Companies that negotiated collective bargaining agreements in the 1980's and 1990's have been largely successful in avoiding strikes. The past twenty-five years have featured a marked reduction in the number and severity of strikes compared with earlier years.
The number of major work stoppages (those involving 1000 or more workers) totaled 3517 from 1950 to 1959, 2829 from 1960 to 1969, and 2888 from 1970 to 1979 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This compares with only 831 major work stoppages from 1980 through 1989. This represents a decline of roughly 70% and is a trend that has continued into the Twenty-first Century.
Managers must still work hard to keep the labor peace. No one-labor or management-ever wins a strike. But the big losers in a strike are those who miscalculate the financial and emotional costs of a strike.
Management avoids strikes-and survives strikes-by careful advance planning. Strikes are emotional and fast moving. You can't wait until the union hits the picket line to decide on your plan for operating during the strike.
A manager approaching collective bargaining must first consider his or her collective bargaining strategy. What does the company want? What does the company need? What does the union want? What does the union need? Miscalculations on either side cause needless strikes. Along with realistic bargaining goals, management needs to assess, well in advance, whether the union will strike and whether the company can operate during the strike.
In deciding whether or not to operate during a strike, management must consider a thousand and one contingencies. Will we lose customers? Can we fulfill our contractual commitments? Will we lose a big sale? Can we hire and train adequate replacements? How many employees will work despite the picket lines? Is the company braced for the emotional impact of the strike? Is security in place to guard against violence?
Can we get supplies in and production out to customers? Will our suppliers or shippers' employees cross the picket line? Will picketing disrupt other company operations? Can we generate sufficient cash to operate? Do we have adequate inventory? Can we subcontract some production to other companies? Will law enforcement protect company property and non-striking employees? Are company facilities vulnerable to sabotage or vandalism?
When management asks these and other questions, it can assess whether it can operate during a strike. This planning also gives management the chance to make a practical game plan for working during the strike. A company that prepares for a strike can avoid a strike or minimize its losses.
In early 1980, the Federal Aviation Administration began detailed planning to control air traffic with non-union supervisors and to take legal action against striking controllers and their union. Because of that advanced planning, the nation's airports continued to operate and the air traffic controllers strike was ineffective.
Along with a good game plan, management needs a good quarterback to survive the strike. Key decisions must be made in the heat of battle. Management needs a cool, experienced chief negotiator who understands the economic, human, and legal issues involved in strikes.
Having a good game plan and a good quarterback is the best protection against strikes, but it's no guarantee that a strike won't be called. The air traffic controllers struck, with serious consequences for the controllers and their union, even though the FAA had published its plans to operate during the threatened strike.
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