Portside - The right to strike is not intact in the United States, and arguably, it never has been. Railway and airline workers, for example, must exhaust lengthy and complicated negotiations and mediations before they can engage in a legally protected strike. Other workers, including public sector, agricultural, and domestic workers, as well as independent contractors, have no federally protected right to strike at all. For the private-sector workers who are covered by the National Labor Relations Act, Congress and the courts have, over time, narrowed what constitutes “protected concerted activity.” Some of the most powerful on-the-job tools that workers can use to exert coordinated power in an oppressive workplace—including intermittent strikes, partial strikes, and slowdown strikes—have all been deemed unlawful. Further, federal law bans secondary boycotts, making solidarity actions illegal.
Recently, stringent legal restrictions on the right to strike have proliferated across the globe. In 2022, strikes were severely restricted or banned in 129 of the 148 countries the International Trade Union Confederation measures—a 24 percent increase since 2014.
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