A summer of strikes

Transcript

NIALA: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today! It’s Tuesday, June 27. I’m Niala Boodhoo. Today: pedestrian deaths at a 40-year high in the U.S. Plus, how the Titan disaster could affect private space travel. But first, a summer of strikes – that’s today’s One Big Thing.

The summer of our discontent

NIALA: Workers across the country are headed to the picket line this summer – from Starbucks to Amazon…in fact more than 10,000 workers have gone on strike just so far this month. Axios’ Emily Peck is here with more.

NIALA: Emily, we've talked about how strikes have been on the rise since the pandemic, but things have really kicked into gear this month, and even this week. Can you tell us how?

EMILY: Yeah, so, by the end of last week, Starbucks’ union said about 3,000 workers were going out on strike, protesting the company’s gay pride decor and unfair labor practices. Then, two large strikes in the manufacturing industry got underway last week: one, workers at a locomotive plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, another one involving 6,000 workers at a Boeing supplier in Wichita, Kansas.

There are, like, smaller actions popping up last week. You mentioned Amazon, it's about 84 Amazon drivers at a warehouse in California. They're represented by the Teamsters. They want Amazon to negotiate with them and recognize them. And then, also in June, there have been all these media strikes. There were hundreds of workers at Gannett. There were 250 journalists in The Insider's newsroom. And of course the ongoing writer strike is continuing. It's still happening.

NIALA: And there's a pretty big potential strike you're keeping an eye on for down the line this summer?

EMILY: There are two potential strikes sort of on the horizon. There's, UPS is negotiating a contract with its 340,000 workers, and they have the biggest collective bargaining agreement in the United States. If they were to go on strike, that would totally change the game. I mean, their contract expires at the end of July, and those workers have already voted to authorize a strike if they don't come to terms by the end of the month. That doesn't mean there will be one. And I think there likely will be an agreement, but it's on the horizon. And there's also, 150,000 auto workers are about to start negotiating their own contract with the big three, GM, Ford, and Stellantis, in July, and their existing contract expires September. So that could foretell an autumn of strikes, I suppose.

NIALA: Emily, we've talked about the effect that pandemic had on worker discontent and action, and how much that's fueled previous strikes. Do we think this has built the current momentum for what we're seeing right now?

EMILY: Yeah, I think it's progressed from what we saw coming out of the pandemic. Like for example, with Starbucks, those workers unionized because of pandemic issues, like masks or hours, things like that. But now their issues are like trying to figure out a contract, negotiating terms with the company, gay pride decor…it's, it's different. It's a more empowered workforce, and the same thing for the media workers, as well. It's inflation has pushed workers to demand higher pay, more respect, and higher wages.

But, it's important to remember the context here. I mean, for, for all the renewed energy, for all the contagion, unions still play a far diminished role in the U.S. compared to where they were decades ago. This isn't a big chunk of the labor force by any means.

NIALA: That's Axios’ Emily Peck. You can read more of her work in the Axios Markets newsletter. Thanks Emily.

EMILY: Thanks, Niala.

Pedestrian deaths reach 40-year high

NIALA: Last year was the deadliest year for pedestrians in the U.S. since 1981….with at least 7,500 deaths. That's according to the Governor's Highway Safety Association, and Axios’ Sam Baker is here with what's going on.

Sam, what are the biggest reasons behind this increase in pedestrian fatalities?

SAM BAKER: You know, a lot of people, anecdotally, sort of thought, people really started driving crazy, during the pandemic. Some other research seems to have borne that out. So speed was a big factor in a lot of these crashes and a lot of these deaths. And then the other big factor is roads that just aren't designed for people to walk on or that aren't safe for pedestrians, they maybe don't have a sidewalk. The speed limit is too fast, that sort of thing.

NIALA: Is that where most pedestrian deaths occur?

SAM: It is. I was surprised reading this report that most of these deaths do not happen in intersections, you know, somebody making a right turn or a pedestrian jaywalking or something like that. But no, these are, are people walking down the street. And a lot more of these deaths than you would think happen on local roads or what are called local connector roads. So, that's like kind of the busy six lane road that takes you maybe from one neighborhood to another.

You can see how in a city with poor pedestrian infrastructure, people gotta get from one neighborhood to another, they walk. So a lot of times that's your only choice. And if those roads aren't sort of set up to acknowledge that people walk on them, especially if there's no better option available, uh, those are gonna be really dangerous.

NIALA: So given that, are there specific tips that people need to know about keeping themselves safe of?

SAM: This organization that put these numbers together, the main thing that they call for would be changed sort of on a bigger, more structural level. That would be cities and in some cases states spending the money to install sidewalks or taking what are called traffic calming measures. A lot of those have been attempted here in D.C. and in New York, closing down streets or, you know, installing bike lanes in a way that sort of causes drivers to slow down, that sort of thing.

NIALA: Sam Baker is Axios’ senior editor. Thanks, Sam.

SAM: Thanks, Niala.

NIALA: In a moment: a deep sea disaster…is sobering for space tourism.

Titanic sub tragedy stokes fears for space tourism

NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today, I’m Niala Boodhoo. The catastrophic implosion of the Titan Submersible is stoking fears around another extreme and risky tourism industry – private human space flight. So writes Axios’ Miriam Kramer, who's here now to discuss how this deep sea incident could lead to more regulation in space. Miriam, what are the parallels between private deep sea and space exploration?MIRIAM KRAMER: Like you said at the top, it's a risky environment. You explore in a capsule where the window is the, you know, potential break points, and it's an environment that wants to kill you. So they're both very risky endeavors, and they're both, I would say, pretty lightly regulated, if at all, in some cases.

NIALA: And we've talked to you on the show about the end of a regulatory moratorium for space flight later this year. Can you remind us how lax regulations have been for space tourism versus, say, deep sea tourism?

MIRIAM KRAMER: Yeah, so space tourism regulations have been very lax, very much by design, for a very long time. The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for sort creating and implementing rules around space flight and rockets, has not been allowed to make any rules governing the safety of space systems. So that's, like, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, that would regulate the safety of the capsules for the people who are flying in them.

And from my understanding, the submersible environment is, in many ways, similar. They work under a regime of informed consent. So you kind of sign your life away, knowing exactly in some ways what could happen to you if you get aboard one of these vessels. It's a very individualized choice.

NIALA: So Miriam, what would very specific regulation look like then?

MIRIAM KRAMER: There's something called a Launch Abort system, which Blue Origin has, SpaceX has, Virgin Galactic doesn't, where it actually will propel a capsule away from a failing rocket if a failure happens, to save the crew, effectively. But not all companies are developing systems like that. So I think what the industry is concerned about with regulation is the idea that a regulator could come in and say, okay, everybody needs a LaunchBoard system and this is what it needs to look like.

NIALA: With the current safety environment for space tourism, what safety incidents have there been?

MIRIAM KRAMER: Yeah, there have been, quite a few. So, the most I think, important is in 2014, Virgin Galactic had a deadly accident. They were testing their SpaceShipTwo in the desert above California, and a mishap occurred that left one of their pilots dead and the other severely injured.

There were no customers or other passengers aboard the flight at the time.But it was a, a very, serious fatal accident that, you know, brings the point home about commercial industries, it can be dangerous, and there are lives at stake here.

And I think that some folks are worried that this submersible accident, could actually bring more scrutiny to the practices in private space flight and other risky industries like it.

NIALA: Miam Kramer is Axios’ space reporter. Thanks Miriam.

MIRIAM KRAMER: Thanks for having me.

NIALA: One more headline before we go. Authorities said yesterday that a teenage boy and his stepfather died Friday, while out hiking in 119-degree heat in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The heat dome blanketing Texas and Oklahoma is forecast to shift east later this week, bringing the sweltering heat to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It’s unclear how many people’s health has been affected by this extreme heat, but as Axios’ Andrew Freedman reminds us: "We often don’t know the toll of a heatwave until after the event – but we know the potential."

I’m Niala Boodhoo, thanks for listening, stay safe, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.