[lbo-talk] NYT on French unions

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Mar 30 04:37:21 PST 2006


JC Helary wrote:


> On 2006/03/30, at 13:20, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> > Take a look at "Strikes and Lockouts, Workers Involved and Workdays
> > Not Worked, by Selected Countries," comparing Canada, the United
> > States, Japan, and the United Kingdom, from 1993 to 2001:
> > <http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/labor30a.htm>.
> > The number of strikes and lockouts is far fewer in the US than in
> > Japan, not to mention the UK and Canada.
>
> Yes, but it strikes me that with about half the population of the US,
> the numbers of workers involved is still relatively much lower in
> Japan than in the US, as is the number of workdays not worked.
>
> So, whatever the actual number of strikes or lockouts is (and I'd say
> mostly strikes in Japan), they seem to be much more efficient (read
> involve more workers for more workdays off) in the US than in Japan.

What sort of strike is more efficient for workers? The short one that results in a win (which may mean actual gains or just fighting off losses) for workers: generally speaking, the longer the strike, the harder it is for workers to win (you might compare the TWU Local 100's strike in NYC on one hand and USW vs. Ormet [lasting for 251 days in 2005], AMFA vs. Northwest [lasting for 91 days in 2005], etc. mentioned at <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.nr0.htm>). Few strikes that result in many work days lost are often indications that the strikes that do happen are very long. That's the case in the US: compare the numbers of workers affected in Japan and the US and the numbers of workdays lost in Japan and the US. The gap is wider in the latter than the former.

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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