Members of the Air Line Pilots Association demonstrate amid contract negotiations outside the WestJet headquarters in Calgary on March 31, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
While the pandemic undoubtedly impacted the aviation industry, its problems were already present prior to COVID-19. The pandemic simply intensified these issues.
Striking workers picket outside of Warner Bros. Studios on the second day of the Hollywood writers strike on May 3, 2023, in Burbank, Calif.
David McNew/Getty Images
The writers strike lays bare all the ills of working on one of the lowest rungs of the entertainment industry.
Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) stand at a picket line outside Place du Portage in Gatineau, Que., on April 28, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Will an increase in wages make federal government workers happier and more efficient while dealing with the public on taxation, public safety and a multitude of other daily and often frustrating issues?
Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada picket outside a Service Canada office in Canmore, Alta., in April 2023. More than 150,000 federal public-service workers are on strike across the country after talks with the government failed. Remote work is a negotiation issue.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
COVID-19 transformed the workforce, including in the public sector. A complete reversal to pre-pandemic work models is unlikely, but there’s lots at stake as employers contemplate the future of work.
Striking workers in London, March 2023.
Lucy North / Alamy
From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, more unionised workforces from Europe to Aotearoa New Zealand fought hard to keep wages abreast with inflation. But it’s unlikely that could happen now.
Cesar Chavez salutes the crowd on the steps of the California State Capitol.
AP Photo
A scholar of religion looks at how faith helped guide the labor rights icon in his organizing endeavors.
A demonstrator holds a placard reading “Macron, no no no no, 49,3 times no”, a reference to a French law that would allow the country’s president to pass pension reform without a vote in the National Assembly.
Christophe Simon/AFP
While the scale of the strikes in both countries is historic, a scholar in employer relations notes the legislative conditions framing industrial action in the UK are much more restrictive.
It is the first time French trade unions have shown unity since their opposition to pension reform in 2010.
Julien De Rosa/AFP
France’s trade unions have managed to galvanise the largest movement in decades in opposition to pension reform. What will happen to them once the bill has been passed or abandoned?
The strikes bill aims to establish rules minimum services levels during industrial action for certain industries.
Adam Vaughan/EPA-EFE
Concerns about the credibility of pay review bodies could boost collective bargaining on worker pay.
Nurses of the University College Hospital protest in London on Feb. 6, 2023. The walkout is part of a wave of health worker strikes and demonstrations in recent months.
(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
U.K. health worker protests echo issues in Canada. They are also a harbinger of future labour disputes and systemic collapse if austerity, underinvestment and neglect of health workers continue.
Teachers on the picket line in Manchester, UK, 1 February 2023.
Andy Barton/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy
Teachers find their workloads difficult to manage – and the government is struggling to recruit people to the sector.
Research suggests labour strikes at universities get scant media coverage, both in Canada and the United States. In this December 2022 photo, graduate student instructors and researchers picket at University of California, Berkeley.
(AP Photo/Terry Chea)
Labour unrest at universities is a matter of public interest. That’s why support for local, independent media outlets to provide in-depth coverage of university strikes is so important.