Current labor law doesn't adequately protect workers' fundamental right to strike

271,500 workers went on strike in 2024

Hundreds of thousands of workers across the United States went on strike in 2024—from health care workers in California to public school teachers in Massachusetts to telecommunications workers in the South. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that 271,500 workers were involved in “major work stoppages” in 2024. The number of workers involved in these stoppages decreased by 41% compared with 2023 but remained elevated compared with strike activity in the early 2000s and 2010s.

The growing number of workers involved in collective action should come as no surprise. The United States has been experiencing decades of high and rising income inequality, largely stemming from an unequal balance of power in the labor market. Research shows unions and collective action are key tools in ensuring workers receive shared prosperity (Bivens et al. 2023). In recent years, workers’ interest in unions has surged. The number of union election petitions filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has doubled since 2021, and public support for unions has reached a 60-year high (Poydock et al. 2025). Further, the use of collective action as a tool to address the unequal balance of power between employers and workers is more crucial in a time of undependable federal labor enforcement (McNicholas 2025).

However, current labor law doesn’t adequately protect workers’ right to strike. Strikes provide critical leverage to workers seeking to improve pay and working conditions when their employer violates labor law or refuses to recognize their union. Decades of federal policy and court decisions have limited the right to strike under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Further, millions of workers who are excluded from the NLRA either have limited or no right to strike.1 Despite this, thousands of workers go on strike each year.

In this report, we highlight work stoppages that occurred in 2024 and discuss the policies that are needed to strengthen the right to strike in the United States.

https://www.epi.org/publication/271500-workers-went-on-strike-in-2024-current-labor-law-doesnt-adequately-protect-workers-fundamental-right-to-strike/