Looking At The History And Parts Of The Labor Strike

Maintaining a productive and profitable business requires a good relationship between management and employees. For centuries, when there has been a breakdown in communication between these two it resulted in a labor strike. These work stoppages can come about because of a number of issues and have an organization looking for strike security. To prevent them from happening, corporations will often take proactive measures. As a way to avoid this and still pursue their goals, labor unions have created alternatives to striking. The objective is to keep the business going while also providing fairness for the employees.



Usage of the word strike is believed to go back to eighteenth century London. A group of sailors were protesting the salaries and working conditions of the merchants they worked for. To prevent these businesses from making money, the men "struck" the masts of their ships so that they could not sail. However, the act of the work stoppage seems to go back as far as ancient Egypt. In more recent American history, Philadelphia printers helped create one of the earliest trade unions in the country when they walked off work over a salary dispute.

Anger over company policies, salary disagreements, and work hour disputes are some reasons workers might walk out. Before that happens, a union will try to resolve the differences through collective bargaining. It is only as a last resort, that negotiations end and picket lines are formed.

The familiar sight of workers carrying signs outside of a business has a strategic importance. These strikers want to hurt productivity by keeping out other workers and any potential business. Plus, picketing helps publicize their demands.

Carrying pickets and standing in front of workplaces is not the only way in which laborers protest. This accomplishes a complete shutdown of production by not allowing space for replacements to enter. Sometimes, a less drastic form of protest called slow-downs is enacted. In these forms the laborers follow every work rule to the letter to slow productivity without stopping it completely.