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Poll results

Striking nurses and hospital leadership at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester have agreed to terms that would ostensibly end a seven-month strike that largely hinged on staffing ratios. The strike continues, however, while administrators and union members tussle over whether or not all striking nurses will be guaranteed a return to positions they held prior to the strike's start.

Do you think there will be more labor strikes in Central Massachusetts?
Yes (69%, 108 VOTES)
No (31%, 48 VOTES)
Poll Description

Striking nurses and hospital leadership at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester have agreed to terms that would ostensibly end a seven-month strike that largely hinged on staffing ratios. The strike continues, however, while administrators and union members tussle over whether or not all striking nurses will be guaranteed a return to positions they held prior to the strike's start.

  • 156 Votes
  • 2 Comments
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2 Comments

  • October 26, 2021
    And if they succeed the inflation rate will be more like a solid 20%, not the 5-6% mentioned in the media.
  • October 26, 2021

    The current pattern of strikes reflects a well-known labor market trend in which workers gain leverage the longer an expansion continues. When jobs are harder to fill, incumbent workers apply their leverage to demand greater compensation and other concessions. This trend takes place within the context of a widening chasm between rising corporate profits and either a steady (or declining) portion of those profits being shared with workers.

    According to some measures, the share of the national income that workers receive fell in the early 2000s to its lowest level since WWII. In 2009 it declined even further; it hasn't yet recovered.

    While overall strike activity has fallen sharply since the 1970s--dropping from over 25% to about 10 percent of the work force, employers are also responding more aggressively (for example, by permanently replacing striking employees--witness the ongoing dispute between St. Vincent nurses and their distant employer).

    The main difference now is that incumbent workers appear increasingly willing to strike. The number of workers who participated in significant strikes in 2020 increased to nearly 500,000, its highest point since the mid-1980s; and the total duration of such strikes reached a 15-year high.