Why Wal-Mart Workers Keep Using One-Day Strikes

As recently as three years ago, a coordinated walkout at U.S. Wal-Mart stores was an unheard-of event. Now they happen throughout the year, culminating with a major strike the day after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday. Since the first one-day Walmart retail walkouts in October 2012, similar strikes—featuring a minority of the workforce, walking out for just one day—have targeted other employers, including fast-food restaurants, Target stores, and even government agencies that subcontract cleaning work.

That’s not an accident. Over the past six decades, the overall number of strikes has plummeted. There were 470 major work stoppages in 1952; in 2013, there were just 15. That’s not because industrial harmony has swept the land. It’s because unions have gotten drastically weaker, sapping their ability to put on great shows of force, and because changes in the law and the economy have made strikes less effective.