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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts.[1] Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the rule of a particular political party or ruler; in such cases, strikes are often part of a broader social movement taking the form of a campaign of civil resistance. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard and the 1981 Warning Strike led by Lech Wałęsa. These strikes were significant in the long campaign of civil resistance for political change in Poland, and were an important mobilizing effort that contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist party rule in Eastern Europe.[2] Another example is the general strike in Weimar Germany that followed the March 1920 Kapp Putsch. It was called by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and received such broad support that it resulted in the collapse of the putsch.[3]
- ^ ""There is No Such Thing as an Illegal Strike": Reconceptualizing the Strike in Law and Political Economy".
- ^ Aleksander Smolar, "Towards 'Self-limiting Revolution': Poland 1970–89", in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford University Press, 2009 Archived 25 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 127–43. This book contains accounts on certain other strike movements in other countries around the world aimed at overthrowing a regime or a foreign military presence.
- ^ Mommsen, Hans (1996). The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Forster, Elborg; Jones, Larry Eugene. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-807-82249-4.