KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On September 2, Kansas City workers at Shuttlewagon, a manufacturer of industrial railcar movers, voted to unionize with the Industrial Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council (DC) 3 with 64% of ballots cast. Now the union is preparing to negotiate a favorable contract for its incoming members, many of whom say they’re struggling as prices continue to climb ahead of wage growth.
Of the 39 ballots cast, 25 were in favor of unionization while 14 were against, according to official NLRB election results. Union officials say around 40 incoming Shuttlewagon workers will be represented by the union.
Joey Flickner, Business Manager of the IUPAT, noted that this unionization vote was about giving workers much needed input in their workplace.
“It gives these workers a voice that they didn’t have before,” Flickner said.
Instead of top down contract negotiations where the union does most of the heavy lifting for the workers, Flickner’s union plans on giving workers direct input in what the union asks for in negotiations.
Josh Wyrick, Director of Organizing for IUPAT DC 3, said that the credit for this election win belongs to the workers who organized and voted.
“The workers are the ones that won their union and the workers are the ones that will negotiate their contract with us standing aside them. So whatever the workers want is what we will all fight for collectively,” Wyrick stated.
Previously this year, The Labor Beacon’s Julia Williams reported that the IUPAT DC 3 was awarded “campaign of the year” for their worker driven unionization strategy.
“I’ve been really grateful of our guys up at IUPAT for just everything they’ve been doing for us,” said Zachary Brewer, a Shuttlewagon worker who voted for unionization. “Like our guy[s] AJ and Josh Wyrick, it is their job to be union organizers, but just the amount of time that they’ve taken outside of their regular jobs. What they do is they live and bleed union organizing.”
How did we get here
Surprisingly, the unionization of the Shuttlewagon workers happened by chance. Flickner recalled details of how one worker saw Wyrick at a store and how that one small interaction led to last month’s vote.
“He was an apprentice in our apprentice traineeship program and Josh just happened to run into him on a Saturday at a store,” Flickner said. “He told Josh he was working at this Shuttlewagon facility and he wishes they were union[ized] and one thing led to another. He talked to a couple other workers there that were interested and they just started collecting signatures themselves.”
Later, on July 31, The Labor Beacon was the first news outlet to report that Shuttlewagon workers were seeking union representation with the IUPAT. At this point, a majority of workers signed authorization cards and they had sent a letter of voluntary recognition to their employer.
On the eve of the election, September 1, IUPAT held a rally in support of the Shuttlewagon workers unionizing. Andrew “AJ” Herrera, an IUPAT organizer who attended the rally, said that workers from different unions showed up in solidarity to publicly support the unionization effort.
“We had asked organizations if they could at least send one or two people so we got participation teamsters, UAW, jobs with justice, the roofers, the electricians, the bricklayers, and of course, our trades as well,” Herrera said.
In total, around 60 people attended the rally.
“It was really hot too, it was about 100 degrees out there and they were out there for three or four hours,” Herrera noted.
Finally, on September 2, the workers voted to unionize.
Reactions from workers
Employees who supported unionization described what they felt when the results came in.
“I was excited for the change,” said Mary Snell. “Everybody was excited that voted yes.”
“Just relief mainly, a lot of relief, just a lot of pride for the whole team. We knew it would be close, we didn’t expect to win that much,” stated Hunter Millard.
Workers described that they wanted increased pay and increased benefits.
“A good contract with fairness, higher wages, better benefits,” Snell mentioned.
They also said they wanted consistent employee handbook rules with no gray areas.
“Less gray areas in a handbook. I’d like to see if we could get our way into being a part of whenever there’s a new handbook written for the shop every year. So we could try and prevent some of the gray area with our attendance policy [and] with our sick leave policy,” Brewer said.
A bigger cost of living, a bigger need for unions
Workers at Shuttlewagon who were interviewed by The Labor Beacon consistently stated that the rising cost of living was biting into their pocketbook, and that they hoped unionization would give them the help they need.
“It’s impacting me a lot,” said Snell. “I had to actually take on a second job, I work 7 days a week. I get no time with my family.”
Millard said that the wages Shuttlewagon provided weren’t enough to keep up with rising prices.
“Everything is going up around us at all times. We just feel that Shuttlewagon is not keeping up with the base of the cost of living. We definitely know that we work hard enough to be getting more,” Millard said.
Nationally, the cost of gasoline rose by nearly 42% in just 7 months, rising from $2.96 a gallon in January to $4.20 a gallon in August, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Brewer added that the rising cost of gas was digging into his finances.
“It costs me $50 to fill up a Honda, which is the only reason I bought this car was fuel efficiency, not having to spend a whole lot of money on it. But I feel like it’s really preventing me from being able to spread my wings the way that I want to,” Brewer noted.
Polling data also shows that Americans are concerned with the state of the economy.
95% of Americans agree that there’s an affordability crisis in their country, according to a Harris/Guardian poll this July, roughly half of all Americans in the survey say they’re struggling to afford gas, groceries, utilities, and housing.
Wyrick said that, despite the negative economic conditions many Americans find themselves in, unions offer a solution for average Americans to stay above water and earn a decent living for themselves and their family.
“Labor unions need to really come together and be out here fighting beside these workers,” Wyrick stated. “Something’s gotta change, and as you can see the workers are ready to change and we can’t do this by ourselves. This has to be a concerted effort with everybody in the labor class to step up and to push back on what is happening to us now.”
Studies suggest that if more workers were unionized, all Americans would benefit including both union and non-union workers.
A 2023 study by the Center for American Progress highlights just how important unions are for Americans, showing that union households earn around four times as much as non-union working class households earn.
A 2026 study from the Economic Policy Institute shows that if union density were three times the rate it is now, the same rate it was in the 1950s, the median worker would earn over 14% more, racial wealth gaps would be reduced, and around $1.2 trillion would be shifted annually to working class Americans.
Patrick Sanders — an Independence native — is a student journalist from the University of Missouri-Columbia writing for the Labor Beacon. Before joining the Labor Beacon, he wrote for KBIA News, a Mid-Missouri NPR-affiliated news organization. Sanders's grandfather Bruce was a long-time member of the postal workers union, and his older cousin is currently in IBEW Local 124. In his free time, Sanders enjoys spending time with friends and family, reading, and weightlifting. He hopes to bring his knowledge of policy to benefit workers in the greater Kansas City area and give working people a fighting chance.
