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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther. It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing, and increased globalization. After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant (VW) in 2024.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue- and white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors, totalling about 1.3 million members in 2015. The union was formerly called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.
James Phillip Hoffa, also known as James Hoffa Jr. or Jim Hoffa, is an American labor leader and attorney who was the tenth General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He is the son of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was first elected in 1998, and re-elected in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 to five-year terms. In 2018, Hoffa was elected chair of the Road Transport Section of the International Transport Workers' Federation at its quadrennial Congress in Singapore. Hoffa is the second-longest serving General President of the Teamsters Union, after Dan Tobin, who served from 1907 to 1952. Hoffa's final term as General President ended in 2022.
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with roughly 300,000 active members. The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 by the merger of Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE).
The Minneapolis general strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, the major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District. The worst single day was Friday, July 20, called "Bloody Friday", when police shot at strikers in a downtown truck battle, killing two and injuring 67. Ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout the summer. The strike was formally ended on August 22.
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace.
Ronald Robert Carey was an American labor leader who served as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1991 to 1997. He was the first Teamster General President elected by a direct vote of the membership. He ran for re-election in 1996 and won, but in 1997 federal investigators discovered that the Carey campaign had engaged in an illegal donation kickback scheme to raise more than $700,000 for the 1996 re-election effort. His re-election was overturned, Carey was disqualified from running for Teamsters president again, and he was subsequently expelled from the union for life. Although a federal jury ultimately cleared him of all wrongdoing in the scandal, the lifetime ban remained in place until his death.
The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved from farms to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these conditions. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed and lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s, and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, worker organizing, and strike actions. Labor legislation has changed the nature of union busting, as well as the organizing tactics that labor organizations commonly use.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.
Amazon has been criticized on many issues, including anti-competitive business practices, its treatment of workers, offering counterfeit or plagiarized products, objectionable content of its books, tax and subsidy deals with governments.
The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA) is a graduate student employee union formed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1966. It is credited as the first graduate student labor union. Following voluntary recognition by the university as the teaching assistants' bargaining agent in 1969, negotiations resulted in a 1970 strike, which secured "bread-and-butter" gains such as job security alongside grievance procedures. Their major unmet demand from their strike—the inclusion of teaching assistants and students in the course planning process—went unfulfilled. The TAA struck again in 1980 and lost its union recognition until 1986. The union's protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol building began the 2011 Wisconsin protests.
The United Parcel Service strike of 1997, led by International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President Ron Carey, started on August 4, 1997, and involved over 185,000 Teamsters. The strike effectively shut down United Parcel Service (UPS) operations for 15 days and costs UPS hundreds of millions of dollars. The strike was a victory for the union, resulting in a new contract that increased their wages, secured their existing benefits and gave increased job security.
Some warehouse workers of Amazon, the largest American e-commerce retailer with 750,000 employees, have organized for workplace improvements in light of the company's scrutinized labor practices and stance against unions. Worker actions have included work stoppages and have won concessions including increased pay, safety precautions, and time off. There are unionized Amazon workers in the United States, Italy and Japan with further unionization activity elsewhere in Europe.
Sean M. O'Brien is an American labor leader who is the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He formerly served as the Vice President Eastern Region of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).
The 2021 St. Paul Park refinery strike was a labor dispute in St. Paul Park, Minnesota, United States. The strike, involving approximately 200 workers, took place at an oil refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum and began on January 21, 2021, with members of Local 120 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters alleging unfair labor practices and unsafe working conditions. According to union representatives, the strike was originally intended to last for one day, but that the company performed a lockout on the workers. While the company denies that the dispute is a lockout, multiple sources, including the Star Tribune and the news agency Reuters, describe the dispute as a lockout.
The 2021 Heaven Hill strike was a labor strike involving about 420 workers for the Heaven Hill bourbon whiskey distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, United States. These workers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23D and were on strike since September 11. The labor dispute is over the terms of a new five-year labor contract between the union and the company, which is one of the largest bourbon producers in the world. In particular, union members were concerned about "gray areas" in the contract that they believed could lead to union employees working weekends and extra overtime without pay. Additional concerns from the union were over reduced take-home pay and a removal of the limit on premiums for health care insurance. On September 9, union members voted by about 96 percent to reject the proposed contract and authorized strike action. As a result, the union's existing contract expired without replacement on September 10 and striking commenced the following day.
The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is a labor union specifically for Amazon workers, created on April 20, 2021. On April 1, 2022, the Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, JFK8, backed by the ALU became the first unionized Amazon workers recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. In June 2024 the union became affiliated with Teamsters.
Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174, 598 U.S. 771 (2023) was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States related to federal labor law, concerning the power of employers to sue labor unions regarding destruction of employer property following a strike. In an 8-1 decision, the Court acknowledged that the right to strike is not absolute, and concluded that the National Labor Relations Act did not preempt lawsuits filed against the union, thus allowing litigation to continue.
References
- 1 2 3 News, A. B. C. "Teamsters say 'momentum continues' as Christmastime strike against Amazon enters 2nd day". ABC News. Retrieved 2024-12-20.
{{cite web}}:|last=has generic name (help) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Teamsters announce strike against Amazon amid holiday delivery rush". NBC News. 2024-12-20. Retrieved 2024-12-20.
- 1 2 3 Isidore, Chris (2024-12-19). "Thousands of Amazon drivers have gone on strike in the thick of the holiday package season | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved 2024-12-20.