Tag Archives: Congress of Industrial Organizations

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“Never Give Up the Right to Strike”: An Introduction to No-Strike Clauses

[This post is part of my series on union organizational structures.]

Years ago I came across the quote, the source now forgotten, “My philosophy of unions is simple: never give up the right to strike.” At the time I didn’t fully understand what that meant, but it stuck with me. Over the years of reading labor history and reflecting on my own workplace organizing I’ve gradually realized that that quote encapsulates much of what I now believe about unions.

One of the main ways workers give up the right to strike today is through their union contracts, 98% of which contain “no-strike clauses” forbidding workers from withholding their labor for the duration of the contract. No-strike clauses are usually written in expansive terms. For example, the no-strike clause in the union contract at my job elaborates that any slow down or alteration of or deviation from or interference with the work assignment is prohibited. This amounts to a near-blanket ban on worker direct action against their employer. 

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A Critical Survey of Left Unionisms: McAlevey, Burns, Moody, Syndicalism, Permeationism, and Relationship-Based Organizing

[This post is part of my series on relationship-based organizing. A pamphlet version of this post is available for download here.]

Unions and organizing are complex things with many parts, dimensions, and dynamics. Major theories of unionism each build a worldview that fit these concepts together in a coherent way and that advance a particular set of union practices. The main theories on left union theory and strategy today include those of Jane McAlevey, Joe Burns, Kim Moody and Labor Notes, and reform caucus unionism. Other left unionisms, dominant at different points in US history but less prominent today, include syndicalism as practiced by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and permeationism as practiced by Marxist-Leninist organizations. These theories are not static nor mutually exclusive, as they often overlap, get mixed and matched in practice, and evolve over time.

Different unionisms will weigh the importance of the different aspects of unionism differently. A useful way to survey the landscape of left unionisms is by showing what each one locates as its central concepts. I briefly draw out some of the main features of these union theories as well as some of the critiques of them. 

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