Labor update

The US is facing a series of school bus strikes as the new school year begins. School bus driver shortages and lagging compensation have incited several strikes and raised the prospect of a huge school bus driver strike in New York City.  Every state in the US has reported at least one instance of a major school bus driver shortage, according to a recent USA Today analysis, with low driver pay, Covid-19 challenges, and inconvenient hours as some of the cited contributing factors. School districts around the US have faced delays, changed school schedules or canceled classes, and doubled routes for current bus drivers to try to alleviate driver shortages.

Robert Reich - Whereas 90 percent of American adults born in the early 1940s were earning more than their parents by the time they reached their prime earning years, this proportion steadily declined. Only half of adults born in the mid-1980s are now earning more than their parents by their prime earning years. Average weekly nonsupervisory wages, a measure of blue-collar earnings, were higher in 1969 (adjusted for inflation) than they are now. Most Americans without college degrees are working longer hours than they worked decades ago and taking fewer sick days or vacations, and they have less economic security. Nearly one out of every five American workers is in a part-time job. Two-thirds are living paycheck to paycheck. Along with pay, employment benefits have been shriveling. The gap in life expectancy between the nation’s most affluent and everyone else is widening, as well. 

The United Auto Workers union, which represents 146,000 people working at General Motors, Stellantis and Ford, has been locked in slow-moving negotiations since July. And despite a series of offers from GM yesterday, it doesn’t seem like the negotiations are going anywhere before the Sept. 14 deadline. UAW president Shawn Fain called the offers “insulting” and inequitable. An autoworkers strike could cost the U.S. economy as much as $5.6 billion in just 10 days. (Read More)