Unfortunately, There Was No “Striketober”
Everyone is desperate for signs of life in the American working class, so the breathless talk of a "Striketober" a few months back made sense. But new Bureau of Labor Statistics data throws cold water on that idea: there was no strike upsurge.
United Auto Workers picket signs tossed on the ground outside a strike at General Motors, 2019. (Jeff Kowalsky / AFP via Getty Images)
There was a lot of enthusiastic talk about a wave of labor militancy last year — remember “Striketober”? With the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) preliminary data for December out — it will be slightly revised next month, but not by much — we can now look at the full year in historical perspective. It was a quiet year, even by recent standards.
First, the number of “stoppages” involving a thousand workers or more.*
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