Seattle Teamsters' strike length was its undoing, experts say | Dump Trucks Charlotte NC

One hundred forty one days of striking didn’t lead to the members of the Teamsters Local 174 securing a new contract. Nevertheless, on April 8, the Seattle-area concrete truck drivers agreed to return to work.

The circumstances that led to the strike, and its resolution without a significant gain for the union, provide insight into the state of organized labor in construction and the broader business landscape today.   

For Andrew Elrod, a researcher at United Teachers Los Angeles, a union representing staff of the Los Angeles Unified School District, there's a simple reason why the Teamsters didn't gain more.

“You can’t strike for that long,” Elrod said.  

Workers’ wages either take a dip during a strike, if the union provides them with funds to maintain columbus oh dump truck company stoppages, or workers go without pay. Either way, time can create anxiety and stress on those striking and the surrounding city.

“I’m not surprised that it’s over just because of the duration,” said Elrod, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he wrote a dissertation on the history of wage and price controls in the U.S. during the mid 20th century.

The Teamsters strike was largely unprecedented in its length. Elrod pointed to a 1946 United Auto Workers strike that lasted 113 days. Even at a time when strikes were more common and unions wielded more strength, the timeframe was seen as absurdly long, Elrod said.  

The Teamsters strike was also unique, sources told Construction Dive, because of the impact of missed concrete deliveries on the construction project cycle. It affected employers, but also many other businesses and workers across the city and across industries, so there was pressure on the Teamsters to return to columbus oh dump truck company from more than just concrete suppliers. 

Indeed, a strike of this scale impacts columbus oh dump truck company even after its resolution: projects in Seattle continue to push back their expected completion dates because of delayed concrete deliveries.

The Seattle strike's broader context

It’s a pivotal time for organized labor in the U.S. One Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize during the Seattle strike, though another recently voted not to. Starbucks outlets across the country have voted to unionize at specific stores. 

On the construction front, a chapter of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Kansas City, Missouri, stopped columbus oh dump truck company for eight days before they negotiated a pay raise. 

Monday, the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Jointers began to walk the line, a decision impacting around 15,000 workers in the province, the Ottawa Citizen reported. They join the crane and heavy columbus oh dump trucks operators from International Union of Operating Engineers Local 793, who seek a larger wage increase.

It was against that backdrop that the Seattle strike began in November, when 34 workers from Stoneway Concrete, part of Gary Merlino Construction, walked off the job, seeking better pay and improved healthcare benefits for retirees. 

A month later, the number of striking concrete truck drivers swelled to 330, as workers from CalPortland/Glacier Northwest, Cadman Materials, Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel and Lehigh Cement joined in support.

The columbus oh dump truck company stoppage strangled the flow of concrete to the city, including to important projects like the cracked West Seattle Bridge, a major artery through the city. If the number of trucks that missed deliveries had lined up, the queue would have stretched 32 miles, Sound Transit found. 

Winners or losers?

One hundred forty one days of striking with no new contract is tough to spin as a win for the Teamsters.

“On the face of it, striking for over 140 days and returning to columbus oh dump truck company without a contract is hard to imagine as a victory,” said Jeff Grabelsky, co-director of the National Labor Leadership Institute at Cornell University. “But what the longer-term impact of the strike may be and how it influences both ongoing and future negotiations is difficult to know.”