It was an extraordinary year for labor unions nationwide – more strikes and more employees on strike than in any year in decades – potentially crippling transportation and delivery strikes averted by last-minute settlements and government intervention, and nearly a full summer of Hollywood production shutdowns. Even Kaiser Permanente, for decades considered a leader in collaborative and peaceful labor relations, experienced one of the largest medical professional strikes in U.S. history. Is this the beginning of a new era for unions, or an anomaly soon to be forgotten
The actors, writers, and auto workers are back to work with new contracts, but the Summer of Strikes lingers on in the hospitality industry, with hotel and restaurant workers still walking picket lines in Los Angeles and Detroit and threatening strikes elsewhere around the country. While the strikes in other industries drew much more national attention, the sector experiencing the greatest number of strikes, nearly three in 10 last year, was accommodations and food service. The vast majority of them lasted less than a week and involved fewer than a hundred workers, but a potential strike by about 35,000 Las Vegas food service and housekeeping workers threatened to spoil the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix and drew international attention to the growing militancy of U.S. labor activists. Presently, thousands of L.A. hotel workers remain on strike after more than four months and show no signs of backing down.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY BILL WERNER IN THE 2024 SPRING EDITION OF GAMING & LEISURE MAGAZINE.