Over the last few weeks, sensational headlines like “Willkommen, Streikrepublik Deutschland” have adorned the websites of German news outlets. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest daily, featured the country’s spike in union membership on its front page. And the London Guardian thought it important enough to run a piece by the famous German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck titled “The strikes sweeping Germany are here to stay.”

So what’s going on in Germany?

In short, the largest strike wave in decades: so far this year, more than 350,000 days of work have been lost to strike action. That number was just 156,000 all of last year; in 2010 it was only was 28,000 days.