STRIKES and LOCKOUTS. A strike. in industry. occurs when there is a cessation of work on the part of a body of employees acting in concert to enforce some demand upon the employer, o• to resist some demand which the employer has made. The employees are here assumed to take the initiative in ceasing work. When, on the other hand, the employer shuts down his establishment in order to compel work men to comply with some demand, the suspension is called a lockout. It is not always easy to dis tinguish the two in practice, especially as an em ployer may not infrequently lock out his men in anticipation of, or on threat of, a strike.
Certain popular movements in the Middle Ages bear resemblance to strikes, such as the dis turbances in England in the second half of the fourteenth century. More like the modern strikes were the contests between different guild organizations, or between journeymen and guilds men, in both English and Continental towns. But as a social problem. as a frequent and apparently enduring feature of the industrial system, strikes belong to the nineteenth century. The strike has usually been an essential part of the policy of trade unions (q.v.). Misused though the strike has sometimes been, the existence of the union as its directing and controlling agency has been the chief means in transforming local, half-insurrectionary outbreaks into carefully planned attempts to attain well-recognized ends.
The detailed causes of strikes are manifold, but the chief causes concern the wages question. In prosperous times strikes are likely to be made for increase of wages: in times of depression, against a decrease. Demand for a reduction of hours is a relatively frequent cause. Also of importance are strikes for the enforcement of union rules of work. for recognition of the union against the employment of non-union men, and in sympathy with strikes in other trades. The strike is often the first weapon employed by a newly organized body of laborers to strengthen their position. Laborers have sometimes com
plained that they were forced into a strike by their union, and an unsuccessful strike often results in the dissolution of a local union or in the decay of a larger body. The sympathetic strike has not generally proved advisable. and is regarded with disfavor by the best unions. To avoid or put down strikes employers may form organizations or use the lockout. They have at times been accused of instigating violence in order to bring the strike into public disfavor and obtain the aid of troops. On the employees' side boycotting and 'picketing' of all sorts are likely to occur in a serious strike. The bitter feeling against men who refuse to strike or who come to take strikers' places often makes the more peaceable forms of persuasion end in in timidation or violence. Public sympathy is an almost essential element in the success of any large strike, and is likely to be alienated by vio lence or the destruction of property. This is well realized by the better trade unions, but when disorder or riots occur—often due to a semi criminal floating population—the public may probably fail to lay the blame elsewhere than on the strikers. The magnitude of some recent strikes in important industries has emphasized the harm done to general business, and the inter est which the public has in labor disputes as a third and impartial party. Conciliation and arbitration have come prominently forward as remedies for strikes. In 1888 a 'Federal law provided for the appointment by the President of strike commissioners in disputes in volving inter-State commerce, and the Chicago Strike Commission recommended a permanent commission on the subject. The improved organ ization of trade unions, their increased responsi bility, and the use of the trade agreement may lessen the waste of strikes in the future.