Institute for New Economic Thinking (also featured in Center for Economic and Policy Research)
July 13, 2021

By Clarissa León and Mike Elk

In the era of COVID and digital movements, strikes look radically different from traditional labor strikes

Earlier this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that 2020 was the third-lowest year for strikes in the United States since they started collecting data on strikes in 1947. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claimed that there were just eight “major work stoppages” in the US in 2020.

Payday Report’s COVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map, launched at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, began using news and social media accounts of workers walking off the job in protest as a measure of strike activity. By this measure, the map indicates at least 1,200 strikes in 2020 as reported in news and social media reports. These labor strike activities were counted as strikes even without regard to workplace size or union authorization.

Early on in the pandemic, Payday Report began to notice a massive strike wave brewing as workers, fearful of losing their lives, simply refused to work.

Almost immediately, strikes were on the move.