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Friday, November 5, 2010

Secondary Strikes are Primary to Labor's Revival

Originally published in Labor Notes http://www.labornotes.org/2010/10/secondary-strikes-are-primary-labor-revival


Secondary Strikes Are Primary to Labor’s Revival

Joe Burns
|  November 4, 2010


Solidarity is the heart and soul of unionism—the only force capable of confronting power and privilege in society. To revive unionism, we must recover labor’s long-lost tools of workplace-based solidarity.
Today, union activists join each other’s picket lines and hold fundraisers for striking workers. While important, these acts of solidarity are largely conducted away from the workplace.
In contrast, labor’s traditional forms of workplace-based solidarity allowed workers to join across employers and even industries to confront bosses. Such tactics included secondary strikes and industry-wide strikes.