Changing to Win? Threat, Resistance, and the Role of Unions in Strikes, 1984–2002

Abstract

Much of what we know about strikes is grounded in the context of postwar Fordism, a unique historical moment of relatively institutionalized labor‐management relations. Yet the resurgence of corporate resistance over the past quarter century, coupled with an increasingly hostile political and economic climate, has fundamentally transformed the American industrial landscape. Drawing from this research and insights on social movements and formal organizations, we expect unions will vary considerably in their response to threats. Our analysis, based on a comprehensive data set of U.S. strikes from 1984 to 2002, reveals the importance of such intramovement cleavages for strike activity and for the prospects of organized labor in the contemporary United States. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for scholarship on threat and social movement challenges more generally.