ANALYSIS: Strike Data Reveal Rise of ‘First Contract’ Walkouts

A new post-pandemic strike pattern is emerging among union workers: They aren’t waiting to be covered under a collective bargaining agreement before they engage in organized walkouts at work, according to a recent Bloomberg Law statistical report on union strike patterns.

More than one-third of strikes initiated by unions in 2022 and 2023 idled workers who had no first contract in place at the time of the strike, Bloomberg Law data show. In the previous two years, only 13% of strikes began before the first-contract phase.

This recent change in strike patterns illustrates how first contracts have emerged as a crucial battleground in labor relations in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Traditionally, a union calls for a strike when its contract is about to expire, and an impasse is reached while negotiating the renewal of that agreement.

These renewal-based strikes still make up the majority of union-initiated work stoppages. In 2023, for example, 194 of the year’s 345 strikes began as the result of a contract renewal dispute.

But unions have begun striking much earlier in the process, calling for walkouts during the long, drawn-out period in which newly organized workers attempt to bargain their first contract.

Strikes over first contracts accounted for more than 100 of 2023’s union-initiated work stoppages, the second time in two years that the total topped the 100 mark. This represents a huge increase over 2020 and 2021, which saw a total of only 33 first contract-oriented strikes in the entire two-year period.

The surge in 2022 and slight retraction in 2023 correspond with the wave of labor unrest that has accompanied the drive to unionize Starbucks locations nationwide. Starbucks was the site of 109 strikes—of all kinds—in 2022, and 56 strikes in 2023, according to the report.

Although most of these early strikes involve newly unionized workers, the totals also include a small subset of strikes called by unions on behalf of workers who aren’t yet unionized.

According to the report, roughly 1 in 5 first contract strikes in 2022 and 2023 were strikes for union recognition—that is, work stoppages called by workers trying to organize into a union. Even though these workers aren’t union members, the events themselves are steered by labor organizers, affirming their “union-initiated” status.

The Union Strike Activity in 2023 report is available to Bloomberg Law subscribers on the new In Focus: Strikes & Lockouts page.

The report is also available to the public. Nonsubscribers can download the report here.

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