New report shows low strike numbers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issues its annual Major Work Stoppages Report in mid-February each year. It is an overview of all strikes that involve more than 1,000 workers that began in the past year. It obviously is not a complete picture of the class struggle in this country, but it is a very useful part of that picture.

From a socialist point of view, the 2020 report is grim. There were just seven major strikes that started last year. This figure ties with 2017 for the second lowest year since the statistics started being kept in 1947. 24,000 workers took part in the 2020 strikes, 18,000 of them being in health care or education.

It’s helpful to put the number of strikes into an overall context. The lowest number recorded was just five in 2009. The average annual number of strikes for the past two decades is sixteen.

Nine Strikes

While seven strikes began last year, there were also two strikes that had begun before the start of the year. The nine strikes breakdown this way:

Two long “burn barrel” industrial strikes where the bosses had the upper hand (Spectrum Cable and Asarco).
Three strikes in healthcare (University of Illinois, San Joaquin County, and Swedish Medical Centers in Seattle).
Three in education (University of Illinois, St. Paul teachers, and University of Michigan graduate students).
Bath Iron Works shipbuilders in Maine.

This breakdown confirms the assessment that the public sector, in particular educational and health care workers, is the most combative sector of the labor movement today.

The BLS only reports on strikes involving more than 1,000 workers. Is there any evidence that the situation is different in smaller workplaces? The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services keeps track of strikes of any size. According to their report,in December 2020, there were only 1,558 workers on strike in the country.

The new labor news site Who Gets The Bird (https://whogetsthebird.substack.com/) has a careful listing of strikes in its excellent weekly newsletter. These reports show that there is no evidence of an upsurge in smaller workplaces. This stands to reason. It’s highly unlikely that there would be a rise in workers struggles that wasn’t reflected inside the large workplaces.

Full Picture

Three qualifications have to be made if we are going to accurately evaluate this year’s BLS report.Firstly, Covid. There are two points to be made here. One, Covid changed everything in the country and has certainly affected the labor movement. So, it’s quite reasonable to see Covid as a unique and unusual damper on militancy. Two, there were a good number of spontaneous angry walkouts when bosses refused to carry out proper safety measures. This was particularly the case early in the pandemic. These walkouts are not included in the report. These walkouts were certainly very important, even if much of the Left greatly exaggerated them.

Secondly, one of the oddities of the BLS is that strikes and lockouts are both lumped together under the heading of “work stoppages”.

Thirdly, strikes are not the only form of working class struggle. There are many other activities: contract campaigns, opposition caucuses, organizing drives, community solidarity work, building strong steward organizations, etc. For example, the Chicago Teachers Union made the decision not to strike over reopening schools during the pandemic. But this did not mean that the CTU was inactive. Everyday there were press conferences, work-ins, informational pickets, and Zoom meetings.

Socialist Tasks

However, these qualifications do not change the fundamental picture that emerges from the report: the class struggle is at a low ebb in this country today. There’s no honest way to pretty the picture. This leaves socialists with two tasks. First, to understand reality. There’s no point us living in an internet dream world of strike waves and upsurges. We take as a starting point the real lives of workers, not what we would wish them to be.In the long run, this is the only way to build a solid foundation for socialist organization. Nothing worthwhile will come out of hyperbole and exaggeration.

The second and final point is this: the level of strikes will only increase when workers see successes and victories coming from going out on strike. Therefore, when strikes do take place, we must do all in our power to help them win. Vigorous strike support will be high on the socialist agenda for 2021.