Strike

I

Introduction

Strike, in industrial relations, organized work stoppage carried out by a group of employees, for the purpose either of enforcing demands relating to employment conditions on their employer or of protesting unfair labour practices. Strikes have sometimes been called for political purposes. They are conducted most frequently by workers organized into trade unions. A sympathy strike occurs when a union stops work to support the strike of another union.

II

Types of Strikes

Workers may engage in a strike or other industrial action to obtain some improvement in the conditions of employment, such as higher wages or shorter working hours; to forestall an adverse change in the conditions of employment, such as a lowering of wages; or to prevent the employer from carrying out actions viewed by the workers as detrimental to their interests, such as the employment of non-union labour or the discharge of a worker without adequate justification. Strikes may also be conducted with the aim of compelling an employer to recognize a trade union as the legal collective bargaining representative of the employees, and to conclude a labour contract with the union. A strike is usually undertaken as a measure of last resort, adopted, for example, when the employer has rejected settlement of an existing dispute by methods provided for in a labour contract, such as negotiation or mediation through an employment tribunal. The political strike, on the other hand, may be used as a means of compelling a government to accede to certain demands of the workers, or as a revolutionary weapon designed to help secure the overthrow of a government.

III

Strike Tactics

The principal tactical aim of all strikes is to achieve the total suspension of work within the employer's establishment. The most widely used means of achieving this aim, invoked after the workers have quit work and left the business establishment, is the practice of picketing. Many unions maintain strike funds, which are used for the financial support of the strikers pending the settlement of the dispute. In some cases, striking unions appeal to other unions and to the public for financial support.

Striking workers almost invariably regard themselves as still in the employ of the establishment against which they are striking. They therefore tend to react bitterly to attempts made by employers to hire nonstrikers to replace them. Such attempts have often led to fierce fighting between the two groups as the strikers sought to prevent the nonstrikers' entrance into the place of employment.

A technique aimed at ensuring the suspension of operations within a struck establishment and at preventing the entry of nonstrikers is the sit-down strike, which came into widespread use in the United States during the 1930s. Workers engaging in this form of strike simply occupy the place of employment, refusing to leave until a settlement of the disputed issues is made. Such action constitutes trespass on the private property of the employer and is therefore illegal; nevertheless, the sit-down strike has proven highly effective in many instances.

IV

Important Strikes

A

Russia

Perhaps the most significant wave of political strikes in all history is that which broke out in Russia in 1917, largely as a result of the revolutionary agitations conducted by the Bolsheviks. These strikes constituted a major influence in the Russian Revolution, especially in the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in March 1917, and later in the deposition by the Bolsheviks of the moderate government headed by Aleksandr Kerensky.