Jay Klein Jr., age 13, of Haggerstown, Md., for his question:
ARE THERE MANY KINDS OF STRIKES?
A strike in business and industry is a stopping of work by a group of employees. There are a number of kinds of strikes, including an authorized strike, a wildcat strike, a sit down strike, a sympathy strike, “a jurisdictional strike and a secondary strike.
Workers sometimes use the strike as their main bargaining weapon. They hope that the strike or the threat of a strike will persuade the company to agree to their demands for higher wages, improved working conditions and other benefits.
Most strikes are called walkouts. The employees leave their jobs and march with signs in picket lines at the company’s entrance.
An authorized strike is one agreed upon by union officials or by a majority of the union members. A wildcat strike, on the other hand, is a strike called by a group of workers without official union support.
A sit down strike is a strike in which people stop working but do not leave their place of employment.
A sympathy strike is called by one union to support another union that is on strike. A jurisdictional strike may result when rival unions claim the right to work on the same job.
A secondary strike takes place when workers call a work stoppage in an attempt to force their employer to stop doing business with another employer who is involved in a labor dispute.
Generally, nonpublic employees have the right to strike. Similarly, private employers may close their plant in order to keep employees from working. Such action is called a lockout.
Almost all collective bargaining agreements prohibit strikes and lockouts during the term of a contract. Also, in the United States, federal laws prohibit or limit certain kinds of strikes. The Taft Hartley Act, for example, bans jurisdictional strikes, secondary strikes and sympathy strikes.
Both the Taft Hartley Act and the Railway Labor Act include provisions to delay strikes that might create a national emergency.
Many states have laws forbidding strikes by employees of the state or local government. But strikes by such public employees as police, teachers ad sanitation workers became common in the 1960s and 1970s.
Generally speaking, strike tactics in the United States and other industrial countries have been relatively peaceful for many years. But open warfare, loss of life and destruction of property were common with strikes in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Most strikes are settled through negotiations between representatives of labor and management. A neutral third party may help the parties reach a settlement. In mediation, the third party tries to promote discussion, to work out compromises and to find areas of agreement.