I was a college freshman sitting in a classroom with a group of other students planning how to support Cornell’s service and maintenance workers if they were forced to strike. The workers had chosen the UAW to represent them in an election the preceding year and they were fighting for a first contract. The negotiations were not going well, but a strike was not certain.
One exchange in that classroom forty-three years ago was indelible for me. Peter, an upperclassman, expressed that he was kinda sorta rooting for the workers to strike because it would help rally students to a new campus organization he was trying to get started. Even then, I sensed he knew he shouldn’t have said it as soon as the words passed his lips. John, an older student who was moderating the meeting, verbally ripped into him. Strikes are painful and disruptive, John reminded us. Workers’ lives were going to be disrupted. They would sacrifice their already too-small paychecks. They might destroy friendships, workplace relationships, and their families. They had no idea what kind of retaliation they might face. No one should ever want a strike, he said. No one should hope for a strike. Peter apologized profusely and acknowledged that John was right. He should not have said it.
That memory flashes into my mind whenever I see a social media message that crosses the line from supporting workers on strike or defending workers’ right to strike to cheerleading for workers to go out on strike. These messages arise more frequently when there are high-profile strikes underway, like the Writers Guild’s strike, or large strikes loom, as with the Teamsters at UPS. Strikes are workers’ most important and impactful weapon. They can be an essential tool in achieving workers’ objectives at the bargaining table or when an employer has broken the law, put workers at risk, or behaved unfairly. Strikes embody the power of collective action and worker power. But strikes come at a cost. Only the workers who are directly involved can or should decide if that cost is worth the potential benefits.
Strikes are potent weapons when deployed strategically and effectively. They can be a powerful reminder to employers that their employees are critically important contributors to their success and, at a minimum, deserve fair compensation, a safe and healthy workplace, and fairness in all regards. When workers walk off the job, they can impose a visible and often-meaningful cost on a business, its corporate relationships, and its reputation. Work stoppages can disrupt production, halt services, repel prospective employees, and lead to financial losses for struck employers. This pressure can push those employers to the negotiating table and concessions when they get there. Many employers cannot afford to ignore the demands of a united workforce, but they may need to be reminded of that fact.
Dragging the debate out of closed-door negotiations onto a picket line and into the public’s view can generate empathy, class identification, and support from the broader community.
Strikes also can forge worker solidarity. They provide an opportunity for employees to take collective action that entails real risks in support of common goals. In turn, strikes can help to clarify those goals. They necessitate discussions about what members value and what they are willing to accept, even if grudgingly. Strikes can help unions build a sense of community and collective identity among workers by strengthening their resolve and commitment to fighting for themselves, their families, and their co-workers. It is this unity that often leads to successful negotiations and positive outcomes for workers.
Strikes also serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness about the strikers’ concerns and garnering support from other unions and the public. When employees take the courageous step of striking, they can capture media and social media attention and spark broader conversations about working conditions, wages, wealth and income inequality, and social justice and fairness. Consider how the Writers Guild strike has elevated the debate over the risk that artificial intelligence will displace workers. Consider how the Teamsters at UPS have highlighted the risks that heat hazards pose to workers. Consider how Workers United has exposed union busting and the weakness of American labor law in their organizing at Starbucks. Dragging the debate out of closed-door negotiations onto a picket line and into the public’s view can generate empathy, class identification, and support from the broader community. The result can be new coalitions and relationships, but also added pressure on employers to agree to employees’ demands.
While strikes can be an effective tactic, they can also turn workers’ lives upside as down, as John let us know in no uncertain terms in that Cornell classroom decades ago. Striking workers almost always face financial hardships during their time without wages, which can be particularly challenging for those living paycheck-to-paycheck. Most states do not allow strikers to collect unemployment insurance benefits. Even when granted, those benefits are only a fraction of a worker’s weekly pay and they often do not begin immediately. Some unions have strike funds that provide some cash assistance and may pay for health benefits, but they are typically limited, as well.
Strikes can create lasting schisms in communities. While they may garner public support, they can also create tensions between workers and community members who rely on the services or products provided by the striking employees, or simply do not like conflict in their home towns. Strikes often have broader economic implications, affecting the employees of the struck employer’s suppliers and other local businesses, as well as the local economy. The ripple effects of a strike can result in job losses, decreased consumer spending, and overall economic instability in a community.
Another grave risk hovers above many strikes in the U.S.. While it is an unfair labor practice for employers to fire their employees solely for participating in a strike, employers can hire “permanent replacement workers” to striking employees’ jobs. The technical legal distinction between “permanent replacement” and “firing” is that the permanently replaced striking worker, if they have not found an equivalent job elsewhere, can reclaim their job should the replacement worker ever vacate the position. Of course, most workers cannot wait weeks, months, or years hoping a worker who took their job will find yet another job. Practically, this is a distinction without a difference: permanent replacement is tantamount to firing --- a devastating result for striking workers. Of course, not all employers want to or can permanently replace their striking workers. Nonetheless, the threat is omnipresent, and a real assault on strikes, strikers, and collective bargaining.
So, when we discuss the possibility that a group of workers will strike, we need to put the pom-poms away and bring some nuance to the discussion. As is almost always the case, the best starting place is to think about the workers and their families and consider what will be best for them. Or even better, let the workers decide for themselves. That’s the core of worker power.
