by Fox News senior national correspondent Rich Edson talks with the Cato Institute’s director of general economics, Scott Lincicome, who discusses ‘historically high’ job openings.
Labor strikes in the US are set to increase by 52% in 2022 from the previous year according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University, who cite the data as evidence of a rise in “worker activism”.
The university’s ILR Workers Institute released its second annual Labor Action Tracker report on Tuesday, which found there were 424 work stoppages across the country last year – including 417 strikes and seven lockouts – up from 279 total stoppages in 2021.
Haverhill, MA – October 18, 2022: Striking Haverhill public school teachers held a Rally outside Haverhill City Hall. (Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The number of workers involved in strikes also increased significantly, jumping from 140,000 in 2021 to 224,000 in 2022, an increase of around 60%. The majority of workers involved in stoppages last year were in the education services sector, accounting for 60.4% of those on picket lines.
Education workers such as teachers and professors were also involved in the majority of strike days, accounting for 56.3% of the 4.4 million strike days lost due to work stoppages, according to the study.
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While education workers had the most time off work due to labor disputes, the accommodation and food services industry had the largest number of work stoppages at 34%, followed by education services at 17%, and workers transport and warehouse at 10.1%.
Striking Starbucks worker Kyle Trainer uses a megaphone outside a Starbucks coffee shop during a national strike on Nov. 17, 2022, in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Demands for higher wages were the main reason for strikes. The issue led to 234 work stoppages involving more than 160,000 workers.
Cornell researchers found that more than two-thirds, or 68.9%, of all work stoppages involved workers with prior union recognition. Of the total number of workers involved in a strike, 96.9% were unionized.
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The ILR Workers’ Institute built a comprehensive database of strikes in the United States last year, saying the Bureau of Labor Statistics data does not reflect true work stoppages nationwide because the federal agency excludes incidents involving fewer than 1,000 workers. The researchers said BLS stopped counting fewer work stoppages in the early 1980s because of funding cuts by the Reagan administration.
Graduate student workers are on strike at UCLA, joined by faculty members to support them during a rally on campus, calling on the university to offer students a contract with a significant increase in pay and benefits to match the skyrocketing. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The BLS reported last month that the rate of union membership in 2022 fell to an all-time low, despite high-profile unionization efforts by companies such as Starbucks, Amazon, and Apple.
While the total number of union wage and salary workers increased by about 1.9% between 2021 and 2022, it was not enough to keep up with the cumulative increase of mostly non-union workers, which was just below 4% according to BLS data.
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The 2022 unionization rate of 10.1% is the lowest on record. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data was available, the union membership rate was just over 20%.
