Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Submission Preview

Link to Story

Ask Soylent: Have you ever participated in a strike?

Accepted submission by Anonymous Coward at 2017-02-14 00:41:10
Answers

Since the queue is low, I figured I'd give this topic a try:

I'm sure many of you have been expectantly waiting for the annual report on Major Work Stoppages to come out. Thankfully, you will have to wait no longer.

Last year there were only 15 major stoppages, with the major one being the strike against Verizon (36,500 workers). Fifteen major stoppages is about middle of the road for the past twenty years, but there has been a downward trend since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track:

1947-56: ~340/year
1957-66: ~250/year
1967-76: ~330/year
1977-86: ~140/year
1987-96: ~40/year
1997-2006: ~24/year
2007-16: ~14/year

Have you ever participated in a strike?

Are worker strikes an ineffective tool for change in modern times? Are there other reasons why workers do not participate in strikes?

Work Stoppages Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.toc.htm [bls.gov]
Verizon Strike: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/04/12/107217 [soylentnews.org]
Union Membership Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/union-membership-rate-10-point-7-percent-in-2016.htm [bls.gov]
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_action [wikipedia.org]


Original Submission