Strikes at General Motors, an American corporate icon, are a big deal. Last week’s walkout by the United Auto Workers’ union, the first in 12 years, made global headlines and a big political statement about the resurgence of organised labour activity in America.
The recent strike by British Airways pilots might have resulted in fewer headlines in the US (though it arguably caused more customer pain, grounding 1,700 flights), but both disputes reflect a trend that global businesses had better start getting used to: the rebirth of labour as a political and economic force.
No prizes for guessing why this is happening now. In the US, organised labour, which had declined by both membership and activity over the past several decades, is back because large numbers of people are fed up with soaring inequality, retirement insecurity (fewer than half of employees have access to a company pension scheme), rising costs for healthcare that is relatively poor by global standards and a sense of economic vulnerability.