To be clear, by coercive, I don’t mean violent. They must prevent managers from hiring replacements, prevent replacements from taking struck jobs, or prevent work from getting done in some other way. To have a better shot of succeeding, the majority of easily replaced workers often have to use some type of coercive tactics. This is one reason why McDonald’s and Walmart workers have stuck to single-day strikes - they’d be replaced otherwise. The collective refusal to work doesn’t pack the same punch. Yet even if all of those workers walk off and respect the picket, production will continue rolling because replacements are much easier to find, train, and put to work. These are the workers we intuitively think should have the strongest case for a right to strike. They are also more vulnerable to forms of illegal pressure, wage theft, and other abuses. These kinds of workers, in part because they are in such great supply, tend to have less bargaining power and therefore usually face lower wages, longer hours, and worse working conditions. Lower skill, high-labor-supply workers in sectors like service, transportation, agriculture, and basic industry are in a different situation. It ended up conceding on important worker demands. After seven weeks, the company still was unable to service existing lines, let alone install new ones. While the telecom company tried to use replacement workers those replacements could not do the job effectively. So long as they exercise adequate discipline, they can slow or stop production altogether. Higher skilled, low-supply workers - who are harder to replace and as a consequence typically enjoy better wages, hours, and conditions - can carry off a reasonably effective strike with little coercion and no significant law-breaking. But “work stoppage” means different things in different parts of the labor market. On what basis, then, can the right to strike be justified? The DilemmaĪ strike is a work stoppage to achieve some end. For most workers to have a reasonable chance of success, they need to use some coercive strike tactics, like mass picketing.īut those tactics violate the law and infringe upon what are widely held to be basic liberal rights. Yet strikes present a dilemma for liberal societies. Just over the past few years in the US, illegal strikes by teachers paralyzed major school districts in Chicago and Seattle, as well as statewide in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado a taxi driver strike influenced debates and court decisions regarding immigration and demonstration strikes by retail and food-service workers were instrumental in getting new minimum wage and other legislation passed in states like California, New York, and North Carolina. ![]() Even with the dramatic decline in strike activity since its peak in the 1970s, work stoppages can still have a significant impact on our lives. Strikes are also one of the most common forms of disruptive collective protest. ![]() That right is protected in law, sometimes in the constitution itself. ![]() Adapted from “ The Right to Strike: A Radical View,” American Political Science Review.Įvery liberal democracy recognizes that workers have a right to strike.
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