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The return of Striketober and why consumers should care

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By Eden Iscil, Public Policy Manager

The National Consumers League has a long history of fighting for both consumers and workers alike. Founded 124 years ago, NCL’s first major policy accomplishments included the establishment of minimum wage laws and protections around child labor. In support of these goals, much of the League’s early years were centered around consumer boycotts of companies that treated their employees unfairly.

Today, NCL’s support of workers’ rights remains just as critical as we find ourselves in another October with truly historic labor action. Two years after “Striketober,” 75,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job in the largest healthcare strike in history largely due to low pay and understaffing. At the same time, 160,000 actors belonging to SAG-AFTRA and 25,000 members of the United Auto Workers continue to strike. The Writers Guild of America recently secured significant gains after a months-long writers’ stoppage, and UPS agreed to better contracts for drivers after 340,000 Teamsters threatened to withhold their labor.

Beyond the benefits for all workers that the presence of strong unions provides, it’s also in consumers’ self-interest to support workers agitating for better employment terms. As consumers, we rely on these employees to safely fly passengers across the country, provide critical healthcare services, and raise the alarm over unsafe food production. In addition to the harm that results from jeopardizing workers’ safety, poor working conditions can lead to indefinite closures, potentially reducing the amount of product on the shelves. In all of these cases, unions help consumers by advocating for adequate staffing levels to prevent worker burnout, securing healthy workplace environments, and ensuring robust whistle-blower protections.

Even for less perilous industries (i.e. not flying a plane or driving a truck), consumers should support workers fighting for better employment conditions if only to safeguard the continuation of their favorite products. The arts—including television, movies, and music—provide invaluable comfort and entertainment, in addition to awakening us to new perspectives, ideas, and values. Despite consumers’ intense love for these forms of entertainment, writers, actors, and musicians continue to struggle in their fields for fair compensation, something that can threaten (or at the very least, doesn’t promote) the future creation of high-quality art.

Industry has always threatened to raise prices if they are forced to pay their employees more. Consumers should understand that this is a choice corporate executives can make—but it is not the only possible outcome. Rather than price gouging consumers, companies can reduce executive compensation to offset the costs of fair wages. General Motors, one of the targets of the UAW strike, pays its CEO 362 times what it pays its median worker. Starbucks, a company infamous for its illegal union-busting, paid its former CEO nearly 1,400 times what it paid its median employee in 2022.

For this year’s resurgence of Striketober, consumers should do their part in supporting workers. Try purchasing union-made goods, shopping at worker-owned cooperatives (a directory of local co-ops can be found here while a list of large chains is viewable here), and supporting non-profit news organizations.

National Consumers League supports the SAG-AFTRA strike

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August 4, 2023

Media contact: National Consumers League – Katie Brown, katie@nclnet.org, 202-823-8442

Washington, D.C. – The National Consumers League supports the SAG-AFTRA nationwide strike announced on July 14, 2023 against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. After a union wide vote authorized the strike with 97.7% voting yes, more than 150,000 movie, theater, and streaming actors have gone on strike.  AMPTP represents over 350 American television and film production companies, including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Netflix, Apple TV+, and Amazon.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has been outspoken about the union’s frustration with the studios and networks.  “The Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry,” Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland have said.

The strike started after negotiations with AMPTP failed, despite SAG-AFTRA’s very reasonable demands:

  • Residual payments from streaming services based on viewership numbers
  • Streaming services won’t release statistics on streaming numbers to the union.
  • Protections and restitution for studios using Artificial Intelligence to reproduce an actor’s likeness
  • More regulation on “Self Taped Auditions” in which actors film their own auditions instead of within a casting studio. SAG-AFTRA says this creates an unfair burden being placed on actors
  • Increased contributions to pension, health and welfare funds.
  • Increased pay across the board and a living wage for those who work in the industry.

This strike coincides with the Writers Guild of America’s strike against the AMPTP; NCL also supports that group of writers who are striking. This marks the first time in 63 years that that both of these major unions have been forced to simultaneously go on strike.

The issues facing SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are almost identical: workers in this industry have seen their pay slowly diminished by inflation during the last several years, they face a reduction in residuals, less working time for shows, and the threat of artificial intelligence to replace actual writers and editors.

Sally Greenberg, NCL’s CEO, explained the reason for her organization’s support. “We have always been pro worker and this strike is no exception, except that the disparity in pay between industry executives and performers is more shocking than ever. Disney CEO Bob Iger’s board of directors handed him a two-year $27-million-per-year contract extension the day before the vote. Other studio executives make many millions as well, and yet they expect performers and writers in the industry – whose creativity is responsible for the success of these shows – to work for diminishing salaries and reduced benefits such that many cannot earn a living wage. The AMPTP refuses to even consider ideas like a plan for actors to participate in streaming revenue, for example.”

NCL also recognizes the strong solidarity that these striking performers have shown. For weeks, hundreds have kept the picket lines active at major AMPTP locations. Several major Hollywood SAG-AFTRA members have given generous donations in the millions to support striking performers who may not be able to afford rent or food due being shut out of their occupation by the AMPTP. Some of these individuals include Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Dwayne Johnson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Matt Damon.

We also include below the statement of AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in support of the performers represented by SAG-AFTRA.

AFL-CIO Statement on SAG-AFTRA

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization.  Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad.  For more information, visit nclnet.org.

Buy union-made gifts this holiday season – National Consumers League

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holiday_scams.jpgIt’s that time of year again! Holiday season is upon us, and that means more trips to the mall and online retailers for many of us. Gift buying and giving can be stressful, fun, exhilarating, and all of the above. But how many of us have stopped to consider where these products come from, and under what conditions they are being made?We here at the National Consumers League encourage buying American- and union-made goods. Consider this about the companies you are buying from: do they treat their employees fairly? Are the employees paid a living wage? Are they using child labor in the production of their goods?

We recently blogged about avoiding gifts produced by child labor this holiday season in the Huffington Post. The Department of Labor has created the Sweat and Toil smartphone app to help consumers research which products are made from child labor and forced labor.

Our friends and fellow labor advocates at Labor 411 recently released a shopping guide to help consumers shop ethically this holiday season. The guide features gift makers that support good jobs, such as Hasbro, Russell Stover, Ghiradelli Chocolates, See’s Candies, Harley Davidson, Craftsman, and Jack Daniel’s. Check out Labor 411’s website for more information on American-made gifts and familiar union-made brands that are domestically produced.

It’s important to be kind and give back during this joyous season, but it’s equally important to be ethical in our shopping choices! Thinking twice about where that present under the tree comes from could help support workers and sustain our economy.

Victory for hourly workers in four states despite the nation’s turn to the right – National Consumers League

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SG_HEADSHOT.jpgWhile American voters elected a president who campaigned against all things liberal on Tuesday, four states supported minimum wage increases in the same election. These add a measure of hope that progressive agenda issues can succeed, even in a year when progressives are not elected to the highest office.The winning tallies will raise hourly wages in Colorado, Arizona, Maine, and Washington. In Washington State, the wage will rise to $13.50 by 2020 and to $12 per hour in others, in the same time frame.

According to the Wall Street Journal, that would put them on the level of what is deemed the current statewide living wage by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living-wage calculator, which uses location-specific expenditure data to estimate the wage needed to support an individual or family in a given area.

The nonprofit Ballot Initiative Strategy Center helped to get these measures passed and by the look of things, they are very good at it. The group describes itself as “the only progressive organization that works across the many policy, organizing and political organizations, with local, state and national players to analyze and support the ballot measure landscape.”

In the one state, Arizona, that supported an increased minimum wage and also supported Donald Trump for president, education groups and about 200 local small businesses supported the measure, saying it would be better for their employees and the community as a whole. They won by a whopping 59 to 41 percent! The current minimum wage equates to about $17,000 a year. Both local and national groups put about $1.6 million into the campaign to support Prop. 206. Apparently, the restaurants and other businesses that opposed it didn’t put any money behind their campaign, which might explain the lopsided win.

The Washington state measure was backed by labor unions and worker advocates and appears to have won by a wide margin. Supporters argued that the state’s current minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, and a boost would mean workers have more to spend. They also argued that many workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, posing a public-health problem.

Business groups opposed the initiative, saying that while Seattle’s booming economy can support a high minimum wage, the rest of the state isn’t faring so well. Boosting the minimum wage in those areas could lead to higher prices and cuts in jobs and work hours, they say.

The Maine provision had a 56 percent lead when The Associated Press called the measure yesterday, while the effort in Colorado garnered around 55 percent of counted votes, compared with 44.9 percent against.

These resounding votes in support of minimum wage hikes are certainly an interesting development. They seem to show that the public largely supports fair wages for hourly workers, even in states that lean right. That’s an important message for progressives in an election year when not much went their way.

Updated November 10, 2016: Voters chose health in California and Boulder, Colorado, where measures were passed on November 8, 2016 to tax sugary beverages in hopes to decrease high rates of chronic disease and fund more public health programs.

McDonald’s employees fight for fair wages – National Consumers League

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gavel_icon.jpgBy Hannah Rudder, NCL Intern

We were preparing a blog on the issue of McDonald’s workers forming a class to sue McDonald’s when we came across the fact that the fast food chain reported an increase in net income from the first quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016 and attributed this increase to the minimum wage raise. McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook cites lower employee turnover and higher customer satisfaction as a result of the higher wages. While raising the minimum wage has not helped every company increase profits, and organizations like the Chamber of Commerce argue it will lead to higher unemployment and a decrease in profits, McDonald’s shows that it has not hurt the company’s bottom line. Based on the experience of McDonald’s, it appears that paying a living wage is good for the company, the economy, and the worker-and other large chains should follow suit.In relation to McDonald’s wage news, three weeks ago, a District Court in California certified a class of past and present McDonald’s employees to bring certain wage-related claims against the fast food giant. This is the first time a judge has ruled that McDonald’s employees can band together and bring claims against the corporation, rather than just the individual franchisee. We loudly applaud the ruling. Historically, McDonald’s workers have never been granted the right to unionize, and this recent court decision gives workers the ability to petition one controlling body as a group.

Similarly, this decision parts with McDonald’s long-held stance that it is not responsible for franchise workers because it is not a joint employer; McDonald’s argues the franchisee is the sole employer. McDonald’s asserts that it is not fair to hold the franchiser accountable for franchisee’s employment practices. The court did not hold that McDonald’s was a joint employer, but instead agreed with the employees’ ostensible agency theory that posits that the employees are agents of McDonald’s.

The class of current and former employees initially brought 13 causes of action against McDonald’s and its franchisee. These claims included a large negligence claim, failure to pay overtime, failure to pay minimum wage, failure to give appropriate meal or rest breaks, and failure to reimburse employees for time required to maintain uniforms. The court ruled, however, that this class can only bring the claims of unpaid overtime, maintenance of uniforms, and miscalculated wages against McDonald’s; the other claims, including the negligence claim, were dismissed.

The group of employees settled with the franchisee for $700,000. This settlement means that if the class of employees proves McDonald’s violated the California labor laws, then McDonald’s will be liable for all of the damages under those claims.

The implications of this District Court decision certifying former and current employees as a class has far reaching implications, not only for McDonald’s, but for the whole fast food industry. This decision opens the door for fast food employees to introduce labor lawsuits against chains like McDonald’s, rather than just against a single franchisee. As the New York Times reported: “The district judge in California has now given lawyers for the McDonald’s employees the chance to prove in court what should be evident: that McDonald’s is responsible for ensuring that pay is fair and adequate and, as such, must be accountable when workers in its restaurants are stiffed.” If McDonald’s is found responsible for the wage violations, the fast food company will have to change its ways, and be far more aggressive in ensuring that its franchisees are paying workers fairly and adequately, and that the company is abiding by the laws related to all employee wages, hours, and benefits.