Strike action
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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a form of direct action in which employees collectively refuse to work. It is usually a response to employee grievances. Generally, strikes are intended to bring an employer to accede to employees' demands for improved working conditions or unionisation, particularly when other avenues of change, such as negotiations or legal redress, have been exhausted. Strike actions can be called by trade unions or be instigated by rank-and-file activists.
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. 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. Another example is the general strike in Weimar Germany in response to the Kapp Putsch in March 1920. It was called by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and received such broad support that it resulted in the collapse of the putsch.
There are a variety of different types of strikes, as well as responses to them or actions taken against them. They are the subject of various schools of thought, as well as creative works, such as films.