by Fox News senior national correspondent Rich Edson speaks with Scott Lincicome, director of general economics at the Cato Institute, who discusses “historically high” job openings.
Labor strikes in the US rose 52% in 2022 from the year before, according to a new study by Cornell University researchers, who cite the data as evidence of a rise in “worker activism.”
The university’s ILR Worker Institute released its second annual Labor Action Tracker report on Tuesday, which found there were 424 work stoppages across the country last year – including 417 strikes and seven lockouts – up from a total of 279 work stoppages in 2021.
Haverhill, MA – October 18, 2022: Striking Haverhill Public School teachers held a rally outside Haverhill City Hall. (Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The number of workers involved in strikes also increased significantly, rising from 140,000 in 2021 to 224,000 in 2022, an increase of about 60%. A majority of the workers involved in walkouts last year were in the education sector, which accounted for 60.4% of the picket line.
Education workers such as teachers and professors were also involved in most strike days, accounting for 56.3% of the 4.4 million strike days lost to work stoppages, according to the study.
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While education workers were the most likely to be absent due to industrial action, the hospitality industry saw the most work stoppages at 34%, followed by education at 17% and transport and warehouse workers at 10.1%.
Striking Starbucks worker Kyle Trainer uses a megaphone outside of a Starbucks coffee shop during a nationwide strike November 17, 2022 in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Demands for higher wages were the main reason for strikes. This issue led to 234 work stoppages involving more than 160,000 workers.
The Cornell researchers found that more than two-thirds, or 68.9%, of all walkouts in the past year involved workers with prior union recognition. Of the total number of workers involved in work stoppages, 96.9% were unionised.
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The ILR Worker Institute compiled a comprehensive database of strikes in the US last year and said the Bureau of Labor Statistics data does not reflect actual walkouts across the country because the federal agency excludes incidents involving fewer than 1,000 workers. The researchers said BLS stopped counting minor work stoppages in the early 1980s due to funding cuts by the Reagan administration.
Striking students at UCLA are joined by faculty members to support them during an on-campus rally, demanding the university offer the students a contract with a dramatic pay rise and benefits to match the surge (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The BLS reported last month that the union membership rate fell to an all-time low in 2022, despite high-profile union efforts at companies like Starbucks, Amazon and Apple.
Although the total number of unionized wage earners increased by around 1.9% between 2021 and 2022, this was not enough to keep up with the cumulative increase in the majority of non-union workers, which BLS data shows is nearly 4 % fraud.
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The unionization rate of 10.1% in 2022 is the lowest on record. In 1983, the first year comparable union data was available, the union membership rate was just over 20%.
