A strike is an episode of time where employees stop working collectively in a bid to force their employer(s) to review aspects of their working conditions that they feel are oppressive to them. Most strikes are organized by trade unions to which employees are members. The two prominent types of strikes include unfair labor practices strikes and economic strikes.
An economic strike involves workers trying to get improvements in wages, working hours, benefits and work conditions. An unfair labor practices strike comes about when the employer violates the NLRA rules that protect the employees during collective bargaining, e.g., discharging workers involved in trade union activities, refusal to pay benefits, employers refusing to act in good faith during bargaining, etc.
1How to Organize a Strike that Won't Backfire
This involves proper preparation for the strike. Preparation here means ascertaining the financial capabilities of the union to facilitate any action, which actions are to be undertaken including a go slow, no overtimes, stopping operations and so forth. It also involves planning how the communication, both internally and externally, will be conducted while on strike.
Organization also deals with arming the trade union with legal knowledge about strikes in order to counter any legal procedures that the company may try to use. It also involves checking and being right with the agreements between the employer and the employee as well as the national laws governing strikes.
It also involves coming up with workable action plans on how to conduct the strike, the activities employees are supposed to undertake, and analyzing the expected results.
2What Rights Does a Worker Have as a Laborer?
A worker cannot be dismissed for participating in a protected strike. The employee also cannot be disciplined, intimidated or victimized by the employer for taking part in a protected strike or even refusing to perform the duties of an employee who is participating in such a strike. The employees who receive payments in terms of housing, water, food or even electricity can claim these payments during the strike as part of their salary and the employer is obligated to provide them. Employers cannot deduct employees pay after the strike without a court order or the employee's consent.
The worker also has a right to form, join or even participate in trade unions. This right is known as freedom of association and as such the employee cannot be victimized for being a member of a trade union.
3Will the Strike Cost the Employees Their Jobs?
The employees can be dismissed from their jobs for misconduct during protected strikes if they caused violence or they damaged the employer’s property. The employees are also temporarily dismissed from their jobs during the striking period during which strike breakers are employed for continuity of operations.
The employer can retrench the striking workers by following the procedures for retrenchment but the retrenched employees can take up the matter with the Labor court in the event that the retrenchment was in response to a protected strike.
4How Can Employees Get Other People/Workers Involved in Their Strike?
This can be done through picketing. This is where the striking employees congregate outside their workplace to make their presence known and felt and ultimately increase worker participation while preventing strike breakers from entering the work place. There is also secondary picketing where workers stop or hinder operations of businesses not directly involved in the dispute at hand. There are also flying pickets where workers travel to join other striking workers in other areas. Therefore pickets do not need to be employees of the same company; they can be members of other trade unions who sympathize with the particular striking union. The laws that bind the striking union also apply to the pickets.
5How Should the Strike Be Planned and what Factors Should Be Considered?
The union has to ensure that it has control of all of its members such that any action decided upon will have total participation in order to prevent the chances of losing the battle or even the workers confidence in the union.
It is important to stick to what the board decides on in order to prevent giving contradicting statements to the police, media or even the company’s representatives.
The union should create a crisis team made of well-known members who can at anytime come up with fast solutions and conditions the union can agree on in case negotiations change abruptly. The responsibilities of this team should be clearly stipulated.
The union should also have a plan to deal with union members who do not participate in the strikes. A union member may refuse to participate in a strike due to moral or legal obligations. As such every member should be informed on how to act to avoid lack of coordination or even legal consequences of a failed strike.
6What Rules Need to be Followed in Organizing a Strike?
The union needs to ensure that it is acting within the law when organizing the strike. Before the strike, there should be deliberate measures taken to avert the strike, i.e., discussing how to solve the workers' problems. The union also has to inform the management of the impending strike and give reasons for the strike. Also a majority vote by the members of the union is used to determine the union’s course of action.
