The Past Heyday of the U.S. Picket Line

The deadline to avert a major strike at U.S. shipping company UPS is approaching fast. If company leaders and workers - represented by the Teamsters union - do not come to an agreement over contract conditions, more than 325,000 union employees at UPS could stop work from August 1. The New York Times reports that the linchpin of the negotiations has been part-time pay. Talks broke down in early July, but are being resumed as the contract is set to expire on the coming Monday.

The strike of unionized UPS employees would be the biggest in the U.S. since the 1950s. In 1959, the United Steel Workers of America strike saw 500,000 lay down their work for several months. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in annual numbers, strikes were common in the U.S. from the 1950s to the 1970s, with most years seeing more than 1 million workers first starting to participate in a strike. Record numbers of 2.75 million and 2.54 million workers were reached in 1952 and 1949, respectively. 1970 and 1971 also saw around 2.5 million workers each start a strike.

In the 1980s and 1990s, fewer workers striked in the U.S. - a result of fewer people employed in traditional union-heavy sectors like industry as well as efforts of union busting. 1986 was the last year that saw more than 500,000 employees start strike action and as few as 12,500 did in 2009. More people were part of work stoppages once more among the education workers' strikes of 2018 and 2019.

When UPS drivers last went on strike in 1997 for 15 days, that stoppage cost the company $850 million, according to Reuters. UPS says it delivers goods worth the equivalent of 6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, meaning that a walkout of its many unionized employees would likely lead to major disruptions.