'Like hell': India's burning coalfields

Abhaya SRIVASTAVA
Thu, July 13, 2023

The coal pickers work in brutal conditions, but India's appetite for the fuel is huge (Money SHARMA)

Deadly fires have raged for a century in mines in India's Jharkhand state, where Savitri Mahto is one of 100,000 people risking their lives shovelling coal to supply insatiable demand.

"The land is charred because of the fires," said Mahto, 22, illegally scavenging amid the flames on the edge of a vast commercial opencast mine for the dirty fossil fuel. "We live in fear every day".

Underground fires, which scientists believe started in a mine accident in 1916, create sinkholes that swallow people and homes. Coal pickers and activists report hundreds of people have died over the decades.

"Accidents have happened before, and they keep on happening because the land is sinking," Mahto told AFP, as she tended a stack of burning rocks to produce coking coal, a more stable fuel sold for cooking and firing brick kilns.

"It is dangerous to live here," said Mahto, who dreams of being a nurse. "The houses can collapse anytime."

Coal consumption in India -- the world's most populous nation and fifth-biggest economy -- has doubled in the last decade, powering nearly 70 percent of the electricity grid.

Half of India's greenhouse gas emissions come from burning coal, and only China burns more.

The fires, raging in pockets across opencast mines spread over nearly 300 square kilometres (116 square miles), have burned millions of tonnes of CO2-belching coal, experts say.

Ghostly glowing fires and sulphurous clouds create an apocalyptic feel.

- 'Coal is the lifeline' -

"We have a responsibility towards the society as far as this environment is concerned," said Samiran Dutta, head of the commercial mine operator Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), a subsidiary of state-owned Coal India.

Dutta, saying BCCL was not responsible for those entering the mines illegally, added that the company was "procuring various gadgets" including mist sprinklers hoping to dampen air pollution.

But efforts to extinguish the fires, including using liquid nitrogen and cutting trenches as firebreaks, have largely failed.

"The air is heavily polluted," Mahto said, tightening a scarf over her soot-blackened face, saying the constant exposure to poisonous gases burns her eyes and chokes her lungs.

The coal pickers work in brutal conditions, but India's appetite for the fuel is huge.

"Coal is the lifeline of Jharkhand," said A. K. Jha, a local trade union leader, claiming at current production that the mines could last for 200 years, with much of the coal used in the steel industry. "There will never be an end to coal."

Power demands are growing in India -- the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the United States -- with a growing middle class buying energy-hungry air conditioners and refrigerators.

Barely one degree Celsius of warming to date has made extreme weather more destructive and deadly, and UN climate experts warn the world could breach 1.5C above the preindustrial benchmark within a decade.

India, with 1.4 billion people, points out its per capita emissions are below the global average -- and has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.

- 'Always scared' -

State authorities began relocating people from the mines in 2008, but many say leaving means losing their livelihood.

Sushila Devi, whose 15-year-old daughter Chanda Kumari died when the land collapsed four years ago while picking coal, said she must stay.

"I am always scared that I might meet the same fate, but I am helpless," said Devi, who earns around six dollars from a day's hard labour. "If I don't work, what will I eat?"

Jha, the trade unionist, says that without other options, illegal coal picking will continue.

"The key question is of livelihood," Jha said. "If the government is unable (to provide jobs), then people will have to make do with what nature has given".

But vegetable seller Arjun Kumar, 32, whose home collapsed due to subsidence, said his "life will be like hell" if he is not relocated, because he will "be forced to live on the streets like a beggar".

For those who stay, Pinaki Roy, 55, founder of the Coalfield Children Classes charity, is offering young coal pickers lessons in English, computers and the arts.

Their last classroom was destroyed by mine blasting, and the replacement looks likely to collapse soon, with Roy pointing out huge cracks in its walls.

"They don't know anything apart from coal," Roy said, as a group of girls practised a dance routine. "We want to show them that there are a lot of other things in the world."

abh/pjm/lb/smw

Brazil wants 10-year pause on deep sea mining as UN agency under pressure to draft regulations




DÁNICA COTO
Fri, July 14, 2023 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Brazil on Friday urged a 10-year precautionary pause on deep sea mining in international waters just days after companies and countries were allowed to start applying for provisional licenses.

The call came during a two-week conference held by the International Seabed Authority, a regulatory U.N. agency based in Jamaica that failed to approve a set of rules and regulations to govern deep sea mining by a July 9 deadline.

The agency has not issued any provisional licenses, nor has it received any applications, although the government of Nauru is expected to apply soon for a license via the Canadian-based Metals Co.

The government of the tiny Pacific island said Friday that it wants to diversify its “limited economic base,” but promised it would not sponsor an application during the U.N. conference, which ends July 21.

Nauru noted that its “good-faith decision” does not mean officials are withdrawing their plan to pursue deep sea mining.

“We’re no longer in a ‘what if’ scenario, but ‘what now’?” said Margo Deiye, Nauru’s permanent representative to the International Seabed Authority.

A growing number of countries and companies, including BMW and Volvo, support a moratorium on deep sea mining, warning that extracting precious metals from the deep sea that are used in electric car batteries and other green technology could cause environmental damage.

Brazil’s representative to the International Seabed Authority, Elza Moreira Marcelino de Castro, said the country supports a precautionary pause for at least a decade.

“Priority must be given to the protection of the international seabed until conclusive and comprehensive studies … are available,” she said.

Scientists have warned that deep sea mining could kick up dust storms and cause light and noise pollution, noting that minerals that grow at such depths take millions of years to form. Companies, however, have said that deep sea mining is cheaper and has less of an impact than land mining, while some countries have said it would allow them to grow and diversify their economy.

On Friday, several council members insisted on more scientific studies before any licenses are awarded.

“Exploitation must not commence until it can be guaranteed that there will be no loss to biodiversity,” said Siddharth Shekhar Yadav, Vanuatu’s representative.

The U.N. agency has issued more than 30 exploration licenses, with most of the activity focused in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which covers 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) between Hawaii and Mexico. Exploration is occurring at depths ranging from 13,000 to 19,000 feet (4,000 to 6,000 meters).

The U.N. agency’s 36-member council is working on a proposed framework that would regulate potential deep sea mining, but it’s unclear when it would be ready.

“Exploitation in the area should not be carried out in the absence of rules, regulations and procedures,” Gina Guillén, Costa Rica’s representative, said in a statement that represented the stance of more than a dozen countries.

Australia’s representative said Friday that it was clear draft regulations would not be ready before the conference ends nor by the next meeting scheduled for October and November.

UK

How the pay rise for public sector workers compares to people in the private sector

Connor Parker
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Junior doctors have been striking for a pay rise in recent days. (PA)

Millions of public sector workers were this week offered pay rises of between 5-7% in the coming months.

Teachers have been offered an increase of 6.5%, junior doctors, consultants and dentists 6% and police and prison officers 7%.

These awards apply to those working in England and Wales, with devolved administrations making separate offers to their staff.

Senior civil servants will receive 5.5%, while military personnel are in line for an increase of 5-6%, which will apply UK-wide.

Read more: What the public sector pay rises announced by Government mean for strikes, budgets and inflation

Teachers will be given a 6.5% pay rise. (PA)

The government has ruled out paying for the pay rises with more borrowing or taxes, saying it will be funded from current budgets.

The government hopes the offers will put an end to the wave of strikes that have plagued the public sector for the past year, with several unions already indicating they will accept the offer.

How does it compare to the private sector?

Rishi Sunak has described the pay award as the government's final offer.

However, workers' new pay increase will still be way below the current inflation level of 8.7% - meaning despite the new offer everyone will still be getting a real terms pay cut.

Plus, if the average public sector pay works out at an average of 6.5%, it will still be behind the average for the whole economy.

Charlie McCurdy, economist at the Resolution Foundation, told Yahoo News UK: "Pay growth in the private sector has outstripped the public sector for several years, and we're seeing the effects of this as schools and hospitals struggle to recruit and retain staff."

The latest figures by the Office for National Statistics showed average wage growth was 7.3% between March and May 2023.

This was driven by 7.7% growth in the private sector and just 5.8% in the public sector.

Public sector wage growth before the new pay rise if factored in. (Resolution Foundation)

This data does not factor in the most recent offer, which will not be applied until the start of the financial year - but it doesn't seem like it will be enough to close the gap.

As McCurdy pointed out: "The latest pay settlement will help to address this imbalance – as well as reducing industrial action – though huge questions remain about the future funding of public services and public servants."

Last month, the Resolution Foundation noted that, since January 2022, wages in the private sector have been consistently increasing from around £550 a week to £600 in April 2023.

But in the public sector wage growth has plateaued, it rose steadily from January 2022 to the middle of the year before rising sharply in the final six months of 2022.

Public sector wages are now in line for another sharp growth, but it is yet to be seen if this will catch up with the private sector.

Teachers poised to end strikes as Rishi Sunak unveils public sector pay rise – but doctors dig in



Kate Devlin and Jon Stone
Thu, July 13, 2023

Teachers are poised to end months of strikes after Rishi Sunak announced pay rises of up to 7 per cent for millions of public sector workers – but doctors show no sign of calling off their action.

Teachers have been offered a 6.5 per cent rise and junior doctors 6 per cent, plus an additional £1,250.

But the British Medical Association (BMA) said the below-inflation offer was “exactly why so many doctors (feel) they have no option but to take industrial action”.

As the longest walkout in NHS history got underway, the prime minister told all unions his offer was final and implored doctors to “do the right thing and know when to say yes”.


Downing Street said it would not borrow more money or increase taxes to fund the more than £2bn needed this year to fund the pay rises.

Mr Sunak said more than £1bn would be found by “significantly” raising fees for migrants’ visa applications and access to the NHS.

But roughly the same amount will be found through “reprioritisation” – raising the prospect of cuts. However, it is understood this will be cross-government, removing pressure on individual departments, like education, to find the money for pay rises for teachers.

For her part, education secretary Gillian Keegan promised there would be no cuts to frontline education services.

Ben Zaranko, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned that wage increases would eventually require cuts to public budgets; that prompted the BMA to accuse the government of making “ordinary people sicker and poorer”.

Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham said the pay offer would place staff under new pressure and predicted: “I think we’ll be seeing a new wave of industrial action.”

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Sunak said he would accept the recommendations of all the government’s independent pay review bodies; other rises include 7 per cent for police and prison officers, 6 per cent for dentists and NHS consultants, and 5 per cent for members of the armed forces.

He admitted that his announcement would “cost all of you as taxpayers more than we had budgeted for”.

He added: “That’s why the decision has been difficult, and why it has taken time to decide the right course of action. I can confirm today that we are accepting the headline recommendations of the pay review bodies in full, but we will not fund them by borrowing more or increasing your taxes.”

Ministers are struggling to fight persistent high inflation at the same time as bringing to an end to industrial action by groups including doctors.

But BMA chair of council Professor Phil Banfield said the government “missed a huge opportunity to put a credible proposal on the table to end strikes”.

He said consultants “remain willing to talk” but the offer means “they are likely to continue to take industrial action”.

Treasury minister John Glen told the Commons the pay award for teachers “will be fully funded”. As part of reprioritising budgets, the Ministry of Defence will recruit fewer civil servants.

But unions said the decision to fund some of the rises by drawing on departmental budgets was the wrong approach.

Mike Clancy, general secretary of civil service union Prospect, said: “For a prime minister and chancellor who came into office promising economic stability, the chaotic handling of this process will inspire little confidence in workers worried about their futures during the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

“The fact that they are taking a knife to public services to pay for these pay rises signals that they have learned nothing from the austerity years.”

Experts warned the education and health budgets could still face cuts worth billions of pounds, even with frontline services protected.

Mr Zaranko said: “At this point, we can’t say with any certainty where the funding for higher pay rises will come from, although Rishi Sunak has made clear that it will not come from increased borrowing or higher taxes. In the short-term, some could come from under-spends in other parts of the budget, but that’s not a permanent solution.”

He said extra revenue through higher charges for visa applications and for non-British nationals using the NHS would be “unlikely to cover all of the additional cost”. Without rises in borrowing or tax the move will “eventually require either a smaller public sector workforce, or cuts to some other aspect of public service budgets”.

Praxis, which supports migrants and refugees, said that raising “already eye-wateringly high” visa fees risks seeing people fall “deeper into poverty and insecurity”. Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, policy and public affairs manager, said migrants in the UK pay some of the highest costs in Europe.

Mr Sunak has promised to halve inflation – to 5 per cent – this year. But the CPI inflation is running at 8.7 per cent, amid fears pay increases are fuelling a wage-price spiral. Official figures released just hours before the announcement also showed the UK economy contracted in May. Ministers hope the decision not to borrow to fund the pay rises will minimise the impact of the decision on inflation.

Final offer: UK's Sunak seeks to end strikes with multi-billion pound pay deal




Teachers rally in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland

Updated Thu, July 13, 2023 
By Muvija M and William James

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought on Thursday to end months of crippling public sector strikes by offering teachers, doctors and other workers pay increases of 6% and above, but warned it would cost billions that could mean cuts elsewhere.

Sunak faces an election in the next 18 months against a backdrop of the highest inflation of any major economy, a near-stagnant economy and a legacy of scandals and missteps from his Conservative Party's 13 years in power. Opinion polls put the Conservatives far behind the opposition Labour Party.

The prime minister said he had accepted the recommendations of independent pay review boards on wage rises for public sector workers, stressing that it was a final offer intended to end months of industrial action.

"This is a significant pay award, it's one of the most significant we've had in decades, and it is costing billions of pounds more than the government had budgeted for and that has consequences," Sunak said.

The package will mean finding an additional 5 billion pounds ($6.55 billion) - 2 billion this year and 3 billion next year - from existing departmental budgets.

"Today's offer is final. We will not negotiate again on this year's settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision," Sunak said.

Education unions immediately said they would call off planned strikes and recommend accepting the deal. But two unions representing doctors said the offer was unlikely to end strikes.

The pay increases are below Britain's current 8.7% inflation rate but are aimed at bridging the gap following the country's worst bout of industrial unrest in more than 30 years.

Junior doctors will now get a 6% pay uplift and a lump-sum pay increase of 1,250 pounds, while teachers would get a 6.5% raise. Police and the military will get similar settlements.

After more than a year of elevated inflation - which at its peak hit more than 11% - the government is struggling to balance the need to end strikes with rising public debt levels.

It has little room for more spending on wages without either hiking taxes, cutting other public services or missing its self-imposed targets to reduce borrowing.

NO NEW BORROWING

Sunak said the pay rises would not push up inflation because there would be no new borrowing or spending to fund the increases. Teachers' pay rises would be funded by a reallocation of the existing department budget.

Explaining how he would fund the higher salaries, Sunak said measures would include raising a fee paid by international workers to access the country's health service and the cost of securing a visa to enter Britain would also increase.

Other sources of new funding are likely to be closely scrutinised by trade unions, who have said budgets for public sector services such as hospitals are already very tight.

"The government is putting its departments between a rock and hard place," said Unite union General Secretary Sharon Graham. "They now have to choose between paying workers a half-decent salary or cutting services in already underfunded public services."

The British Medical Association, which represents about 45,000 junior doctors in England, said the government's offer was still a pay cut in real terms.

"Today, it missed a huge opportunity to put a credible proposal on the table to end strikes," BMA Chair of Council Phil Banfield said. He added that junior doctors, who are in the middle of a 5-day strike, were likely to continue to take further industrial action.

Ministers have repeatedly stressed the danger that increasing wages too far would undermine its inflation-cutting goal and could entrench rising prices.

However, the Bank of England has been more focused on pay in the private sector, which has risen faster than public-sector pay and has a more immediate impact on the prices of goods and services used to calculate consumer price inflation.

Britain's total debt is just over 100% of GDP, slightly below the average among advanced economies.

($1 = 0.7634 pounds)

(Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan, David Milliken, Suban Abdulla, Paul Sandle, Farouq Suleiman and Alistair SmoutWriting by William JamesEditing by Kate Holton, Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry)

WORKERS CAPITAL

Worst American City for Pensions Confronts a $35 Billion Crisis










Shruti Date Singh
Fri, July 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- One of Brandon Johnson’s first moves as Chicago mayor was to buy himself time to address the city’s biggest financial problem: the more than $35 billion owed to its pension funds.

Just days after his May inauguration, Johnson persuaded state lawmakers to shelve legislation that would’ve added billions to the pension debt, while pledging to establish a working group to come up with solutions by October.

Now, the clock is ticking for the progressive Democrat to fix the worst pension crisis among major US cities.

Just as Chicago reels from a spate of shootings and carjackings, inequities exacerbated by the pandemic and high-profile corporate departures, its pension gap creates a financial burden that threatens its recovery and the mayor’s agenda.

The situation makes for a cautionary tale for municipalities across the country facing long-neglected contributions and funding shortfalls. Already, the third-largest US city spends roughly $1 of every $5 on pensions, while more than 80% of property-tax dollars go toward retirement payouts.

That presents a political vise for a mayor who notched a surprise victory by campaigning on promises that require more spending, including reopening mental health clinics and increasing funding for community-based public safety measures.

Next week, Johnson plans to hold town hall meetings with constituents to get their input for his first budget, which will have to take the pension predicament into account. A failure to shore up the pension system could have ripple effects beyond city limits: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in an interview that he’s eager to help Chicago with this issue because it’s “the economic engine of the state.”

Competing Interests

Johnson’s working group, which held its first meeting in June, consists of city budget and finance officials, state legislators, union and labor representatives and outside pension experts. It doesn’t have any members from the business community, though the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce wants to offer up ideas for consideration.

The pension group’s task is exceedingly complicated because of all the competing interests. Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, won office in part thanks to support from labor groups that might have varying priorities. Pension benefits are also protected by the state constitution. So, finding new revenue may be one of the only solutions.

During his campaign, he proposed a tax plan to generate about $800 million with new levies — including on big businesses, airlines and the ultra-rich — to address the structural deficit. Johnson’s transition committee wasn’t united behind these solutions, and support from state lawmakers is hardly a sure thing.

One obvious tactic, raising property taxes, would be a political lightning rod. Johnson pledged not to hike them during his campaign, and many Chicagoans are already frustrated by recent major increases in these levies.

But sticking to that campaign pledge could upset investors’ fragile faith in the city’s municipal bonds. In November, Moody’s Investors Service raised Chicago’s rating by one notch, an upgrade that meant the city had no junk ratings for the first time since 2015.

“It seems short-sighted to take property taxes, one of the city’s primary and stable revenue sources, off the table if continuing to address Chicago’s structural deficit is a priority,” said Molly Shellhorn, senior research analyst for municipals at Nuveen, the largest holder of Chicago debt. “Failing to raise property taxes for decades is one of the main reasons Chicago’s pension funding fell so behind in the first place.”

Meanwhile, securing new revenue streams to funnel more money to the pension system leaves Johnson with fewer levers to pull as he tries to find dollars for his key policy ideas — shoring up homeless services and violence prevention efforts, for example, or investing in youth employment.

“I am committed to protecting both the retirement security of working people, as well as the financial stability of our government so we can achieve our goal of investing in people and strengthening communities in every corner of the city,” Johnson said in a May statement.

Financial Drag

The annual payments toward Chicago’s four systems that pay benefits for retired firefighters, police officers, municipal office workers and laborers peaked this year at $2.6 billion, and are projected to total $2.4 billion in 2024.

Pension debt, in the most dire circumstances, has driven high-profile municipal bankruptcies such as those of Detroit and Stockton, California.

State law doesn’t allow Chicago to file bankruptcy. But alarms have sounded in recent years that indicate how bleak the situation is. In 2015, the state supreme court ruled against plans to curb costs, and Moody’s quickly cut its rating for the city to junk.

In 2022, for the first time, the city put in an actuarially calculated contribution for all four pensions funds – a step that helped it shed the junk rating.

Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, signed an executive order before leaving office that would funnel a projected $698 million surplus from 2022 and 2023 to chip away at the massive pension liability until revenue from the city’s first casino starts flowing in 2026.

The surpluses are likely to end soon, however, as the last of its federal aid from the American Rescue Plan Act runs out this year.

State Representative Kelly Burke, the chair of the Illinois House revenue and finance committee who is also a member of Johnson’s working group, acknowledged the scale of the challenge of figuring out how to pay for rising costs and boosting the funding levels of the four pension funds.

“It’s a heavy lift to get these on good fiscal footing,” Burke said in an interview. “It’s time to get creative.”

TForce, Teamsters reach tentative 5-year contract

Mark Solomon

FreightWaves

Thu, July 13, 2023 

TForce and Teamsters have reached a tentative agreement. 

(Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

TForce Freight Inc., an operating less-than-truckload company of TFI International Inc. (NYSE and TSX: TFII) and formerly known as UPS Freight, said Thursday it has reached a tentative five-year contract with the Teamsters union.

Teamsters officials were not immediately available for comment.

The contract was set to expire July 31, and the union’s 8,000 or so rank and file had already authorized a strike vote.

In a statement, TForce said it was pleased with what it called the “mutually beneficial” terms. The contract must still be ratified by the rank and file, a step which TForce said should occur relatively soon.

TForce was rebranded shortly after the parent acquired UPS Freight in early 2021 for $800 million in cash.

The Teamsters have already ratified a contract with ArcBest Corp.’s (NASDAQ: ARCB) LTL unit, ABF Freight. It remains at loggerheads with Yellow Corp., (NASDAQ: YELL) another LTL carrier. Talks with UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS) have stalled less than three weeks before the July 31 deadline.

The post TForce, Teamsters reach tentative 5-year contract appeared first on FreightWaves.

‘An insult’: Teamsters slam UPS training non-union delivery drivers during deal talks

Miranda Nazzaro

THE HILL
Fri, July 14, 2023 

United Parcel Service (UPS) said Friday it will be training non-union delivery drivers in the coming weeks as the threat of a strike from tens of thousands of unionized workers looms closer.

In a statement Friday, shipping giant UPS said many of their employees will “participate in training that would help them safely serve our customers if there is a labor disruption.”

UPS said this “temporary plan,” will not affect its current operations or service for customers.

“These activities also will not take away from our ongoing efforts to finalize a new contract that increases our employees’ already industry-leading wages and benefits,” the statement continued.

Contract negotiations between UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters fell apart last week, increasing the chances the estimated 340,000 workers could strike after their current contract expires at the end of July.

The UPS Teamsters, which represents over half of the UPS workforce, is fighting for better benefits and working conditions.

“What an insult this is to the hardworking men and women who do backbreaking work every day to make this company $100 billion a year,” a Teamsters spokesperson said. “The full-time drivers, and the part-time workers making poverty wages, deserve better from this company.”

UPS drivers make $18.05 an hour in Arkansas, $17.63 in Oklahoma and $21.02 in Connecticut, according to Indeed.

UPS made $11.5 billion in net income in 2022, as profits exceeded fourth-quarter expectations. The company’s 2022 operating profits hit more than $13 billion, for an operating margin of 13 percent.

Last month, the union voted 97% in favor of authorizing a strike should they not reach an agreement with UPS by the time their contracts are up on July 31.

Teamsters, UPS battle may be just a warmup for future Amazon fight, experts say

“If this multibillion-dollar corporation fails to deliver on the contract that our hardworking members deserve, UPS will be striking itself,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement in June. “The strongest leverage our members have is their labor and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.”

A United Parcel Service delivery driver steers his truck, Friday, June 30, 2023, in the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, the head of the union representing 340,000 UPS workers, said a strike is on the table. 

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

O’Brien joined members of Local 804 UPS in Brooklyn, New York on Friday morning in a practice picket line.

“Our United Parcel Service members in New York and all over the country have never been more prepared to strike,” O’Brien said Friday.

5 things to know about UPS strike as Teamsters contract talks fail

The Atlanta company often touts it is the single-largest employer of Teamsters in the United States and states it transports over three percent of global GDP and around six percent of U.S. GDP daily.

Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, previously said a UPS Teamsters strike could cause a significant supply chain disruption, using the supply chain issues during the pandemic as an example.

If the strike does take place next month, it would be the first in over 25 years since workers walked out for 15 days in 1997.

Hiring non-union workers is likely an escalation of the tension between the Teamsters and UPS’s negotiating team.

“UPS is making clear it doesn’t view its workforce as a priority,” a Teamsters spokesperson said.

“Corporate executives are quick to brag about industry-leading service and even more quickly forget the Teamster members who perform that service,” she said. “UPS should stop wasting time and money on training strikebreakers and get back to the negotiating table with a real economic offer that respects and fairly compensates 340,000 UPS Teamsters.”

UPS to train nonunion employees as talks stall with union for 340,000 workers and deadline nears

 - Delivery vehicles remain idle outside a UPS depot, Thursday, June 29, 2023, in New York. A little more than a week after contract talks between UPS and the union representing 340,000 of its workers broke down, UPS said Friday, July 14, 2023, it will begin training many of its non-union employees in the U.S. to step in should there be a strike, which the union has vowed to do if no agreement is reached by the end of this month. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
MICHELLE CHAPMAN
Updated Fri, July 14, 2023

A little more than a week after contract talks between UPS and the union representing 340,000 of its workers broke down, UPS said it will begin training nonunion employees in the U.S. to step in should there be a strike, which the union has vowed to do if no agreement is reached by the end of this month.

UPS said Friday that the training is a temporary plan that has no impact on current operations.

“While we have made great progress and are close to reaching an agreement, we have a responsibility as an essential service provider to take steps to help ensure we can deliver our customers’ packages if the Teamsters choose to strike,” UPS said.

Last week both sides blamed the other for walking away from talks, which now appear to be at a stalemate with a July 31 deadline approaching fast.

Teamster-represented UPS workers voted for a strike authorization last month and union chief Sean O’Brien previously said that a strike was imminent. On Friday, O'Brien joined union workers in a picketing dry-run in Brooklyn, New York.

“UPS is making clear it doesn’t view its workforce as a priority. Corporate executives are quick to brag about industry-leading service and even more quickly forget the Teamster members who perform that service,” the Teamsters said Friday. “UPS should stop wasting time and money on training strikebreakers and get back to the negotiating table with a real economic offer.”

The Teamsters represent more than half of the Atlanta company’s workforce in the largest private-sector contract in North America. If a strike does happen, it would be the first since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter century ago.

UPS has grown vastly since then and become an even more integral piece of the U.S. economy, with consumers relying on swift delivery of most essential home items. Small businesses who rely on UPS could also be left looking for alternative shipping options if the company’s remaining workforce wasn’t able to meet demand during a strike.

Businesses have already begun to prepare for a strike, seeking alternate services for delivery, but the strike would likely lead to significant disruption given the scale at which UPS operates.

UPS delivers around 25 million packages a day, representing about a quarter of all U.S. parcel volume, according to the global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes. That’s about 10 million parcels more than it delivered each day in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teamsters chief says still open to deal with UPS

UPS Teamsters practice picket ahead of an upcoming possible strike in Brooklyn, New York

Fri, July 14, 2023 
By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The head of the union representing 340,000 United Parcel Service workers on Friday said he's ready to keep talking with the company, even though his bargaining committee rejected its latest contract offer.

Negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS deadlocked last week, with the world's biggest package delivery company saying it had no more to give and the Teamsters demanding better pay for workers who missed out on labor shortage-driven pay increases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The contract covering UPS workers who sort, load and deliver packages expires at midnight on July 31.

"The clock is on our side, not theirs. I assume at some point they'll be reaching out looking to try and get a deal," Sean O'Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, told Reuters following a worker rally in New York.

Earlier in the day, UPS said it remained focused on reaching an agreement before the current one expires. At the same time, it said it would begin training non-union employees to deliver packages in the event of a strike.

UPS delivers about 20 million packages a day - roughly a quarter of U.S. parcel volume. A stoppage could delay shipments of everything from Amazon.com orders to critical medicines, and fuel inflation-stoking supply-chain disruptions. One estimate put the economic impact of a 10-day strike at more than $7 billion - one of the costliest in at least a century.

The stakes are high for both sides.

UPS, which aims to hold down labor costs to compete with non-union rivals, could lose customers in a strike, while the Teamsters count UPS as the largest employer of U.S. workers represented by the union.

UPS posted significant profits during the pandemic and rewarded executives and shareholders, O'Brien said. "Everyone has gotten a piece of the pie except for the people that actually touch the packages and provide the goods and services," he said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; editing by John Stonestreet)

UPS Teamsters practice picketing  ahead 

of an upcoming possible strike in Brooklyn, New York

UPS feels Twitter pile-on amid strike threat, Teamsters negotiations


Tara Suter

THE HILL
Tue, July 11, 2023

The general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters hit UPS Tuesday for its “underpaid” and “overworked” employees, responding to a Twitter thread from the company about the benefits of working part time.

“They’re rightfully demanding what they’re owed,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in the tweet. “It’s time for your company to do right by the #Teamsters and our members’ families. 20 days to pay up.”

His comments come amid high tensions between the Teamsters and UPS. Negotiations on a new contract between the two collapsed last week as the July 31 set date — when the current contract expires — for a Teamsters strike inches closer.

“Will companies/institutions every learn that these tweets don’t go well?” one Twitter user wrote. “Like people will ALWAYS use these as an opportunity to expose your poor working conditions and/or messed up systems?

Other responses to the thread included Twitter users’ complaints with the company’s heat regulation in their trucks and a screenshot of an article reporting on UPS’s financial misdeeds.

“Speaking of setting the record straight, we think an ‘average $20 an hour’ for part-timers means either @UPS’s Twitter account has been hacked by someone who doesn’t know what ‘average’ means or the company is simply rounding up to the nearest 20,” the official Teamsters account said in a Quote Tweet.

Another Twitter user spoke about the negative working conditions they said they faced while working at UPS, including “extreme heat with no breaks” and “carbon monoxide poisoning one time.”

“When I went to the doctor for the latter, y’all threatened to fire me!” the Twitter user said in response to the UPS thread.

Google lays off contractors who unionized last month

Suspecting retaliation, the discharged workers have begun a hearing with the NLRB.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Will Shanklin
·Contributing Reporter
Thu, July 13, 2023

Around 80 Google Help subcontractors who recently voted to unionize with the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) found out last week that they will be laid off. The group began a hearing this week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regarding the complex issue of joint employment for contractors. “It really stinks of retaliation,” Casey Padron, a general writer on the team scheduled to lose her job in August, told Engadget today.

The group announced the unionization effort on Thursday, June 8th; around two-thirds of the workers were notified weeks later about the layoffs. The team includes writers and graphic designers who create internal and external content for the search giant, including Google Help support pages. They list Google and Accenture as joint employers “due to the direct role both companies play in shaping working conditions.” Because they were joint contractors employed by tech consultancy Accenture, they don’t appear to enjoy protections with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, legislation passed in 1988 that provides certain rights for laid-off workers. (California is currently considering expanding protections for contract workers.)

“Last week we received news that 80 of our nearly 120 recently unionized Google Help coworkers would be laid off,” said Julia Nagatsu Granstrom, Senior Writer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union- CWA. “We had exercised our right to organize as members of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA in order to bring both Google and Accenture, a Google subcontractor, to the bargaining table to negotiate on several key demands, including layoff protections.” Nagatsu Granstrom describes the layoffs as “absolutely unacceptable,” given the timing of an active union campaign “with overwhelming support from workers.”

The Google Help cuts follow a group of company contractors rating search results who were fired last month after announcing intentions to unionize with the same organization, the AWU-CWA. However, they were reinstated and promised backpay after filing Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB.

Padron says the Google Help layoffs caught her off guard. “I was extremely surprised to hear about our team’s layoffs,” she told Engadget. “We are constantly told by Google and Accenture management how impressed they are with the quality of our work, so the timing of these layoffs looks suspiciously like retaliation for our union formation.” She says the employer’s proclaimed motive of budget tightening doesn’t add up. “They claimed that the cuts were a result of changes in budget allocation, but Accenture has also posted job listings that have our exact job description and project code.”

“These giant, wealthy corporations need to start living up to their own ‘core values’ and treating their workers with the dignity, respect, and humanity we deserve,” Padron added. “If these multi-billion dollar corporations can’t afford to provide humane working conditions to their employees, the business model needs radical change. Some of our operations managers and the Googlers we collaborate with have already expressed that Google’s help centers will suffer without our team. They will feel this loss, and they deserve to.”

Nagatsu Granstrom says the unionized workers will take “every recourse possible to support our impacted members and continue to organize workers at Google Help and beyond.” Padron echoes the upbeat, fighting tone. “If it’s Accenture and Google’s goal to demoralize us, they have failed,” she told Engadget. “We are more united than ever and will continue to fight for this job that so many of us love and rely on.”

Hollywood Is Going on a Dual Strike for the First Time Since 1960. You Won’t Believe Who Led the Last One.

Ironically, you have Ronald Reagan to thank for SAG-AFTRA actors’ welfare.

BY NADIRA GOFFE

SLATE

JULY 14, 2023

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Archive Photos/Getty Images, Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images, and Getty Images Plus.

On Thursday, the Screen Actors Guild, or SAG-AFTRA, announced that it would join its sister union, the Writers Guild of America—who have already been on the picket line for more than 10 weeks—in a full-out strike. This news, which is the result of weeks of attempted bargaining with streaming services for better residual payments and protections against prospects like outsourcing work to artificial intelligence, marks the first time both unions have struck simultaneously since 1960. The last time both unions went on strike, SAG in particular was led by an unlikely familiar figure: Ronald Reagan.

 Writer, actor, and comedian Wayne Federman wrote a piece for the Atlantic in 2011 titled “What Reagan Did for Hollywood,” in which he details the unprecedented advancements that Reagan helped secure for workers in Hollywood before going on the path to become one of the most emphatically conservative presidents in contemporary American history. 

I called Federman to discuss the significance of the 1960 strike and its relation to the state of Hollywood today. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.


Nadira Goffe: What were the circumstances that led to the 1960 SAG strike?

Wayne Federman: So the SAG strike was about one issue, and that issue was motion pictures made by the studios that were now being played on television. That started around 1948. [The union] kept wanting to talk about this issue, and [the studios] kept kicking the can down the road, year after year, negotiation after negotiation. So, eventually, the membership of SAG were like, We have to deal with this issue. It was very, very, very contentious. And they brought back Ronald Reagan, who had been president of SAG from 1947 to 1952, to lead the union. He had a TV show, he had been host of General Electric Theater, and his movie career had kind of waned a little bit, but he was very respected by the membership, and they brought him sort of out of retirement to lead this strike. So he got elected again.

Why did they invite him back? What was so special about him?

Because he was an extremely effective leader of SAG in the late ’40s. At that time, he was considered a liberal Democrat, but by the time he was brought back as SAG president to lead this strike, he had had a political conversion. … I don’t think he was a registered Republican at that time, but he was certainly starting to lean that way. The membership liked him. They remembered that he had been this good union leader before, and when he was head of SAG in the early ’50s, he helped get residuals for television actors [for reruns].

But here’s a little thing: Nancy, his wife, did not want him to take this job, because now you’re going up against the people that can hire you. You’re the face of the industry, of these actors, and now you have to go up against the heads of Warner Brothers and MGM and all of the major studios. But he eventually said yes, and as soon as the strike was resolved, he didn’t even finish out the term. I believe he resigned after the strike was successfully negotiated.

What were the main union ideas behind the 1960 strike?

Let’s say you get hired to act in a film. Basically, the person hiring you is taking the risk. They’re paying you your salary, and in return, they own that product. So, what SAG was saying was, You can play that film anywhere in the world, you can play it in Italy, you can have it dubbed—but when you put it on television, that’s a new revenue stream. Also, the argument was that that is taking work away from other actors. Because if you have this movie on, that time slot is no longer available for working actors.

On the other side, the head of 20th Century Fox [Spyros Skouras], his argument was very simple: Why should I pay you twice for the same job? I’ve already paid you for this job. I own this at this point. And that was basically the position of all of these studio owners. At the beginning of the strike, they were like, We’re not even going to talk about residuals. It’s a nonstarter. And Reagan said, We’re “trying to negotiate for the right to negotiate.” That’s how far apart they were. It was so foreign to these guys that they would have to share their revenues with actors after they’d already paid the actors. Ultimately, one studio, Universal Pictures—believe it or not, the head of Universal, a guy named Lew Wasserman, used to be Ronald Reagan’s agent—was the first domino that dropped. I think Lew Wasserman thought it was inevitable anyway: If it wasn’t going to happen in 1960, it might happen in ’65. And then one after another [gave in], until, I think, the 20th Century guy was the last guy, who was like, All right, I’ll give it, I’ll pay you again for something I’ve already paid you for, through clenched teeth.

As weird as it may sound now, in the old days, you could only see Paramount movies in Paramount theaters [due to vertical integration]. At that time, the studios were in a big fight with television. There was a big Supreme Court ruling called the Paramount Decree, where the studios had to give up distribution [control] of their movies. And that cost them. And then people started staying home and watching television, like I Love Lucy, and so the movie industry was hemorrhaging money. There were some studios that wouldn’t even show a television set in people’s homes. It was a real battle because they were losing so much money because television was exciting and new. So they were like, Oh my God, this is one place where we might be able to make some money. And now you’re asking us to give you a percentage of it.

What is the importance of residuals? As you said, actors had already gotten paid.

This was kind of a new idea—that, if we take these movies and put them in this new medium, there’s a new revenue stream outside of box office gross. There was no such thing as movies on television when the industry started. There was no television. The idea of residuals started on radio, believe it or not. They would do a broadcast on the East Coast and then do another one for the West Coast, and they would get paid for both of those broadcasts. And then at one point they were like, We’re just going to tape the East Coast broadcast and then play it again for the West Coast. And that was really the start of, Well, can you pay us because we’re actually doing this again? So the idea was: Let’s see if we can get part of this revenue stream for our actors, because in a way, we’re now competing against ourselves.

And, essentially, even though it’s prerecorded and just put on a different medium, it’s technically multiple performances.

Right. And you’re also taking work away from actors who could be using that time slot, who could be hired to do an episode of Gunsmoke or The Fugitive, or something like that. Again, the residuals were so small at the time, but this was a paradigm shift in Hollywood.

What about residuals for films made before the strike in 1960?

TV really starts kicking in 1948; by 1956, they’re playing [movies like] The Wizard of Oz on television. That’s a big MGM musical. … It’s not one of these B Westerns that Republic Pictures made, or something like that. So, there are more A pictures making their way onto television. And so [the studios are] thinking, In the age of television, what do we do for all of these movies that were made between 1948 and 1960? They decide, All right, instead of residuals for any of those movies made between 1948 and 1960, we’re going to give you a few million dollars to start. This is the first health fund for actors, which is where I get my health insurance and pension. It was seed money [for] benefits for your workers. And so that’s how the pension and welfare started for SAG. … Now it’s got to be well over $10 billion, probably. I don’t even know the amount of money that’s been sent to actors who work in movies that get played on television, based on that 1960 strike.

And so there are no residuals for any movie made before 1960. There were people who worked in the ’30s and ’40s, like Mickey Rooney and Bob Hope, who were upset at this. They were like, Why do we strike? I thought I’d get residuals for Road to Morocco or whatever. In a way, Reagan was selfless because most of the movies he made were in pre-residual times.

What you’re essentially telling me is that Ronald Reagan decides to take up this liberal cause and basically secures residuals and welfare for the future of Hollywood actors. And then, very shortly afterward, registers as a Republican. Where he then becomes, well, the Ronald Reagan.

That is correct.

What are the circumstances leading to this current SAG strike and how do they differ from or resemble the circumstances in 1960?

For this strike, before we even negotiated, we already had strike authorization from the membership. In 1960, they didn’t. The 1960 strike was really about one issue, and this strike is about multiple issues. This is about how residuals, specifically for streaming entertainment, are being calculated. Those numbers are … not really released. It’s not like a Nielsen rating. Sometimes you’ll hear something like, Oh, 1.2 million minutes of Squid Game—what does that mean? Does that mean that many people watched one minute of it, or does that mean people watched it a number of times, or … ? I don’t know why it’s all proprietary for these streamers, but that’s just where we’re at. We want a little more transparency in that, [to consider] that if we’re on a hit show, is that paid differently than a [nonhit] show? And then there’s this A.I. situation.

You said that the studios were sort of giving up these residuals through clenched teeth. Do you think that their position on that has changed?

That’s the amazing outcome of what Ronald Reagan—and other negotiators at the time—was able to do: In a way, they were changing the paradigm of how Hollywood money is divided up. They were striking for an idea: that we deserve this for A, B, C, and D reasons. You get residuals now. Not everyone; editors don’t get residuals, but directors do. I get residuals for streaming services, but they’re just not the same. They’re not as good as cable, and they’re not as good as network. When you look at the check, you’re like, OK, this doesn’t seem like a lot. But, again, you don’t know how many people are watching it.

And also, I think when we first started looking at streaming services, we were like, We want these services to thrive so that there’ll be more work for actors. So I think that’s why we were not militant about residuals for these new platforms. No one is saying, Oh, we paid you to be on this Netflix show, and we never have to pay you a residual. The problem is that it’s not as hearty as it used to be for these other mediums. But the idea of residuals … is not going away, unless [the companies] decide to try to break the unions and just use nonunion actors and not pay residuals.

This time around, do you think the WGA strike has influenced this SAG strike?

Well, I think it did. This is just one person’s opinion. But the Directors Guild of America settled with the producers, and I think that the Writers Guild felt like, Oh, that was really kind of a leverage point for us, that we would maybe be in this together. Even though legally you’re not allowed to be in it together, but wink, wink, we’re in this together. I think the actors were aware of it, and they were like, We have your back a little bit. Again, it’s a separate negotiation, and there should be a bright line. But in my opinion, being out here, I feel like the Writers Guild was hoping, OK, now we have more leverage, obviously. We have a little more power. And there’s going to be more pain inflicted. The Emmy Awards might be postponed—as an actor, you’re not allowed to promote your movie that you’ve already done.

How are you feeling? You’re in both unions.

Yes. How am I feeling? Well, mixed is how I’m feeling, to tell you the truth. Most of my friends are like, Eff those guys, look at how much so-and-so makes, these faceless internet oligarchs that own all the content, eff those guys, let them feel a little pain. That’s kind of what a lot of my peer group is like. But I’m a little more like, “We’re in this together. Does it have to get to this, where there’s a work stoppage?” I’m super sympathetic to people who aren’t in the union that rely on film production to make their living—caterers and all of those people. I feel terrible for them. I go on the line sometimes, and it’s a little bit of a party atmosphere—there’s music playing, and they do karaoke, and we get free food thanks to Drew Carey. So I’m mixed. No one’s asked me that. Thank you.

It’s complicated. If it were easy, people would be doing it all the time.

It’s a complicated issue. It’s like Reagan. It’s complicated.

Ronald Reagan led an actors strike decades before his U.S. presidency


By Shera Avi-Yonah and Andrea Salcedo

The Washington Post
July 14, 2023

A portrait of former SAG-AFTRA president Ronald Reagan hangs in SAG-AFTRA headquarters, when the actors union announced its strike. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The year was 1959, and talks between the Screen Actors Guild and movie studios had stalled.

The actors sought residual payments from TV channels that reran films they’d worked on, in what would have been a drastic shake-up.

Producers, seeking higher profits from new media, refused to negotiate.

So SAG called in a ringer who had retired from union leadership: Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, an actor and Democrat at the time, served as SAG’s president from 1947 to 1952, winning for television actors the kind of residuals movie actors wanted, and eventually helping cement Hollywood as the new capital of TV production.

After agreeing to return to the SAG presidency in 1959, he would preside over a five-week strike that resulted in SAG winning residual payments for film actors. Hollywood writers also staged a strike, getting their own payments for movies screened on TV; theirs lasted 21 weeks.

In a move that would be echoed this summer, the dual strikes in 1960 aligned writers and actors on the picket line, bringing much of Hollywood’s work to a standstill.

And Reagan would be among those who ended them.

“[The deal] was overwhelmingly approved by the membership,” Iwan Morgan, author of ‘Reagan: American Icon,’ told The Washington Post. “They were very keen to get back to work and make money. … He was a pretty good negotiator, there’s no doubt about it. Reagan would later joke that negotiating with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, over arms reduction was nothing in comparison to having to negotiate with the studio heads.

At the time, creatives had to contend with the popularization of a new medium, TV. Now they’re dealing with a similar issue in the form of streaming, plus existential questions raised by artificial intelligence — a combination that led to another dual strike when SAG-AFTRA announced Thursday that its actors would stop their work. The move from SAG-AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists merged with SAG a decade ago) aligned with the Writers Guild of America in its strike that has run since June

When Reagan began his SAG negotiations, the movie studios refused to even discuss residuals, said actor and writer Wayne Federman, who has written about the 1960 strike and spoke to The Post on his way to the writers guild picket line Thursday.

Producers argued at the time that actors had been paid once for their work and shouldn’t get money over and over for the same work. After a month of fruitless negotiations, Reagan called a strike authorization vote in February 1960. SAG members walked off sets one month later, on March 7.

Reagan benefited from long-standing relationships within the industry — including with the future head of Universal Studios, Lew Wasserman, who had been Reagan’s agent.

“Reagan in 1960 should never have been fronting SAG negotiations because not only was he an actor, he was also a producer,” Morgan said. “There were possible conflicts of interest here, but Reagan kept them out about the fact that he had co-production credits. That only became public knowledge afterwards.”


Charles S. Boren, left, vice president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, shakes hands with actor Charlton Heston at the end of the Screen Actors Guild's strike against seven film studios in 1960. Shown next to Heston is SAG President Ronald Reagan, shaking hands with B.B. Kahne of the AMMP. (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)

Criticism also came from fellow SAG official and actor James Garner

“I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president,” Garner said in his memoir. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That’s no way to run a union, let along a state or a country.”

The actors and the studios reached a deal after five weeks of negotiations. Actors would get residual payments for films produced in 1960 and after. Any films they’d worked on before 1948 would pay actors zero residuals. In lieu of residuals for films made in the interim, the studios gave SAG a $2.65 million lump sum that the guild used to create its first pension plan.

The deal caused some grumbling among actors, Federman said, including Mickey Rooney and Bob Hope, who believed SAG could have won retroactive payments for all pre-1960 films.

“There was a feeling that Reagan had caved in — again — under pressure from MCA [the company who represented him] because MCA was desperate to end the strike,” Morgan said. “There was a feeling from some of the old stars that Reagan had not pushed harder.”

Still, it represented a distinct pro-labor moment in Reagan’s career.

Reagan shifted from his Democratic roots and supported Richard M. Nixon’s presidential aspirations in 1960, then registered as a Republican after that election, The Washington Post reported. In 1966, while he was running for governor, Reagan won “about 25 or 30 per cent of the labor vote,” the New York Times reported. A decade later, while campaigning for the White House, he characterized “big labor” as a problem for the country.

Shortly before that 1980 election, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, in announcing his organization’s support for President Jimmy Carter, said Reagan’s supporters were “among the most bitterly antilabor forces in America,” according to a September 1980 dispatch in The Post

“Ronald Reagan is no friend of working people,” Kirkland said. “His past record proves that fact, and we must make sure that union members have the facts to match against the glib rhetoric.”

Despite the criticism from a leading labor voice, Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide and set up a presidency that would put him on another side of union dealings.

In 1981, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), one of the few labor unions that endorsed Reagan during his run for office, walked off their jobs citing unfair wages and long hours.

But Reagan, who at the time was following a Kennedy-era executive order that limited public workers’ abilities to strike, did not come to the table with the union, which had about 13,000 workers at the time. If he capitulated, Reagan’s advisers said, he’d have every other union in the public and private sector demanding better wages, Morgan told The Post.

“Reagan is being told by his economic team and his closest advisers, ‘If you cave in now to PATCO you’ll look weak,’” Morgan said.

Had he done this, Reagan would have never been able to reduce the country’s 13 percent inflation rate at the time — a key part of Reagan’s economic plan during his first term, Morgan said. So Reagan gave them 48 hours to return to their jobs or be fired. Many workers at the time thought the former actor was bluffing, according to Morgan. But Reagan wasn’t, and the first head of a labor union to be elected into the White House became the first president in decades to end a strike.

Hollywood shutdown

What’s happening: Actors in the SAG-AFTRA union announced a decision to strike after negotiations over a new contract failed. They will join Hollywood writers, who have been on strike since early May. Follow live updates as the strike unfolds.

Why are Hollywood actors and writers on strike? The Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America say their demands are meant to protect their members as the entertainment industry is in an era of rapid change. The SAG strike could last for months, here are the rules about what actors can and can’t do.

What has the writers’ strike halted? With writers and actors both going on strike, the film industry will likely grind to a halt. Here’s what to know about the strikes’ impacts on Hollywood. This is only the second time in history a joint strike has happened, with the last occurrence in 1960 when Ronald Reagan led SAG.



By Shera Avi-Yonah  is an intern on The Post’s General Assignment desk. Before joining The Post, she interned at Bloomberg News, the Daily Memphian in Memphis, CBS News and the American Prospect. Twitter

By Andrea Salcedo is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2020 as an overnight reporter on the Morning Mix team. Previously, she covered breaking news and features for the New York Times metro desk. Twitter

What you need to know about the SAG-AFTRA strike that will upend Hollywood

2023/07/14

Writers Guild of America members, with support from SAG-AFTRA, strike at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 6, 2023. - Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS

NEW YORK — Lights, camera, pause. Hollywood is officially on hiatus as the union representing on-screen talent has joined screenwriters in striking against the studios, amid stalled contract negotiations.

SAG-AFTRA officially announced its strike would commence at midnight PST Friday, after the union’s contract expired late Wednesday and negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) fell apart. Union leadership noted that while the strike was “an instrument of last resort,” settling for an unfair deal wouldn’t just “destroy each of us, but the industry at large.”

Here’s a breakdown of what the strike means for screens big, small and beyond.
Why is SAG-AFTRA striking?

The union, representing roughly 160,000 actors, broadcast journalists, hosts and more, is seeking more than an increase in pay and improvement in working conditions.

SAG wants to ensure their livelihoods are protected amid the emergence of evolving technologies, such as streaming services and artificial intelligence, concerns shared by the Writers Guild of America, who began their strike in May.

Oscar winners like Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ariana DeBose last month were among the hundreds of SAG members who signed a letter in which they laid out their demands to prevent a strike.

“We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom, and the power of our union have all been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories.”
What are the ramifications of a SAG-AFTRA strike for Hollywood?

Members of the union will be ordered to stop performing, forcing sets that have yet to shut down amid the writers strike to do so — in turn likely delaying a whole host of release dates. They’ll also be prohibited from promoting upcoming work. Excited to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro on the Oscars campaign trail for Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited, “Killers of the Flower Moon?” That all depends on when this strike ends. In the meantime, press junkets, interviews, or any posting of promotional content are all on hold.

”Oppenheimer” star Emily Blunt, for instance, confirmed to Deadline Thursday that, were the strike to break out during the premiere of Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated docudrama, the star-studded cast would “be leaving together as cast in unity with everyone.”

The strike might also put a damper on this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. In addition to promotional panels being on the list of big no-no’s for represented actors, many studio staples like Marvel, Sony and HBO already reportedly pulled out of presentations or panels as a result of the writers strike.
Is all acting work prohibited under the strike?

Most on-screen theatrical work — such as TV, film, and streaming — isn’t allowed for members during the strike. However actors are expected to be permitted to appear in music videos, commercials, corporate or educational videos, and on broadcast news. It’s expected that non-SAG-AFTRA podcast and audiobook gigs will also be allowed. Voice-over work which has been negotiated by SAG is expected to be OK, but will require the union’s approval, sources tell Vanity Fair.

Morning and talk shows, as well as reality or game shows and the like are handled by the Network Television Code and should remain unaffected by the strike.
Is Broadway on strike, too?

While many SAG members also do live theater, live theatrical performance falls under a separate union: Actor’s Equity. As such, live theater such as Broadway plays and musicals, are not affected by the strike, an Actor’s Equity representative confirmed to The Daily News, adding: “Audiences can still feel good about buying tickets to Broadway and other live theatre!”
Who might you see on the picket line?

Because of the breadth of those represented by SAG-AFTRA, there’s a good chance onlookers will spot plenty of familiar faces picketing for professional protection.

That star-studded letter seen by Rolling Stone, notes that “what might be considered a good deal in any other years is simply not enough,” due to the “unprecedented inflection point in our industry,” was also signed by the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ben Stiller, Neil Patrick Harris, Eva Longoria, Riley Keough and Ziwe.

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