A major driver of strikes is the power of workers. Due to tightness on the labour market, this power has been growing for several years. “This reinforces the feeling among employees that they can hurt employers, which in turn increases the likelihood of a strike, because strikers know that they cannot simply be replaced,” says Alex Lehr.
Another factor fuelling the strikes are corporate profits, which have been substantially increasing in many sectors for several years. Especially when coupled with rising inflation, as is the case at the moment, this stimulates the urge among workers to claim a bigger slice of the pie. “Employees know that there is really something to be gained right now,” says Lehr.
Lehr mentions another important factor in the turmoil: the sense of fairness. “Consciously or unconsciously, people weigh things: what is fair profit, what is fair pay, what are fair working conditions? Strikes become more fiery as workers realise that things are no longer fair.” And this is legitimate, the political scientist points out, with wage growth lagging behind labour productivity. “Prosperity is rising, but workers’ benefits are lagging behind. This unbalanced growth has been going on for a long time, so it’s not strange that people are taking action.”
Dynamics of trade unions
A key topic in Lehr’s research is trade unions, which play a crucial role in the outbreak of strikes. “Unions have their own interests at heart: they know that strikes can boost membership numbers.” This is no luxury, given the steadily decreasing participation rate for decades: by now, just over 15% of workers are union members, dozens of percentage points less than in the unions’ heyday in the 1970s. “We will probably never go back to those figures, but it is plausible that a strike wave will slow the decrease for a while, and maybe even reverse it.”
Lehr stresses that unions do not call a strike purely out of opportunism: they always weigh reasonable odds of success, and reasonable odds of getting enough employees on their feet. The strike wave had to come sometime; all signs have been pointing that way. “If the unions do not call a strike now, when would they do so? Not doing it would only further erode their legitimacy. If you don't take action even under these circumstances, how are you supposed to survive as a union?”
Split
One group of employees who also fails to share in the growing prosperity are flexi workers, a category that has so far only played a minor role in labour unrest. After all, they change jobs faster than other employees, are less tied to organisations, and find it difficult to take a collective stance. While trade unions are trying to become more involved in the flexi work movement, Lehr says this is creating a ‘huge split’. “Job protection is at odds with the interests of flexi workers to move on to permanent jobs. Attention to flexi work is great, but in doing so, unions also run the risk of alienating themselves from their permanent members.”
A special category in flexi work is the app-technology-driven employment sector, such as delivery services. According to popular wisdom, the app industry does not really promote collective action. But is this really true? Lehr wants to know. “Because the same app is also used by delivery drivers to share their dissatisfaction with their working conditions among themselves. It is worth investigating further what opportunities this offers for collective action.”
Lehr also calls for more attention to the relationship between the crumbling unions and growing economic inequality. Employees may have to face the consequences of having neglected collectivity. Lehr: “The question right now is whether economic inequality has increased precisely because the unions have lost power. That is what I would like to explore further.”
Photo: Sebastiaan ter Burg via Flickr