Wages, Hours & Working Conditions Notwithstanding

The above list represents the mandatory subject matter of collective bargaining for recognized unions and guilds under the National Labor Relations Act. But as with so many economic schisms, from landlord/tenant to company/worker, there are two sides to every story. Indeed, where these laws apply to larger economic units, especially where industry-wide jurisdictions apply, the power and advantage tends to favor the larger, better funded party. They have the money to hire legions of lawyers, lobby legislators where possible and are able to sustain long and complicated battles with lesser funded opponents. Even when they lose, their delaying tactic is often little more than the cost of legal fees. But when smaller economic units face serious and dynamic shifts in the cost of running their business, whether through rising statutory minimum wages or collective bargaining, the results are often quite the opposite.

Writing for The Morning, December 6th New York Times news feed, David Leonhardt, observes: “This year has been a good one for labor unions. They have won victories in Hollywood and the auto industry, and 67 percent of Americans approve of unions, according to Gallup. Still, I remain skeptical that union organizing is on the cusp of a major turnaround, unless federal law changes. For now, companies that aren’t unionized have many ways to prevent a union from forming even when most workers want to join one.” Leonhardt’s fellow contributor, Noam Scheiber, reinforces the power of the biggest boys in labor negotiations in deterring union recognition in the workplace, even as federal labor law is designed to protect labor activism aimed at generating such union certification:

“If an employer fires a worker for trying to organize a union — which is illegal — it typically takes years to litigate the case. Even if the employer is found guilty, it will at most have to pay back wages and some other ‘make whole’ compensation, not a financial penalty for the wrongdoing. So there’s little disincentive to violating the law.

“In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla had illegally fired a worker four years earlier for engaging in union activity, and the board ordered the company to reinstate him with back pay. Tesla appealed the decision in federal court and lost but is continuing to appeal. The worker has yet to be reinstated. Starbucks and Amazon have taken similar approaches.

“Even if workers succeed at unionizing, the law offers few tools for forcing employers to negotiate a contract. Employers can wait out newly unionized workers in the hopes that they’ll become demoralized and quit, allowing the company to hire new workers who will vote the union out. In 2021, House Democrats passed a bill, the PRO Act, to address these issues. The bill died in the Senate.

“That said, I’m not convinced that the organizing activity over the past few years is leading nowhere. Even as the rate of unionization fell to its lowest level on record in 2022, with only 10.1 percent of workers belonging to a union, there was still an absolute increase of nearly 300,000 unionized workers. (That is, the numerator rose substantially; it’s just that the denominator rose even more as workers re-entered the work force once the pandemic subsided.)”

In my world, Los Angeles and the entertainment business, both the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television & Radio Artists endured months of agonizing strikes to generate the now, fully ratified going forward collective bargaining agreements with major studios and telecasters. That labor strike seems to have cost both parties and related vendors north of $6 billion in losses, while raising wages and residuals and dealing with the nasty rising threat of artificial intelligence. Was it worth it? Time will tell.

The big entertainment companies have announced major layoffs and reductions in production starts as well as focusing on production cost reductions across the board. Will that represent a permanent reset? We shall see, but so far, that threat appears to be real. Production starts and restarts have not remotely rebounded to prestrike levels, and budgets for many of the projects given a greenlight are substantially lower.

But collective bargaining is only one aspect of the new normal, with higher wages. Worker shortages, combined with state and local government increases in minimum wages, have hit fast food franchises and small businesses hard. Even in exceptionally liberal communities, such as Los Angeles LGBTQ+ friendly West Hollywood (WeHo – pictured above), the protests seem to be coming more from the employers than the employees. As Don Lee, writing for the December 6th Los Angeles Times notes: “Across the country, many American workers have enjoyed pay hikes unlike anything seen in decades. And for many American businesses, this also has been a good year for profits, with some corporations notching record or near-record gains.

“But don’t try to sing that song of good times in West Hollywood: Business owners there say that paying workers more is killing them, and that goes for some of the low-wage workers who many liberal policymakers worry about… In an area known for its nightlife, hip restaurants, trendy shops and boutique hotels, workers at or near the minimum pay abound. And, thanks in part to the political muscle of the hospitality union for workers in the Los Angeles area and the COVID-era shakeup that gave workers greater leverage, city leaders there have approved the highest minimum wage and some of the most generous paid time off to be found anywhere in the country.

“The West Hollywood rules, approved two years ago, stand in contrast to the situation in much of the country, where business leaders have successfully opposed substantial increases in minimum wages. The federal wage floor has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009, and two dozen states currently are at less than $10 an hour or have no minimum wage at all… In California as a whole, the minimum wage stands at $15.50 an hour, behind only Washington state at $15.74 and the nation’s capital at $16.50… Many cities have their own minimum rate, and none higher than West Hollywood, where it’s now $19.08 an hour, with paid leave even for part-time staff.”

Likewise, there is pressure on local and state governments to increase license fees as well as state and local taxes as infrastructure demand increases and legacy infrastructure deteriorates. Insurance costs are skyrocketing as well. In red states, most of these funding needs fall on deaf ears as increasing taxes against high-earners and mega-wealth runs counter to GOP doctrine. We face increasing political polarization just as the nation needs funding to sustain our existing or desired quality of life. Climate change devastation is only making a bad problem so much worse. The reality of life in America is simply that without fixing and expanding what is needed, we all lose.

I’m Peter Dekom, and whether the United States will be reunited, whether it can support and fund the obviously needed big reset, remain very much in doubt.