The Chicago Strike and the Rebirth (or Death) of Unionism
The current Chicago teachers strike is the first major teachers strike in years. Indeed, there have been few major strikes in any industry over the past decade, with a general trend of declining job actions and union membership over the past thirty years and a corresponding downward spiral in wages and living conditions. In Michigan, for example, there were 454 teacher strikes between 1967 and 1980 (an average of 35 per year), resulting in substantial wages gains, but only 18 per year in the 1980s, according to William Boyd, David Plank, and Gary Sykes. The National Educators Association (NEA) has lost over 100,000 members since 2010.
In contrast, during the post-World War II era, strikes were common in the U.S. In the period from 1945-1946, 400,000 miners and 750,000 steel workers went on strike in the largest strike wave in U.S. history. At one point during this period there were 1.6 million workers