COVID-19 Meets Labor Unions: Analyzing the Shift in Power Dynamic Between Workers and Employers

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack meets with workers during the John Deere strike in Ankeny, Iowa in October of 2021. Photo by Lance Cheung.

From 2020 to 2021 alone, workers in labor strikes increased nearly 300% as workers demanded better hours, compensation, and benefits. While there have been several spikes in labor activism in the past decade, notably that of the 2018-2019 nationwide teachers’ strikes, the recent activity demonstrates a unique shift in work stoppages towards greater equity across a multitude of industries. Fueled by rampant inflation, excess capital, and post-pandemic growth, the federal government unintentionally gave workers the perfect conditions to challenge their employers and succeed in achieving their demands nationwide.

The current economic conditions are characterized by high inflation mixed with high corporate growth. Fueled by stimulus packages, global shortages, and high gas prices, the U.S. dollar is experiencing record levels of inflation. Simultaneously, the U.S. federal government took action with policies like the American Rescue Plan to jumpstart the economy in the wake of the pandemic, creating millions of jobs and greatly increasing domestic private investment—an indication that companies are expanding their operations and looking to grow. 

As the value of the dollar decreases, workers inevitably demand higher pay in order to afford the same goods. With inflation reaching record levels, more and more workers are forced to demand higher wages. Many companies are seeking to expand in the post-pandemic economy, leading to a higher demand for workers than usual. New workers have both the motive and the leverage to demand higher pay, which is why many jobs that were previously minimum wage, such as fast food and retail jobs, are offering several dollars above minimum wage for new employees. For example, McDonald’s is raising its wages and hiring more workers across the nation; Walmart is following suit, raising its starting wage from $11 to $12 as of last September. As one would expect, established workers are pushing for their own wage raises using one of their most powerful tools: collective action. 

Unlike previous spikes in work stoppage activity, the recent uptick is not confined to any particular industry. Larger strikes, like those of the Kellogg’s, John Deere, and Nabisco frequently made national headlines, but far more local strikes flew under the radar. Local strikes tend to receive much local coverage, but falter at making national headlines as they are not large, influential, nor unique enough to merit national coverage. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shares this bias of ignoring smaller strikes. The BLS only counts strikes of more than 1,000 workers towards its Work Stoppage statistics. Even with this bias, the BLS reports that from 2020 to 2021, active workers that went on strike grew from 30,600 to 82,500.

This statistic seems insignificant when compared to pre-pandemic levels. Indeed, 148,000 workers went on strike in 2012, followed by another 400,000 workers who went on strike per year in 2018 and 2019. These numbers, however, tell an entirely different story from those of the past two years. As the BLS only tracks work stoppages larger than 1,000 people, years with larger amounts of striking workers generally represented strikes against larger corporations—AT&T, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, or teachers’ unions in various regions. 2021 marked a fair share of large corporate strikes, namely Kellogg’s, John Deere, and Nabisco, but these three corporations are unique in that none of them have seen work stoppages that would qualify them to make it onto the BLS’s list prior to 2021. So while in previous years, large upticks were the result of the usual suspects, 2021 saw major strikes from entirely new workforces that had yet to be statistically significant enough to be represented. As such, the explosion of small-scale strikes is tied to a much more systemic and industry-independent reason, further fueled by the economic impact of COVID-19. 

A rise in strikes in workforces that historically have not gone on strike is indicative of a major shift in the economy. If a company and its union has a culture of conflict—like with AT&T or General Motors— a rise in union activity would be normal. But the emergence of these new conflicts indicates an expansion of power among these newly-striking unions. Unlike previous rises in labor activity, which oftentimes were the result of discontent with larger corporations, the current trend shifts greater power into the hands of workers.

This power shift has ramifications for smaller workforces as well—particularly those not represented in the data provided by the BLS. Although the BLS only marks sixteen strikes as large enough to make note of in 2021, Cornell’s ILR School’s Labor Tracker—which began tracking work stoppages regardless of size in 2021—documented 261 cases of work stoppage, and even that is considered to be an underestimate. The tracker indicates the same phenomenon of growth that the BLS is observing: 2022 is already showing upwards of 300 known cases of strikes before November. 

Indeed, worker protests are no longer limited to large unions that can garner enough public attention and support. Local unions and activists are emerging to measure up to the task. Already some of the major protests that made the cut for the BLS’s list are locally focused: the Mercy Hospital strike in Buffalo, the Allegheny Technologies strike in Pennsylvania, and even our very own Columbia University Graduate Workers’ strike. While these unions were just large enough to be documented by the BLS, many more unions are being excluded from the statistics. Despite being too small to be recognized by the BLS, many more local unions now have leverage to pressure their employers. Locally-focused labor activism is on a meteoric rise.

The most plausible explanation for this shift is attributed to the current economic climate, thus empowering workers to take a stand. Smaller unions inherently have less sway by virtue of representing smaller workforces and therefore are easier to replace. If local workforces are able to strike at such a large scale nationwide, it translates into workers obtaining significantly more equity over their employers than in years past. Inflation increased workers’ demand for higher wages and federal policy ensured that companies had a strong desire to grow. This dual force means that employers are at the whim of the workers as they are forced to pay higher wages to maintain their growth. This dynamic has created the observed rise in labor activity as workers capitalize on their advantage. Thus, until corporate growth and inflation return to their normal levels, workers of all industries will continue to reap the benefits of collective action. The power of unions is stronger than ever, and it is up to workers across the nation to fight for the rights, benefits, and pay they deserve while they still have the opportunity to do so.

Andrew Fahey (CC '25) is a staff writer for CPR and an Economics-Political Science Major with a Concentration in Computer Science.