A strike, also called labor strike or strike action, is when a large number of workers stop working in protest. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances.
The first ever labor strike in history took place on November 14, 1152BC. It was held by workers in the royal necropolis during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses III in ancient Egypt. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid and the stoppage proved successful as the Egyptian authorities raised the wages.
The English word "strike" originated in 1768, when sailors, in support of demonstrations in London, "struck" or removed the topgallant sails of merchant ships at port, thus crippling the ships.
Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when the importance of mass labor in factories and mines gave the workers some power.
In 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. The nationwide stoppage started among the miners in Staffordshire, England, and soon spread through Britain affecting factories, mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and coal mines from Dundee to South Wales and Cornwall.
In 1844, policemen in New York City staged a strike against their proposed blue uniforms. The reason for their opposition was that they considered uniforms to be symbols of servitude, as maids and butlers wore them in the old country.
The Newsboys' Strike of 1899 lasted two weeks and forced US newspapers to pay their newsboys more. Until then, newsboys bought papers from the publishers and had to resell them to make money.
In 1909, the first hunger strike in a British prison was begun by Inverness-born suffragette Miss Marion Wallace Dunlop, after she was imprisoned for willful damage. She kept it up for 91 hours, until she was released from Holloway Prison on grounds of ill-health.
A seventeen-month-long strike action, which at its peak involved 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers across 65 mines, began on March 9, 1910 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| Amazon labor strike. Pixibay |
The first ever labor strike in history took place on November 14, 1152BC. It was held by workers in the royal necropolis during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses III in ancient Egypt. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid and the stoppage proved successful as the Egyptian authorities raised the wages.
The English word "strike" originated in 1768, when sailors, in support of demonstrations in London, "struck" or removed the topgallant sails of merchant ships at port, thus crippling the ships.
Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when the importance of mass labor in factories and mines gave the workers some power.
In 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. The nationwide stoppage started among the miners in Staffordshire, England, and soon spread through Britain affecting factories, mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and coal mines from Dundee to South Wales and Cornwall.
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| Agitated workers face the factory owner in The Strike, painted by Robert Koehler in 1886 |
In 1844, policemen in New York City staged a strike against their proposed blue uniforms. The reason for their opposition was that they considered uniforms to be symbols of servitude, as maids and butlers wore them in the old country.
The Newsboys' Strike of 1899 lasted two weeks and forced US newspapers to pay their newsboys more. Until then, newsboys bought papers from the publishers and had to resell them to make money.
In 1909, the first hunger strike in a British prison was begun by Inverness-born suffragette Miss Marion Wallace Dunlop, after she was imprisoned for willful damage. She kept it up for 91 hours, until she was released from Holloway Prison on grounds of ill-health.
A seventeen-month-long strike action, which at its peak involved 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers across 65 mines, began on March 9, 1910 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
The strike was sparked by a wage dispute between the miners and the mine owners, who were seeking to cut wages in response to a drop in coal prices. The miners, who were already working long hours in dangerous conditions, refused to accept the proposed wage cuts and instead went on strike.
The Westmoreland strike was a difficult and often violent affair, with clashes between strikers and mine owners, as well as between striking miners and those who continued to work during the strike. The strike also had a significant impact on the local economy, as many businesses that relied on the mining industry struggled to stay afloat.
In the end, the Westmoreland strike was only partially successful, with some miners returning to work under the new, lower wages, while others held out and eventually received higher wages and improved working conditions. The strike remains an important event in the history of the UMW and the labor movement in the United States,
In 1917, 1,300 miners went on strike in Bisbee, Arizona over unsafe working conditions, low pay, and long hours. The mining company, Phelps Dodge, hired 2,000 men who on July 12, 1917 loaded the strikers at gunpoint into cattle cars for a 16 hour trip through the desert without food or water and left them in New Mexico.
The Winnipeg General Strike begun on Thursday May 15, 1919. By 11:00 am, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg, Canada, had walked off the job. During the strike, members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged into the crowd of strikers on horseback, beating them with clubs and firing weapons. It was one of the most famous and influential strikes in Canadian history.
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| Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, |
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a nationwide stoppage that lasted 9 days, from May 3 - May 12. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners.
Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the General Strike. He proposed to force the striking miners back to work by cutting off poor relief to their wives and children.
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| Tyldesley miners outside the Miners’ Hall during the strike |
Apprentice barbers in Copenhagen, Denmark, staged the longest strike in history from 1938 to 1961.
The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country – and the first general wildcat strike in history – occurred in May 1968 in France. The prolonged stoppage involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row, and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government.
The picture below shows strikers in Southern France with a sign reading "Factory Occupied by the Workers." Behind them is a list of demands.
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| By BeenAroundAWhile at en.wikipedia, |
The phrase "industrial action" used in British journalism for a strike was established in 1971. It is a curious choice of words, "inaction" would be more suitable.
On December 28, 1973, during the last of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Skylab missions, the crew turned off all communications with NASA after being over-worked and spent the day relaxing and looking at the Earth. It is the only strike to occur in space.
On October 24, 1975 an estimated 90 percent of women of Iceland took part in a "women’s day off" to protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices. Participants, led by women’s organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day. Fathers had little choice but to bring their children to work or stay home themselves, leading them to call it "the long Friday."
The secret police in Communist Romania subjected the leaders of a 1977 coal miners' strike to 5-minute chest X-rays to ensure that they developed cancer.
In the early spring of 1981, several members of the quickly growing Polish Solidarity movement were brutally beaten up by the country's security services. On March 25, Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa met Deputy Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski of the Polish United Workers' Party, but their talks were fruitless. Two days later, a four-hour national warning strike took place. It was the biggest strike in the history of the Eastern Bloc, during which at least 12 million Poles walked off their jobs. On March 30, 1981, a day before the proposed national strike, the government of Poland reached agreement with Solidarity.
At 7 a.m. on August 3, 1981, the the US Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization declared a strike, seeking better working conditions, better pay, and a 32-hour workweek. Two days later President Ronald Reagan fired the 11,345 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization en masse for failing to carry out their oath to never strike as employees of the US federal government.
Until 1991 there was a 3 acre aquarium in Montreal. The aquarium closed down after all of the dolphin trainers went on strike, leaving the dolphins unfed for 38 days and causing most of them to die.
Major League Baseball players went on strike on August 12, 1994. The labor stoppage resulted in the premature termination of the season, and the cancellation of the World Series for the first time since 1904.
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