A Brief History
On October 14, 2021, John Deere & Company was hit by a labor strike, with 10,000 American employees walking off the job. The UAW agreed to a new contract a month later. The John Deere strike pales in comparison to the biggest strikes by American workers.
Digging Deeper
The US does not even make the top 10 countries with the most days lost to strike in recent years, but certainly has seen some major labor strikes, including:
The 1959 Steel Workers Strike with 500,000 workers off work for four months,
The 1922 Railroad Shop Workers Strike with 400,000 workers out for three months.
And the Textile Workers Strike of September 1934 saw 400,000 laborers’ strike.
19th Century major American strikes included:
The Pullman Workers Strike in response to a pay cut in 1894 when 250, 000 went on strike.
And another railroad strike in 1886, when 200,000 workers went on the Great Southwest Railroad Strike.
Note: The biggest labor strike in world history was the massive 250 million worker strike in India in 2020, a 24 hour work stoppage protesting anti-labor practices and policies by the federal government. Not content to merely not work, many strikers purposely impeded other businesses and transportation functions. Support for the action was widespread across the country and in other countries around the world, especially by student organizations.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you ever been on strike?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Loomis, Erik. A History of America in Ten Strikes. The New Press, 2020.
McClelland, Edward. Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike That Created the Middle Class. Beacon Press , 2021.
