Should Workers Be Allowed To Strike? - Argumentative Essay

540 Words2 Pages

It is difficult to see how anyone could deny that all workers should have the rights to strike. This is because striking gives workers freedom of speech. This is justifiable, because Britain is a democratic nation.

My first reason supporting the motion that workers should be allowed to strike is in order to bring to the fore poor safety conditions. For instance, in the nuclear power industry, any breaches of safety can have tragic consequences. If the employees are exposed to nuclear material, this could lead to serious illnesses such as cancer, leukaemia and radiation sickness. Radioactive material could also affect residents of the surrounding area, as in the case of the Chernobyl disaster. In the light of poor safety conditions, workers striking can be justified by the fact that the government and public would be informed.

Similarly, another justification for employees striking is that production and confidence would perhaps increase after industrial action. This could be because, when workers strike for higher pay or better conditions and their employers meet their demands, the employees return to their place of work with higher morale than before the walk-out. As a consequence, the higher productivity would be beneficial to the owners.

Likewise, industrial action gives the worker a line of protest against unfair hours or miserly wages. Theoretically, if taking industrial action was outlawed, the management could impose any terms and contract changes that they wished ...

Show More
Related

  • Knights Of Labor History Essay

    466 Words  | 1 Pages

    They concentrated on higher wages, shorter hours, and personal issues of workers. The American Federation of Labor’s main weapon was walkouts and boycotts to get industries to succeed to better conditions and higher wages. By the early 1900’s, its membership was up to ½ million workers. Through the years since The Great Depression, labor unions were responsible for several benefits for employees. Workers have safer conditions, higher paying jobs to choose from, and better benefits negotiated for them by their collective bargaining unit.

    Read More

  • The Pullman Strike of 1894

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.

    Read More

  • Final Paper

    1312 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... (Piven & Cloward, 18) Workers protest by striking against their employer, it is easier for employees to protest because they are all located and working together under one roof and are fighting for one thing, and that one thing is related to the workplace. While it is easier for employees to protest, it is not that easy for lower class employees to protest because they have little ability to protect themselves against their institutional managers. When the lower class workers have an informal organizational protest the government is eventually stepping in to disarm the protestors and make efforts to conciliate, “…mobs of unemployed were granted relief in the 1930s…” (Piven & Cloward, 29) The protests cause disruption and sometimes that disruption can make a change but when people are protesting blindly they are more prone to social injustice then making a change.

    Read More

  • Labor Unions and Effects on the Lives of Factory Workers

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    Without the aid of organized labor, workers would not have been able to persuade others to help them in their fight for better working conditions. Labor unions also influenced people within society to recognize the problems that workers were facing during the late 19th century. All in all, the feelings that many once had about strikes were what changed the most; this allowed for ideas that would later cause corporations to rethink their business methods.

    Read More

  • Homestead Strike Essay

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    This type of strike would be similar to something unions would embrace today. Things changes when it seemed the Carnegie Steel was going to try and bring in replacement workers for those on strike. The company was within limits of the law if they brought non-union members in to work. The first official battle occurred on July 6 because it was discovered that 300 Pinkerton detectives were coming ashore from up the river to the Carnegie Mills. The union workers were then going to seize the mills and keep out all people working for Carnegie. They were going to take control of the facility in order to try and persuade management to agree to their terms. The union members were aware of replacements coming in and planned to stop them at all costs. At this point gunfire began from parties on either side; both the strikers and the detectives. It was never clearly recorded who took the first shot, but more union members were in trouble than anyone else. About 11 men died, two from the Pinkertons and 9 from the union. An incredibly large number of men on both sides were also injured from the battle. In the days following the battle, it was discussed between the AA and the company to end the rioting that had begun yet there were no signs of the strike stopping. Militia was called in and remained for a while, and troops were given warrants to arrest members of the strike for murder and other crimes. However, the

    Read More

  • AP US DBQ

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, the period from 1875 to 1890 brought many attempts at bettering the working conditions, but many of the working class’s attempts at being recognized went unnoticed. This resulted in violence, frustration, and unnecessary deaths. The series of failed strikes and attempts to receive government intervention resulted in heightened anger among the employees. Without an increase in wages, decrease in working hours, and improvement of working facilities, many workers left their jobs leaving the employer angry and in need of workers. None were available, however, because they were either protesting for better working conditions, signing a contract with a better company, or blocking rail and roadways in order to get their points across to the government.

    Read More

  • Reconstruction After the Civil War

    1850 Words  | 4 Pages

    against their employers, employees were able to go on strike and prove a point. Some

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Mother Jones

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some people would even risk their jobs to do it. In fact, the first worker’s strike was was during the the West Virginia Coal Wars. Coal Miners went on strike to advocate for better working conditions and better pay. At the helm was Mary Harris Jones, or Mother Jones as she was known. She fought for coal miner workers’ rights and helped them unionize by

    Read More

  • Why Do Labor Unions Matter?

    1610 Words  | 4 Pages

    Unions have an extensive history of standing up for workers. They have advocated rights of steelworkers, coal miners, clothing factory employees, teachers, health care workers, and many others. The labor movement is based on the idea that organized workers as a group have more power than individuals would have on their own. The key purpose of any union is to negotiate contracts, making sure workers are respected and fairly compensated for their work. “In theory” unions are democratic organizations, resulting in varying inner authority. Workers look for security within a job a...

    Read More

  • Chicago Teachers Strike Case Study

    1328 Words  | 3 Pages

    Salaries has been regarded as the main reason for the strike. But there are still some of other concerns in the cause of strike. Such as large classes, lack of administration of the students’ behaviors, union rights, benefit and job security, and the evaluation of performance. All the factors were reasonable to result a strike.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Labor Unions

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gallup found that more Americans (40%) say they want labor unions to have less influence than they have today (with 29% wanting more & 27% say influence should stay the same). In the previous year, Americans wanted labor unions to have more versus less influence. In addition, a Poll discovered 71% of Americans said they would vote for a right-to-work law if given the chance and 82% agreed that no worker should ever be required to join an organization against his or her will (Jones 2014). The right-to-work law gives individual workers the freedom to choose whether they should financially support a union as a job condition and adopted by 25 states in America, with Wisconsin becoming the 25th as of March 2014. A right-to-work law does not prohibit unions and unions are active and powerful in these states. In a non-right-to-work state, if employees do not want to pay union dues or have a union represent them, they have no choice. If they refuse, they lose their job (Moore 2015). There was a time when American workers needed to organize because working conditions were horrible and no one could do anything about it. Currently, union leaders seem to be going the way of the typical Bureaucrat, and as Marx believed the working class seem to be rising against the employing class (Conley

    Read More

  • The Golden Era of Labor

    1530 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ise in ways to easily break strikes, and the passage of anti-union legislation. While strikes have become much harder to begin and maintain successfully, citizens vying for change now have a better opportunity of reaching each other using vast media supplied by the internet, allowing for a chance of forming larger coalitions around the country .The methods used by social movements in the past still have great potential to show our current generations feasible ways of gaining social benefits, and while some actions may be considered radical, the drive and organization the labor movement displayed could still easily prove successful. A movement away from the endless and scattered interest groups and more towards organized and larger movements aiming for improving the greater social good could bring about political and economic improvement that many Americans desire.

    Read More

  • Making a new deal

    2819 Words  | 6 Pages

    By 1919, America had its first major strike in which four million people—or one in every five—Americans participated (Cohen, 12). These workers sought to protect their jobs and to solidify their wartime wages. One tool for doing so, of course, was the strike.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Minimum Wage

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    For many people in the United States, life is no more than a regular work cycle. Members of working class usually have a High School diploma and may work in a low skilled occupation or manual labor. Most of the enjoying age of this people is spent in working, as they don’t want their new once to have a life they struggling through. Therefore, this essay will argue that minimum wage should be increased federally to $15/hour by 2017. Firstly, if taxes touches the sky, why should the minimum wage be on the ground? Increasing minimum wages would also create new opportunities for education as the students wouldn’t have to work crazy hours. Likewise, many couples won’t have to work multiple jobs in order to manage the household. Lastly, it will lift

    Read More

  • Minimum Wage Argumentative Essay

    1423 Words  | 3 Pages

    For the past three decades minimum wage has been seen to rise several times. Only helping some but more than anything harming most. So who are the ones feeling the effects? Certainly not the wealthy, it never is them, mainly it would be the working poor, unskilled and teenagers. Raising minimum wage would cripple the public even more than what it would actually help.

    Read More

More about Should Workers Be Allowed To Strike? - Argumentative Essay

Open Document