2023 marked most active labor-dispute year in more than two decades: Pew analysis

2023 was the most active year for large-scale labor disputes in more than 20 years, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis published Thursday.

The analysis considered data on mass business closures in 2023 from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The agency classifies a closure as “major” if it involves at least 1,000 workers and lasts at least one shift during a standard work week. . The analysis looked at data up to November 30th.

According to the analysis, 30 major work stoppages began in 2023, the highest number since 2000. A total of 464,410 workers were affected by the outages, the second-highest number since 1986, the analysis said.

BLS began recording monthly data on major work outages in 1993 and uses a metric called “idle days” to describe the impact of work outages. By that measure, the 2023 actors' strike against major Hollywood studios was the second largest in the United States in at least 30 years.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike has lasted nearly four months, with 160,000 workers out of work for 82 working days, according to BLS data. As a result, more than 13.1 million days were spent not working.

According to Pew's analysis, the only labor dispute that had a greater impact was the 2000 strike over actors' compensation for appearing in commercials. The strike, led by his SAG and his AFTRA, which he just merged with in 2012, lasted nearly six months and resulted in 17.3 million idle days for him.

There were several other notable strikes in 2023.

Like SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild also went on strike against the same production company, putting 11,500 workers off work for 102 working days, or a total of 1,173,000 days.

The United Auto Workers strike against Ford, General Motors, Mack Trucks, and Stellantis resulted in 53,700 workers missing 43 days of work, resulting in 925,900 idle days.

A coalition of various labor unions went on strike against Kaiser Permanente, leaving 75,600 workers without work for three days, resulting in 226,800 idle days.

A Pew Research Center analysis found that while 2023 stands out as one of the busiest years in recent history for labor disputes, the number of lost work days has declined dramatically since 1947, the year for which the BLS has comparable data. It is pointed out that

According to the analysis, from 1947 to the 1970s, “hundreds of outages a year routinely occurred in the United States, involving hundreds of thousands or even millions of workers.” , the duration of the strikes varied widely.

For example, in 1952, there were 470 major work stoppages involving more than 2.7 million workers, resulting in 48.8 million idle days. By contrast, in 2023, there were 30 major outages, involving 464,410 employees and 16.7 million idle days.

A Pew Research Center analysis offers an explanation for this shift.

“Major work stoppages, whether measured by actual numbers, workers involved, or idle days, have generally become rarer since about 1980, although they have not been without occasional spikes.” The analysis says:

“The U.S. economy grew away from manufacturing, which was heavily unionized, and the federal government, led by then-President Ronald Reagan, became hostile to organized labor. There were only five significant work stoppages, involving a total of 12,500 workers.”