Quoted: Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said tight labor markets and the COVID-19 pandemic have put more power in the hands of workers.
“I think workers feel like they learned something about their value during the pandemic, and they don’t see that honored,” Dresser said. “And so, I think that you see workers stepping up more for that reason.”
Following recessions in 2001 and 2007, she said unions made concessions to companies during negotiations as they faced threats of shuttering plants when the manufacturing sector contracted.
“The dynamics there were about firms threatening to shut plants or move production without concessions, (telling workers), ‘If you don’t concede this, we’ll just move,'” Dresser said. “It was a credible threat. A lot of plants did move.”