ILPC 2027

In recent decades, a marked decline in the frequency of strikes across the advanced capitalist world has led numerous scholars to announce the death of the strike.  Yet, even as economic strikes by established trade unions have declined, there has been a new wave of unconventional strikes in unorganized sectors in the United States, a surge in political strikes in Europe, and a wave of militant strikes in the global South.  The complexity of these events requires a rethinking of the strike, beyond traditional theory, from a more historical and comparative perspective.  In this paper, we trace the intellectual tradition of strike theory in the U.S. from economic bargaining models to institutionalist critiques to social movement theories. Building on the work of Beverly Silver and Jennifer Chun, we propose an alternative approach highlighting three interrelated forms of worker power: structural, associational, and symbolic. The balance of these relations of power in any industry or juncture is shaped by paths of development in the economy, state and civil society. In turn, that balance shapes the levels of strike activity, the form strikes take (including strategies and tactics), and their outcomes.  We demonstrate the utility of our approach here via a brief analysis of recent unconventional strikes in the OUR Walmart and the “Fight for $15” campaigns in the US.