Johnnie Kallas, an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss his recent move from the Cornell University ILR School to Illinois and his continued work on the ILR Labor Action Tracker. Kallas discussed the recently released 2023 edition of the tracker and some of the trends that were seen from the data.
Kallas recently received an opportunity to take on a new challenge in researching labor trends. In January, he joined the University of Illinois’ School of Labor and Employment Relations to develop his career further. At Cornell University, Kallas was in charge of the work being done for the ILR Labor Action Tracker. His work with the tracker has continued, as they released the 2023 ILR Action Tracker report earlier this year and have begun tracking the data for 2024’s tracker.
The ILR Labor Tracker provides a comprehensive database of strike and labor protest activity across America to inform and support labor movement activists, policymakers and scholars. There was a considerable uptick in the number of strike actions and striking workers between 2022 and 2023. Kallas talked about the 470 work stoppages involving over 540,000 workers. He discussed the impact of the stand-up strike performed by the United Autoworkers and several other strikes across the country. While the data on the tracker doesn’t reflect this, Kallas discussed the credible strike threats that occurred last year.
There were several demands by union members that led to the increase in strike actions in 2023. Kallas outlined the three most common demands: health and safety improvements, pay improvements and staffing improvements. He said these have been the most consistent demands over the past few years, according to the tracker. While there was a lot of organizing success in 2023, Kallas talked about the first contracts that still need to happen and how they will impact the 2024 report.
Listen to the show above for more about the 2023 ILR Labor Action Tracker.