The number of work stoppages nationwide declined last year from the previous year, but the number continued to exceed 2021 levels.
So says the Labor Action Tracker annual report released Wednesday by researchers at Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations, who’ve been documenting strikes and lockouts over the very active past four years.
The number of work stoppages decreased from 471 to 359 — that is, by 23.8% in 2024 compared to 2023 and the approximate number of workers also decreased by 45.5%, according to the report.
Researchers said the decline “overwhelmingly” is due to fewer one-day strikes, which is “attributable in large part to the decrease in the number of strikes by Starbucks Workers United in 2024 as compared to 2022 and 2023.”
The five largest strikes of the year involved union members at Boeing, California State University, University of California, University of California Health, and the United States Maritime Alliance, totaling a little over half (about 152,300) of all the workers engaged in strikes this year.
Otherwise, the report doesn’t report on specific strikes, but Labor Action Tracker continues to report that the Pittsburgh news workers’ strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which began in October 2022, is the country’s longest ongoing strike.
As shown in some of the infographics in the report, “About three-fifths of all strikes in 2024 lasted less than 5 days. However, close to 18% of all workers who were striking were on the picket line for more than a month.”
In addition to the West accounting for the most work stoppages and the most involved workers, researchers reported the “notable trends” emerging from their four years of data include that the vast majority of 2024’s striking workers came from educational services (32.7%) and the highest number of strike days from manufacturing (40%), and there was a slight increase in the percentage of work stoppages organized by nonunionized workers.
The ongoing project’s purpose is “to better inform and support labor movement activists, policymakers, and scholars.”
You can read the full report and the previous three annual reports here: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/faculty-and-research/labor-action-tracker.
One of the authors — Johnnie Kallas, assistant professor at University of Illinois LER School — says Labor Action Tracker will be amplifying key strikes this week in its social media posts, which is how it broadcasts monthly reports and other updates. See @ILRLaborAction on X (formerly Twitter) and @Laboraction.bsky.social.
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.
