Some Striking Numbers
Today, strikes are back—among teachers, hotel workers, auto workers, supermarket employees, and disconsolate Google-ites, among others. (The walkout of roughly 20,00 Google employees, protesting the company’s treatment of sexual harassment, didn’t even make it into the BLS numbers due to the bureau’s definition of what constitutes a work stoppage.) As I write, more than 20,000 workers are preparing to take a strike vote at Safeway markets in the D.C.–Maryland area. The return of the strike reflects two somewhat anomalous realities that together constitute the state of the American economy. Low unemployment makes the prospect of striking less terrifying. And the fact that wages lag behind housing, education, and medical costs, despite the low unemployment, makes the prospect of striking more necessary.