Where Charlie and I agree is that is that, as he says, "go to the BLS link he gave" and decide for yourselves who is muddying the waters.
The series is divided by a) number of strikes, b) number of workers involved, c) total number of days lost, and d) percentage of days lost in relation to total days worked in the economy. Charlie has chosen to only look at a single series - c) total number of days lost. But the total number of days lost in itself tells us nothing since it has to be measured against the total days worked in the economy. For example, there were 1,667,300 days lost to strike action last year, the highest tally since the turn of the century. There were a near equivalent - in. fact, slightly lower - 1,663,000 days lost to work stoppages in 1954. By Charlie's reckoning, this suggests that the workers were as, or even slightly more, militant last year than they were in 1954. If so, it should call into question the widespread notion that the three decades following WWII were "les trente glorieuse" when unions were strong, workers made gains, and the postwar generation (aka baby boomers like many of us) had it better than our children and grandchildren. However, when you look at days lost in relation to population growth then, as you would expect, the picture changes dramatically. In 1954, the US population was 158,205,873; last year more than double that at 334,914,895. That's why column d) percentage of days lost in relation to total days worked shows 0.13% of the economy was shut down in 1954 compared to only 0.04% of total production last year. Look down the column and you can trace the progressively lower percentage of workers on strike with each passing decade. The more relevant statistics are from column a) number of major strikes (enterprises with over 1000 workers) and b) number of workers on strike. The number of strikes and workers who take job action is the best guage of militancy across the class. By this measure, I indicated that "t he number of strikes never dropped below three digits in each of the 34 years between 1947-1981 and never topped double digits in the 41 year period from 1982 to the present". More specifically, o ver the 80 year period beginning in 1953, the number of major strikes fell from 437 to 35 last year and the number of workers who struck from a little more than 1.6 million to less than a half million despite the very sizeable growth of the workforce. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29123): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29123 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104479559/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
