A strike at Boeing extends a new era of labor activism long in decline at US work places

Aircraft assembly workers walked off the job at at Boeing factories near Seattle and elsewhere early Friday after union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike.

Organized labor has made itself heard over the past year and the number of actions taken by unions has soared. There were 470 work stoppages (466 strikes and 4 lockouts) involving approximately 539,000 workers last year, according to Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The nearly 500 work stoppages resulted in approximately 24,874,522 strike days.

While the number of work stoppages increased by only 9% between 2022 and 2023, the number of workers involved in those work stoppages skyrocketed 141% to well over a half million workers, according to Cornell.

Unions including the UAW, the Teamsters and this week the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, say they made the sacrifices asked of them by their companies during the pandemic and rough economic economic conditions. Now, they say, it is time for pay and benefits to catch up and workers appear more willing to strike.