interesting development. I think that workers now have had a lot of leverage in the labor market for a while, and it’s not, it’s softening. The labor market is softening a bit, but their powers, I mean, if you just look at the numbers of jobs being created every month, they still have a ton of leverage. And even if, I think, we do get back to a more pre-pandemic normal in terms of job creation, there has been a fundamental, I’ve heard a lot of labor historians and labor experts say that there has been a fundamental sort of shift in the culture about how people think about unions and the sort of, especially marked among Gen Z and millennial workers, who maybe are less pessimistic about unions than their baby boomer parents. And so, I think we could expect this to be long-lasting.

Preet Bharara:

Well, we’ll keep an eye on it. And all these strikes, Lauren Kaori Gurley, thanks for your work. Thanks for your writing and thanks for being on the show.

Lauren Kaori Gurley:

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Preet Bharara:

For more analysis of legal and political issues making the headlines, become a member of the CAFE Insider. Members get access to exclusive content including the weekly podcast I co-host with former US Attorney, Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider.

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the hashtag #AskPreet. Or, you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-PREET. Or, you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Executive Producer is Tamara Sepper. The Technical Director is David Tatasciore. The Senior Producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Noa Azulai, Nat Wiener, Jake Kaplan, Namita Shah, and Claudia Hernández. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.