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Wildcat strike

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A wildcat strike is a strike action undertaken by unionised workers without union leadership's authorization, support, or approval; this is sometimes termed an unofficial industrial action. The legality of wildcat strikes varies between countries and over time.

By country

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Canada

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In 1965, Canada Post workers illegally walked out for two weeks and won the right to collective bargaining for all public sector employees.[1] This resulted in them throwing out the leadership of the company union and forming the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

On March 23, 2012, Air Canada ground employees suddenly walked off the job at Toronto Pearson International Airport, resulting in many flight delays, after three workers were suspended for heckling Canadian Labour Minister Lisa Raitt. This followed months of fighting between Air Canada and its other unions.[2]

Hundreds of members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees walked out from their jobs on the morning of October 26, 2020 at healthcare centres across the province, resulting in some delays in care. This was in protest of an announcement made 2 weeks prior by Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Alberta Health Services CEO, Verna Yiu that between 9,700 and 11,000 AHS employees, namely laboratory, linen, cleaning and food services staff, will be laid-off in efforts to outsource the work to private companies, potentially saving the province $600 million annually. The Alberta Labour Relations Board issued a decision on the evening of October 26 for the employees on strike to return to work.[3]

Germany

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Wildcats strikes are seen as illegal in Germany, as they are not endorsed by a union as a party capable of entering into a collective agreement. Participating in a wildcat strike is considered a refusal to work and can be met by repercussions such as a warning or the termination of one's contract by the employer on an individual level. A union can however retroactively endorse a wildcat strike, therefore making it legal ex tunc.[4]

France

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Wildcat strikes were the key pressure tactic used during the May 1968 protests in France.[5]

United States

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Background

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The motivation for wildcat strikes in the United States changed from the Depression era to the Postwar era in response to a variety of factors relating to businesses, the federal government, and unions.

Union coordination with working class interests

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In 1939, the Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board (often called the Smith Committee) was established by Republicans with the intention of weakening and eventually dissolving the NLRB. These intentions would attempt to be made law with the Smith Bill in 1940.

During the Depression, and prior to the bureaucratization of unions, leaders of different political philosophies tended to agree on the necessity and unique capabilities of local strike actions. Regardless of the organizational structure and direction, unions had no difficulty retaining these kinds of tactics within their toolkit.[6] With the ascent of the [7]

Changes in union objectives

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The United States' entry into [6] Another concern that union leadership had was with its [8] Additionally, the political climate of wartime America and post-war America favored a bureaucratic union culture that adhered to an orthodoxy of institutional reform around relatively narrow objectives. Of increasing importance to union leadership was an alliance with the [8]

After the strikes of 1941, the War Labor Board held a hearing over the Little Steel companies' working conditions in 1942.

An early example of the tension between the substantially changing unions and their members can be seen in the wildcat strikes against Little Steel companies in 1941. [9]

Taft–Hartley Act of 1947

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The Taft-Hartley bill garnered serious opposition from labor and labor allies, though they were unsuccessful in defeating its passage.

After a challenge by the [10] The 1947 [9] Taft-Hartley also included many clauses built to disempower unions, whether by guaranteeing workers the [10] The act helped to disunify unions across different industries, and even within industries, while supporting the development of a managerial class within workplaces to protect employers from union action.[8] It also set off a wave of state-level anti-unionism that popularized the notion of [10]

Postwar disillusionment with unions

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During the postwar boom, union achievement of benefits for only some employees succeeded in removing pressure from their membership as a whole and demotivated radical action from those who had gained the most. With solidarity and [8]

Legality

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Under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), federal courts have held that wildcat strikes are illegal and that employers may fire workers participating in them.[11] Nevertheless, US workers can formally request that the National Labor Relations Board end their association with their labor union if they feel that the union is not adequately representing their interests. At this point, any strike action taken by the workers may be termed a wildcat strike, but there is no illegality involved, as there is no longer a conflict between sections 7 and 9(a) of the NLRA.

Some strikes that begin as wildcat actions, such as the Memphis sanitation strike and Baltimore municipal strike of 1974, are later supported by their respective unions' leadership.

Contemporary instances

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In 2018, West Virginia teachers went on strike to demand higher wages and affordable health coverage. Without the sustained sanction of union leadership, this strike became a wildcat strike.[12] In 2018, similar wildcat strikes by teachers demanding better pay and school funding also occurred in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, and Arizona.[13]

In 2020, UC Santa Cruz graduate students went on strike to demand a cost of living adjustment (COLA) due to the high rent burden in Santa Cruz county. Later in 2020, the NBA, WNBA, MLB, MLS, and NHL all saw wildcat strikes in protest of police brutality after the shooting of Jacob Blake.[14]

Vietnam

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In Vietnam, all workers are required to join a union connected to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. Due to workers' distrust of this agency, nearly all strikes in the country are wildcat strikes.[15]

Notable wildcat strikes

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This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

There are some cases where union recognition of a strike is complicated. For example, during the year-long British miners' strike of 1984-5, the national executive supported the strike but many area councils regarded the strike as unofficial, as most ballots at area level had produced majority votes against the strike and no ballot was ever taken at the national level.[21]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Canada's record on wildcat strikes". CBC News. 23 March 2012.
  2. ↑ "Air Canada strike effects felt into weekend". CBC News. 23 March 2012.
  3. ↑ Snowdon, Wallis (26 October 2020). "Wildcat strike at Alberta hospitals ordered to end by labour board". CBC News.
  4. ↑ Bundesarbeitsgericht, September 5th 1955 – 1 AZR 480/54.
  5. ↑ "The Beginning of an Era". Internationale Situationniste. Translated by Knabb, Ken. September 1969.
  6. 1 2 Green 1983, p. [page needed].
  7. ↑ Sparrow 2014, p. [page needed].
  8. 1 2 3 4 Lichtenstein 2010, p. [page needed].
  9. 1 2 White 2016, p. [page needed].
  10. 1 2 3 Feurer & Pearson 2017, p. [page needed].
  11. ↑ "Wildcat Strike". West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thompson/Gale. 2005. ISBN 0-7876-6367-0.
  12. ↑ Eric Blanc (2018-03-01). "The Strike Is On". jacobinmag.com.
  13. ↑ Elk, Mike (2 April 2018). "Wave of teachers' wildcat strikes spreads to Oklahoma and Kentucky". The Guardian.
  14. ↑ Gregory, Sean (August 27, 2020). "Why Jacob Blake's Shooting Sparked an Unprecedented Sports Boycott". Time U.S.A. LLC. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved August 28, 2020.
  15. ↑ Puddington, Arch (3 September 2010). "Labor Day in Hell". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 9 September 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
  16. ↑ Cohen, Lizabeth (2003). A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-40750-5. OCLC 49530256.[page needed]
  17. ↑ "Wages error sparked 1970 strike". St. Helens Reporter. England. 9 April 2014. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  18. ↑ Began as official union action, but teachers refused the back-to-work orders at the end of negotiations. See: Kalmbacher, Colin (March 1, 2018). "Teachers Defy Union and Governor, Continue Statewide Strike Even After Deal Reached". Law and Crime. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  19. ↑ Martin, Jill; Asmelash, Leah; Close, David (August 27, 2020). "These teams and athletes refused to play in protest of the Jacob Blake shooting". CNN.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2025. Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  20. ↑ "NBA gameplay to resume Saturday after Jacob Blake protests". KABC-TV. August 28, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  21. ↑ Amos, David (12 July 2012). The Nottinghamshire miners, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the 1984-85 miners strike: scabs or scapegoats? (Thesis). pp. 292–295.

Sources

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Further reading

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