Labor Action Tracker: Annual Report 2022

Abstract

2022 was yet another important year for the US labor movement, with organizing victories at major private employers and an increase in strikes across the country from the prior year. We are pleased to release the second Cornell-ILR Labor Action Tracker Annual Report, which presents key findings from our data on work stoppages in 2022. We have created a comprehensive database of strikes across the United States because official data sources only record a small fraction of this activity. Since funding cuts by the Reagan administration in the early-1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) excludes work stoppages of less than 1,000 workers from its database. As this report demonstrates, only recording very large work stoppages excludes the vast majority of strike activity and leaves practitioners, policymakers, and scholars misinformed about the true level of workplace conflict. Strikes remain an important source of labor activism and, at least in comparison to 2021, have increased in salience. In this report, we follow the lead of the BLS and document work stoppages, which include both strikes and lockouts. You can follow our project and view our monthly reports of strike activity on Twitter @ILRLaborAction.