“The number one takeaway is that the times in the NALC, they are a-changing,” said Margo O’Neill of Branch 352 in Des Moines, Iowa, who attended her first Letter Carriers convention August 3-7 in Los Angeles.
Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the U.S., and is a “right-to-work” state with only 4 percent of its workers in unions. But since July 13, Highway 80 near Jackson has been lined by chanting picketers. They’re on strike at JTRAN, the city’s public transit system.
In the building trades, strikes have become vanishingly rare. But since late June, strikes by major construction unions have rocked jobsites across a Canadian province.
The agricultural machinery maker John Deere tested the mettle of the United Auto Workers this summer, probing for softness as the union heads into a leadership election this month. After fits and starts the union essentially told Deere to stick it.