The number of workers going on strike has grown in recent years, according to new federal data. Yet New Jersey workers are taking to the picket line less and less.
When employees organize at their workplace, one of the most powerful tools they have in labor disputes is their ability to go on strike, or otherwise stop working.
But the Garden State has among the highest rates of organized workplaces in the country, so why are workers here striking less?
“The low rate of strikes is a result of the high rate of labor’s power,” said Michael Merrill, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University.
“Labor doesn’t have to go to the mat to get a good deal,” Merrill said. “It’s not because New Jersey unions are weaker, it’s because they haven’t needed to.”
Last week, the National Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data detailing work stoppages – either strikes or “lockouts” in which employers shut down production – for workplaces with 1,000 or more workers.
The data shows that across the country, there were 25 large work stoppages in 2019, a spike over the 20 stoppages in 2018 and the highest level since 2001.
None of the 2019 stoppages happened in New Jersey, and just one – a single-day strike by Jersey City teachers over health coverage – occurred here in 2018.
The federal labor bureau keeps detailed data going back to 1993. Those figures show that in both the 1990s and 2000s, New Jersey saw eight large strikes in each decade. From 2010 to 2019, though, New Jersey only saw five large strikes.
“Most of the stoppages that have occurred in New Jersey have been relatively short,” said Bruce Bergman, a federal labor economist. “The number [of stoppages] compared to how they used to be back more than 10 years ago or 15 years ago aren’t as frequent.”
In the 1990s, strikes involving New Jersey workers lasted a collective 103 days. In the 2000s, that same figure was 240 days, including a 98-day stoppage by New Jersey Central Power and Light workers and a 52-day stoppage by Shop Rite Supermarket workers.
Over the last decade, though, there were only five strikes. Four of them lasted a total of six days.
One exception is the ongoing strike by IBEW Local 3 workers in New York and New Jersey. Those workers, locked in a high-stakes dispute with their employer, Charter Communications Inc., have been on strike since March 2017 over cuts to health and pension benefits that followed a buyout when Charter took over the company from Time Warner Cable.
IBEW Local 3 is based in New York City but has a New Jersey office and represents workers here as well.
New Jersey is among the most unionized states in the U.S., with about 15% of Garden State workers holding union cards, compared to about 10% nationally.
Fred Potter, the International Vice President-at large of the Teamsters and President of Local 469, said the strong presence gives labor power.
“New Jersey has some very good unions that can leverage these other solutions besides strikes,” Potter said. “I think of New Jersey as a strong union state and I think these employers understand that it’s part of doing business.”
Tactics like “practice pickets,” where workers picket outside of their workplace for an hour before and after their shifts, can show employers that workers are unified and serious about their demands, Potter said.
Other options include filing charges with national labor regulators or going directly to an employer’s customers with complaints about working conditions, he said.
“A strike is the last resort and we’re going to try a lot of other things before we try that,” Potter said.
At the national level, labor experts see economic conditions that make it much more likely for workers to go on strike.
Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said the fact that wages have remained stagnant, coupled with a low unemployment rate, means workers are more apt to strike because if they’re fired for striking, finding another job won’t be too difficult.
And, Shierholz said, when workers see other workers winning higher wages or other benefits from striking, it can inspire more strikes.
“I think within the next year [low unemployment and slow wage growth] will remain, and then to the extent that this activity inspires other activity that’s probably also a factor,” Shierholz said. “That can make it easier for workers to contemplate going on strike.”
Merrill, though, cautioned that going on strike is still a big risk for workers.
“Nobody wants to strike because basically you’re interrupting your paycheck and you’re engaging in a fight in which you may not win and you’re often out gunned,” he said. “You’re not going to strike unless you have no choice.”
J. Dale Shoemaker is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JDale_Shoemaker.