Should government workers be allowed to strike? | The Tylt

It has long been illegal for government employees to strike as they are deemed too important to the continued functioning of the nation. As the New York Times reports, when federal employees have pushed back against these laws in the past, they have been summarily fired. 

The National Labor Relations Act extends a right to strike to American workers — but it specifically does not give that right to government workers. A law passed during President Jimmy Carter’s administration bars federal workers from striking. When air traffic controllers walked off the job in 1981, demanding better pay and working conditions, President Ronald Reagan ordered them to return to work. When they did not, he fired them.

The Washington Post reports unions attempted to sue on behalf of the workers during the shutdown in early 2019.

The law forbids federal employees from striking, which is why a number of federal unions and workers have taken to the courts, alleging everything from violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act to claims that demanding workers show up for their jobs even though they have no idea when they will receive a paycheck amounts to “indentured servitude” and is an unconstitutional violation of the 13th Amendment.

While judges indicated sympathy for workers requesting the right to strike, the Washington Post reports they sided with the current law.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said it would be “profoundly irresponsible” for him to issue an order that would result in thousands of federal employees staying home from work and not doing their jobs.

"At best it would create chaos and confusion,” Leon said. “At worst it could be catastrophic . . . I’m not going to put people’s lives at risk.”

The New York Times reported many experts encouraged workers to strike despite the legal issues, saying strikes in 2019 would be far different than in the past.

A strike by T.S.A. agents, as federal workers, would be illegal, as was the wave of public-sector strikes in the 1960s and ’70s. But this time is different, said Michael M. Oswalt, an associate professor of law at Northern Illinois University College of Law, who studies federal labor relations. “A strike over involuntary work would raise not just novel legal issues but important and unprecedented questions about the value of public service and middle-class employment in our country,” he said.

Complicating the logistics of striking, union leaders who represent government employees are not allowed to organize strikes. Per the Washington Post: 

The law they operate under ties their hands. If union leaders had organized or endorsed any form of work stoppage to protest their hostage-taking during the shutdown, they would have risked seeing their organizations dissolved. Thus, one federal union official told me that a work action “would likely have disastrous consequences and, as a strategic matter, play right into the hands of the president and his supporters in Congress.” This official worried that labor’s enemies would use it to “rid the federal sector of unions.”

The January 2019 shutdown came to a close the day LaGuardia airport grounded flights due to concerns over lack of staffing. Some airports had reported an increase in the number of government employees calling in sick in what appeared to be a "sickout." Many, including Wall Street Journal tech columnist Christopher Mims, were quick to note the outsized importance of airport staff in negotiations.