When analyzing the current labour situation, most case law focuses on the limits of the law. “That`s how it is,” Ahmed White concludes, “that workers have a right to strike that is little more than a right to leave work – and perhaps lose their jobs or homes and savings in limbo.” 126 The tacit assumption in many of these articles is that workers rarely strike because the law is bad. And there is no doubt that current legal hurdles strongly influence the calculation of unions and workers as to whether a strike is worth it. But if the massive workers` unrest of the Golden Age and the Progressive Era tells us anything, it is that the relationship between bad law and workers` action is not as direct as legalistic relations suggest. In this part, I draw on the work experiences of the Golden Age and the Progressive Era to discuss the relationship between law, political economy, and social change today and how strikes can serve the labor movement and the community – regardless of the wrong law. More recently, in 2020, there has been a wave of work stoppages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, ranging from the refusal of bus drivers in Minneapolis to put protesters in jail, to the Service Employees International Union black strike, to the WILDCAT strike of NBA players.187 Some of these protests violated legal restrictions. The NBA players` strike, for example, was at odds with a “no strike clause” in their collective agreement with the NBA.188 And there remains an open question anyway as to whether workers were seeking objectives sufficiently employment-related to constitute a protected activity.189 However, regardless of the conclusion of the current law, striking workers have indeed shown the relationship between their workplaces and broader political concerns. The NBA players` strike was resolved in part by an agreement that NBA arenas should be used as polling stations and places of civic engagement.190 workers held back their jobs to insist that private capital be used for public and democratic purposes. And by refusing to take the arrested protesters to jail, Minneapolis bus drivers have claimed their vision of public transportation. The progressive era included massive protests and a variety of different explanations and proposed solutions on how to reconcile the inequalities of capitalism with the egalitarian obligations of a democracy.

The ideas and institutions that remained helped create the framework for legal reforms in the New Deal era. This solution to the question of labor chose a particular vision of organized labor as a social good: organized labor would be an economic entity that would plunge into an economic conflict with employers, and in turn, the strike would be an economic rather than a political weapon. This vision of work has proved insufficient to meet the challenges of the neoliberal period. What should you do to protect yourself from harassment and violence? Whatever your decision regarding dismissal and work during the strike, you should restrain yourself as little as possible and try to maintain the existing cordial relations with your colleagues on both sides of the picket line. Avoid fanatics! If you return to work, stay in close contact with other employees who are working during the strike, support each other and share information. If you are working during the strike, you should get an unlisted phone number, keep a log of all threats and incidents of strike-related harassment and violence (who, where, what, when, witness names, etc.) and take photos of your private property such as the house and car so that you can document the damage in case you are a victim of union violence. If you receive harassing calls, you should consider installing caller ID on your personal phone and learning how to use your local phone company`s call tracking services. You must report all threats and incidents of harassment and violence to your employer and, if they are threats or actual violence, to the local police. If you have been the victim of threats or actual union violence, please notify the Foundation if you need assistance. On reading these two provisions, it follows that: The law not only guarantees the right of workers to strike, but also restricts and restricts the exercise of this right. See, for example, restrictions on strikes in health facilities (see below). As mentioned earlier, under current labor law, strikes are conceived as “economic weapons,” difficult negotiations.156 And although legal terminology differs from local agreements, unions have often emphasized the economic nature of strikes.

Strikes are “the power to stop production, distribution and exchange, whether of goods or services.” 157 A strike works because “we are holding something the employer needs.” 158 At the same time, there was a corresponding tendency to reject the most symbolic aspects of the strike. To quote White again, “While publicity and morality are not unimportant, in the end, they are not effective weapons in themselves.” 159 It should be noted that the provisions of a collective agreement between the employer and the trade union may restrict or prohibit a trade union`s right to an economic strike. And yet, Labour`s reluctance to participate in the “competition of ideas” has hampered more than its culture of broader allies; he inhibited his own organization. If workers do not come into contact with alternative visions of political economy or what democracy entails in the workplace, it is all the more difficult to convince them to join trade unions.