Fewer strikers now than a decade ago
By Will Lester
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — About 70,000 workers missed days on the job because of labor disputes last year, only about one-fourth as many as a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The change reflects the more powerful position of employers, high anxiety among workers and new labor strategies, according to labor veterans and analysts.
The number of those who missed days because of work stoppages was 273,000 in 1996 and had grown to 394,000 by 2000.
"Employers have a much stronger hand in the workplace," said Stewart Acuff, organizing director at the AFL-CIO. "People are afraid to strike and afraid to join unions" because of the imbalance of power.
Bob McCracken, a former Verizon worker who is now a union official for Communication Workers of America Local 1103, recalled that a threatened strike in New York was called off several years ago when Verizon was prepared to bring in thousands of replacement workers.
"The company had a strike-breaking force of about 25,000 contractors who could do the work, and management people from all over," he said. "We stated we would not go out on strike, that the company would have to lock us out. We settled the contract six weeks after the expiration."
The number of workers nationally who missed days on the job declined from 2005, when 100,000 missed work, but the number of lost workdays was up by 1 million days in 2006 to a total of 2.7 million, the BLS reported.
The 2006 increase in days lost was caused by the length of some of the strikes and lockouts.
Major work stoppages covered by the BLS study include strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 or more employees and lasting at least one shift.
The longest work stoppages in 2006 reported by the BLS:
Of the 20 major work stoppages that started in 2006, 12 were in private industry and eight in state and local government, the BLS reported. That's about half the number of major strikes in 1996, but some strikes these days are lasting a long time.
"We're seeing strikes that are going on for months and months," said Elizabeth Ashack, an economist at the Labor Department. "Unions and companies now are not willing to settle quickly."
Greg Denier, a spokesman for the Change To Win federation, said unions have found other methods to pressure corporations, short of striking.
"Workers now don't look at it as strictly a worker-corporate confrontation on a picket line," Denier said. "They're doing outreach to the community, consumers, political leaders and investors."
