What happens in strikes?
What's it like to have a strike?
This Boeing employee describes his experiences:
What's it like to cross a picket line?
This video gives you some idea:
If your union calls a strike, you have a tough choice to make:
Go out on strike: Cross the picket lines and continue to work:
What happens if you go on strike?
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The company stops paying your wages.
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The company stops paying for your benefits. Sadly, there are many cases where striking workers or their family members got sick or even passed away during a strike, only to find they had no health or life insurance.
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The company may hire replacement workers. In the case of an "economic strike" (where there is a
dispute over wages, benefits or conditions of
employment, as is the case in most strikes), the
replacement workers are considered permanent.
This may mean that even when the strike ends, the replacement workers keep strikers' jobs, and strikers come back one at a time as openings occur.
Not all unions give strike pay. Those that do have a waiting period and require you to walk the picket line to get it. Even then, it's very little:
- The IAM pays $150 per week, after a two-week waiting
period
- The United Steelworkers Union pays $200 per week,
after a three-week waiting period.
What happens if you work during a strike your union called?
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The union can punish you. Union constitutions says it is a violation of union rules for a member to cross a picket line and work during a strike, and members found guilty of working during strikes can be fined. For example:
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Several workers at Boeing were each fined $4,500
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A worker at Honeywell was fined $7,361.36
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At Caterpillar, dozens of workers were fined a total of more than $1,000,000.00; three examples of individual fines were $15,564.00, $11,938.00 and $21,558.00.
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You probably will be called a "scab" and harassed by other union members. Unions announce to the workers who go out on strike the names (and even the home addresses) of non-strikers. Often, anger at non-strikers goes on long after the strike is over.
Here's what a Boeing employee said:
The 2015 Federal poverty level for a family of 4 is $24,250.00 per year.
Union strike pay is MUCH less than that.
In fact, strike pay doesn't even meet the poverty level for a household of ONE person!
Could you . . .
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Go without any pay for two or three weeks?
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Get by on $150 or $200 per week while having to pay for your own benefits?
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Union officials who call strikes or force lockouts don't lose anything -- they still get their full salary and benefits.
It's the workers who suffer when there are disputes between unions and companies, and often they never make up what they lost while they were striking or locked out.