A strike is a collective work stoppage or slow down organized to compel a target who holds power — such as an employer, landlord or prison warden — to meet strikers’ demands. Strikes can last for only one day, or for many months and even years. The goal of a strike is to inflict both economic and political damage until the strikers’ demands are met. Demands may include better wages or benefits (health care, adequate PPE, etc.), improved worker conditions, and recognition of a labor union.

Strikes vary in form. Workers might refuse to work and set up picket lines to ask for other workers and customers to withhold labor and/or patronage. In a “sick-out” strike, workers collectively refuse to come to work and call out ill on the same day. In work slow downs, workers come to work but refuse to be productive. Similarly, “work-to-rule” is a tactic used by workers to perform their jobs in exact accordance with workplace rules, which means they take none of the shortcuts or time-saving steps that workers always take in order to get the job done.

Solidarity strikes are work stoppages or actions that are taken to publicize or support a cause that may not be the primary concern of the workers who are striking, but affect another group of workers or are part of a larger cause. Secondary strikes are work stoppages that are taken in support of another union’s strike or action. As federal labor law (and individual union contracts) have limited some of the potential of secondary strikes for workers under collective bargaining agreements, we have seen the solidarity strike strategy used in different ways. For instance, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida forced corporations (particularly food chains) to increase the pay of tomato pickers in their supply chain by successfully mounting large-scale boycotts.