After studying a whole bunch about unions and key historical strikes and seeing them on the AP test, I wondered if there were any interesting strikes happening currently. While researching, I found that there were some interesting ones.
Fast Food Forward, the union which represents fast food workers in the US announced a strike beginning May 15 in a push for a wage increase to $15 dollars and hour from $7.75, and more rights for the employees. Their nationwide strike was picked up by groups across the globe as workers from dozens of countries on six continents at various fast food outlets including McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC. They held the first international fast food union meeting, hosted by International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, a sort of union of unions, comprised of over 350 trade unions and around 12 million workers. Its interesting to see how unions have gone from highly frowned upon and barely legal to powerful organizations that are able to be instruments of change in society.
While the fast food strike is the most widespread by far, another interesting strike was at Hyundai Motors in South Korea. The union is headed by a new leader, Lee Kyung-hoon, in a push for higher wages and bonuses, along with cuts in hours. This strike could have far reaching impacts as any strike action in South Korea, where over 40% of Hyundai vehicles are manufactured, could have global effects on supply. The most divisive reform that workers are calling for is the amendment of the definition of a regular wage, which is the basis for the pay of all 47,000 workers there. A strike by employees last August cost Hyundai over 43 billion, but even more costly was a strike the year before which lost Hyundai over a trillion dollars. The series of strikes at Hyundai are in intriguing example of growing union power, and the impact that unions can have. It lends perspective as to why Gilded Age monopolists were so adamantly opposed to allowing their workers to unite.
Sources:
http://whbl.com/news/articles/2014/may/15/hyundai-motor-union-demands-higher-wages-shorter-hours/
I commented on Maya's post about Obama's Bay Area Visit on how there was a protest at our local Walmart in which Obama made his Energy Speech. This protest that seemed to be lead by workers easily could have turned into a strike. That being said, if you're interested in learning more about the protest, read this article:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/09-7
or simply talk to Vishnu Bachani who actually went to Walmart and participated in the protest. I'm sure he has many things to say about the event.
You can see how unions have learned their lesson since the Gilded Age: nothing gets done without unity. It's cool that so many unions acted on behalf of a common cause in the fast food strike.
ReplyDeleteGood post, Elise. I like how you connected the union situation in America to that in South Korea. I think what is almost more interesting than the unions themselves is the government's attitude towards them. We all know that in the later parts of the 1800s the government was not so kind to labor unions, but in recent years thing have changed for the better.
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome post Elise! Even after all these years the goals of most unions are still the same: increase wages, cut hours, and gain more rights. I actually did not know that were was a union to represent fast food workers in america so I found this post to be very fascinating.
ReplyDeleteRecently there was actually a strike for McDonald's as over 800 people protested outside the corporation headquarters and what over 10 people had gotten arrested. One of the reasons that McDonalds gave as to why they were so against the wage raise was because one third of their workers are actually teenagers and they say that they believe it's a great starting job.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see that unions have made a lot of progress since the Gilded Age. As you said in your post, unions started out as being very unpopular because there was no way to ensure their survival, but now they are powerful enough to enact reasonable changes, which both of these strikes show. Good job!
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the minimum wage, many businesses believe that a raise in minimum wage will result in a significant price hike for many goods and products. They also say that minimum wage jobs are not meant to be careers, and are for teenagers and college students. However, proponents of the minimum wage say that many of these businesses have a very high profit margin anyway, with the CEO gaining a large amount of the income. Which side do you support more?
ReplyDelete