{"id":365597,"date":"2021-10-28T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/striketober-vaccine-mandates-strike-john-deere-kelloggs-covid-labor"},"modified":"2021-10-28T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:04:00","slug":"no-striketober-is-not-about-vaccine-mandates-the-recent-wave-of-militant-labor-action-has-been-over-workers-demanding-better-pay-and-working-conditions-not-opposing-covid-vaccine-requiremen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/28\/no-striketober-is-not-about-vaccine-mandates-the-recent-wave-of-militant-labor-action-has-been-over-workers-demanding-better-pay-and-working-conditions-not-opposing-covid-vaccine-requiremen\/","title":{"rendered":"No, Striketober Is Not About Vaccine Mandates – The recent wave of militant labor action has been over workers demanding better pay and working conditions\u2014not opposing Covid vaccine requirements."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t\t\t

This month, the United States has seen a noticeable uptick<\/a> in the number of strikes by fed-up workers at companies like Kellogg\u2019s<\/a> and John Deere<\/a>\u2014a phenomenon many are calling \u201cStriketober<\/a>.\u201d As a result, the U.S. labor movement is getting an unusual amount of attention. <\/p>\n

But because of the corporate media\u2019s often spotty or ideologically slanted coverage of workers\u2019 struggles, combined with the fact that only a small minority of Americans have any personal experience with unions, there appears to be some confusion among the general public over what Striketober is really about. <\/p>\n

A troubling number of Americans seem to have the false impression that tens of thousands of underpaid and overworked employees are going on strike in order to resist Covid-19 vaccine mandates\u2014when they are actually walking off the job to win decent raises, equitable pay structures and relief from mandatory overtime.<\/p>\n

Some of this confusion was on display last week as HuffPost<\/em> labor reporter Dave Jamieson appeared on C-SPAN<\/a> to discuss the current wave of strikes. When host John McArdle opened the phone lines for viewers to call up, the vaccine-specific questions started to roll in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to know how much the vaccine mandates are playing in these strikes? What is the role of the vaccine mandate?\u201d asked the first caller, a woman from South Carolina. <\/p>\n

About fifteen minutes later, another caller from Kentucky asked, \u201cDo you think this vaccine is causing most of the strikes?\u201d <\/p>\n

In response, Jamieson patiently explained that, \u201cthe vaccine is essentially a non-issue in these strikes we are seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who\u2019s been following these strikes closely, I was a little surprised by the assumption that vaccines might be at the center of this,\u201d Jamieson told In These Times<\/em>. \u201cBut I probably shouldn\u2019t have been. There\u2019s been outsized media coverage of workers defying vaccine requirements, even though they seem to be quite a small share of the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, since this summer there have been numerous<\/a> news<\/a> reports<\/a> about unions \u201copposing\u201d vaccine mandates, and many<\/a> similar<\/a> stories<\/a> about individual workers who would rather get fired than be vaccinated. But in reality, employers across the country are reporting<\/a> that 90 to 100 percent of their workforces are complying with vaccine mandates. <\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s media coverage that collapses the distinction between workers walking off the job to demand better working conditions and resistance to vaccine mandates, such as this CNN story<\/a> titled, \u201cHere comes the anti-vaccine requirement solidarity movement,\u201d which spends dozens of paragraphs recounting opposition to mandates before stating that the recent strikes have actually not been over such objections. At the end of September, Fox News published a story falsely claiming<\/a> that healthcare workers at Valley Health in Winchester, Va., went on strike over their employer\u2019s vaccine mandate, when in fact only a small number of workers protested<\/a>\nthe requirement, rather than taking part in an official or large-scale walk out. <\/p>\n

Much of the media hype about supposed union opposition to the mandates stems from general misunderstandings about the nature of collective bargaining. Unions that have asserted their right to bargain with employers over the implementation of vaccine mandates have inaccurately been accused of opposing the mandates altogether.<\/p>\n

Reacting to news<\/a> that public sector unions in Portland, Oregon were demanding to negotiate implementation of the vaccine mandate, journalist James Surowiecki tweeted<\/a>: \u201cOrganized labor has been on the wrong side of the vaccine issue almost across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe some unions have been captured by the cranks in their ranks,\u201d Washington Post<\/em> columnist Catherine Rampell opined<\/a> in response to unions wanting to negotiate vaccine mandates. \u201cIf \u2018Big Labor\u2019 obstructs this effort, it will fail not only its own members, but also the many admirers and political allies it worked so hard to win over,\u201d she warned.<\/p>\n

But as the Economic Policy Institute\u2019s Dave Kamper explained<\/a>, \u201cDemanding to negotiate the impact of something isn\u2019t the same as refusing to do it, or even being opposed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unions seeking to bargain over vaccine mandates want to determine specific policies like whether workers can use paid sick time to get vaccinated, what they will be expected to show as proof of vaccination and whether those working remotely will also need to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when an employer offers something unmistakably good to employees\u2026unions still can, will, and SHOULD demand to negotiate it, get it down in writing, formally agree to it,\u201d Kamper wrote. \u201cAt its very heart, collective bargaining isn\u2019t about money. It\u2019s about power. It\u2019s about WHO DECIDES. The principle of collective bargaining is the boss is not and should not be the unilateral decision maker. That\u2019s what a demand to negotiate means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Tyson Foods recently hammered out an agreement on implementation of the mandate, and now report<\/a> that 96 percent of the company\u2019s workers have been vaccinated, exemplifying that negotiating over vaccine mandates does not mean opposition to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking together, the UFCW and Tyson set a new standard with this vaccine mandate and have proved what\u2019s possible when we listen to workers and negotiate the implementation of vaccination mandates fairly and responsibly,\u201d said UFCW International President Marc Perrone.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it is true that some unions have been extremely vocal and adamant in their total opposition to vaccine mandates\u2014but these are almost entirely right-wing police unions<\/a> like Chicago\u2019s Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, which are already pariahs<\/a> to<\/a> many<\/a> in the labor movement. Importantly, while these police unions may be holding protests and making noise, they are not on strike and are therefore completely unconnected to the current wave of work stoppages.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are conflating the labor strife they see with these highly politicized mandates,\u201d Jamieson said. \u201cUnfortunately, that can overshadow the important labor story that\u2019s unfolding: workers finding their leverage and demanding a better deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n

This post was originally published on In These Times<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tThis month, the United States has seen a noticeable uptick in the number of strikes by fed-up workers at companies like Kellogg\u2019s and John Deere\u2014a phenomenon many are calling \u201cStriketober.\u201d As a result, the U.S. labor movement is getting an unusua…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369926,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365597\/revisions\/369926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}