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For Immediate Release
February, 23 2022, 11:07am EDT
Contact:
Phone: (202) 775-8810
Major Strike Activity Increased in 2021 But Remains Below Pre-Pandemic Levels
In conjunction with an increased momentum around unions and union activity, the number of workers involved in major strikes increased in 2021 to 80,700, according to an EPI analysis of data released this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This is an increase from the number of workers involved in major worker stoppages in 2020, which was 27,000--however it is still a significant decline from pre-pandemic levels.
WASHINGTON
In conjunction with an increased momentum around unions and union activity, the number of workers involved in major strikes increased in 2021 to 80,700, according to an EPI analysis of data released this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This is an increase from the number of workers involved in major worker stoppages in 2020, which was 27,000--however it is still a significant decline from pre-pandemic levels.
Crucially, the BLS data do not capture all strike activity because it only includes strikes involving 1,000 or more workers lasting at least one full shift. These size and duration limits mean that the BLS data did not capture actions taken by many workers who walked off the job to demand fair pay and safe working conditions during the pandemic.
Crucial reforms in the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would strengthen workers' ability to strike by prohibiting employers from permanently replacing striking workers. Other necessary reforms include the Striking Workers Healthcare Protection Act, which would require employers to continue providing health insurance to workers on strike.
"Workers are turning to strikes to fight for better wages, benefits, and working conditions during the pandemic. This activity is occurring despite the obstacles current labor law poses to workers to effectively engage in their fundamental right to strike," said Margaret Poydock, EPI policy analyst and government affairs specialist. "Crucial reforms like the PRO Act would strengthen the right to strike and help ensure that workers have the leverage they need to secure their share of economic growth during the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic."
The analysis highlights key work stoppages that occurred in 2021 covered by the BLS data, including strikes at John Deere and Kellogg's that attracted significant media attention. The analysis also cites examples of smaller--but still significant--work stoppages not covered in the BLS data, including at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, where more than 800 nurses went on strike for nearly 10 months. The strike ended after an agreement was reached that would improve staff-to-patient ratios, strengthen workplace safety provisions, boost benefits, and allow the striking nurses to return to their old jobs.
"One of the most prominent forms of worker power last year was the use of strikes. Throughout 2021, strikes provided workers critical leverage to bargain over fair pay, safe working conditions, and a share of the pandemic recovery," said John Schmitt, senior economist and senior adviser at EPI. "Now, it's up to policymakers to strengthen the right to strike, and that starts with passing the PRO Act."
EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI's research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.
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Dean Phillips' Attack on Mamdani Is an Attack on 'Millions of Working-Class People,' Progressives Say
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said one commentator. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too?"
Jul 10, 2025
In an interview with CNN, former Congressman Dean Phillips was asked whether "there is room" for him and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Party—but progressive Rep. Summer Lee was among those saying on Thursday that Phillips' rejection of Mamdani wwas really about millions of Americans who have voted for candidates like him.
"These guys aren't just rejecting him, but the millions moved to electoral action by candidates like him," said Lee (D-Pa.) in response to Phillips' interview.
CNN's Omar Jimenez asked Phillips about the "big tent" philosophy often promoted by Democratic leaders who believe the party should welcome lawmakers and candidates who don't agree with every aspect of its platform—politicians like anti-choice Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who made millions of dollars from his coal business.
Jimenez asked whether Mamdani, a democratic socialist who stunned former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the party's leadership in the Democratic mayoral primary last month, should also be welcomed into the party's "big tent."
"The answer ultimately is no," said Phillips, who was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before he left office to run for president in a long-shot bid against former President Joe Biden in the 2024 race—losing his home state of Minnesota and garnering just 1.7% of the vote in South Carolina, falling behind author Marianne Williamson.
Phillips admitted that "most Americans share the same values" as Mamdani, who has advocated for fare-free public transit, universal free childcare, and city-run grocery stores to operate alongside private stores and provide low-cost essentials to working families.
But he claimed that while "differences of opinion, perspective, life story, politics, and experience" are beneficial to the Democratic Party, the presence of so-called "socialists" like Mamdani is not.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want neither far-left or far-right politics," he said without citing any supporting evidence.
Phillips appeared confident that Democratic voters across the country would recoil from candidates like Mamdani—despite recent rallies in red districts where progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who both endorsed Mamdani, have drawn crowds of thousands of people in recent months during Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
In addition to Mamdani's historic success in the Democratic primary—with more New Yorkers voting for him than in any other primary election in the history of the nation's largest city—numerous polls have shown that Americans back policies like those that powered his campaign.
A poll by Child Care for Every Family in 2023 found that 92% of parents with children under age 5 supported guaranteed, government-funded childcare, including 79% of Republican parents and 83% of independent parents.
Raising taxes for corporations and wealthy households is also broadly popular, with about 6 in 10 Americans supporting the proposal in a recent Pew Research poll.
And despite efforts by centrist Democrats and Republicans to portray Mamdani's platform as radical, programs like his fare-free bus proposal have already been implemented in cities like Kansas City, Raleigh, and Boston on three of the city's busiest bus routes.
"Maybe our big tent should have less millionaire nepo heirs and more fighters for the millions of working-class people," suggested Lee on Thursday.
Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project also condemned Phillips for suggesting Mamdani—and ostensibly the 565,639 New Yorkers who voted for him—have no place in the party.
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said Bruenig. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too? Should they also not vote for the party? Phillips is trying to radically shrink the party. Scary stuff."
"Centrists and other moderates are spending a nontrivial amount of national political energy being mad at Zohran," he added, "which could instead be spent on [President Donald] Trump and Republicans."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution is circulating a petition that's garnered more than 30,000 signatures from people urging Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—all New York Democrats who have yet to endorse their own party's mayoral candidate—not to "sabotage" Mamdani.
Despite Phillips' insistence that Mamdani doesn't belong in the party, the resistance in New York appeared to weaken a bit Thursday as Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) endorsed the candidate.
"New Yorkers have spoken loud and clear," said Espaillat, who had previously backed Cuomo. "And as a lifelong Democrat, I'm endorsing the Democratic Party nominee."
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Progressives, Democrats Vow Fight as Senate GOP Aims to Claw Back Billions in Federal Funding
Republicans plan to utilize a rare process called "rescission" to skirt Congress' power of the purse and illegally allow Trump to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to critical programs.
Jul 10, 2025
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether President Donald Trump can claw back billions of dollars that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Last month, the House narrowly voted to allow Trump to rescind $9.4 billion in funds that were meant to fund global health initiatives—including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis prevention—and public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
It's far from the first time that this Republican-controlled Congress has voted on massive budget cuts, but progressive groups and some Democratic lawmakers say this vote has another frightening dimension to it.
These funds were among the more than $420 billion appropriated by Congress that Trump illegally impounded, or refused to spend, at the start of his term.
In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, a coalition of more than 100 groups—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace—warned that by voting to approve these rescissions of federal funds, they would be giving Trump tacit approval to unconstitutionally take away Congress' authority to spend money.
"This rescissions proposal does not ask Congress, as required by the Impoundment Control Act, to approve the entirety of the federal spending that has been illegally frozen by the Trump administration," the letter notes. "The administration is merely trying to establish a veil of legitimacy while it continues unconstitutional actions that it began more than 100 days ago."
The groups went on to warn that allowing the president to unilaterally cut funding that he doesn't approve of "risks irreparable damage to the regular bipartisan appropriations process."
"Despite the political back-and-forth, Congress eventually reaches a bipartisan agreement on government funding every year, one way or another," they said. "The basis for that bipartisan agreement is that both parties must agree to compromises to achieve any of their goals. If a party with a political trifecta can simply rescind funding for the parts of appropriations bills they compromised on, they undermine congressional checks and balances and the basis for future bipartisan dealmaking on an already politically fraught process."
Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, presidents are forbidden from unilaterally refusing to spend funds. However, Congress is allowed to pass a "rescission" bill within 45 days of canceling them if the president requests it.
Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton in 1999 to successfully have funds rescinded by Congress, and it would be the largest rescission in four decades.
But as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, there is a key difference: "The administration illegally impounded the funds at issue for months before proposing the [rescission] package" and that it is "unlawfully withholding much larger amounts of funding that it has not proposed for rescission."
According to a tracker created by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sit on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively, the Trump administration is blocking congressionally appropriated funds for programs including:
- Research into Alzheimer's disease, women's health, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses;
- Natural disaster relief;
- School lunch assistance for children;
- Early childhood education through the Head Start Program; and
- Birth control and cancer screenings for over 800,000 patients
Russell Vought, the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has openly indicated a desire to use rescission to cut all of this spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.
According to The New York Times, Vought is planning to use an even more arcane and illegal maneuver known as "pocket rescission" to avoid spending the funds. As Tony Romm reported in June:
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.
Some Senate Democrats have indicated they'd be willing to risk a government shutdown to prevent the rescission bill from passing.
In a letter published Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that the prospect of the rescissions bill passing had "grave implications."
"[I]t is absurd for [Republicans] to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," Schumer wrote.
Murray called out Vought directly on Wednesday at a markup session on the next round of bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"For us to be able to work in a bipartisan way effectively, that requires us to work with each other. To not just write bipartisan funding bills—but to defend them from partisan cuts sought by the president and the OMB director," she said during her opening remarks. "We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work."
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Brazilians Rally Around Lula After Trump Tariff Threat
"True Brazlians... do not let yourselves be the dogs of an American president who shames the ideas of democracy," wrote the editors of a major Brazilian newspaper.
Jul 10, 2025
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have gotten a political boost thanks to the intervention of U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, Trump announced he was slapping all Brazilian imports with a 50% tariff to protest the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally who was indicted on charges related to an alleged coup plot to illegally remain in power after he lost the 2022 general election.
However, it does not appear that Trump's intervention into Brazil's domestic politics is helping Bolsonaro in the court of public opinion and Brazilian publication Globo reports that Brazilians have been swarming the U.S. president's Instagram account and leaving messages telling him to "leave Brazil in peace" while insisting their country is "not a lawless land."
In an analysis piece published by the São Paulo-based Folha, journalist Igor Gielow declared that Bolsonaro was an "immediate loser" of Trump's decision, as in the past he has declared Trump to be his political idol and the two are generally seen as joined at the hip. What's more, Gielow argues that the Trump tariffs are most likely to hurt Brazil's agribusiness sector, which is where the core of Bolsonaro's political support lies.
Lorrena Rodrigues, a columnist at the more conservative newspaper Estadão, argued that Trump had given a "gift" to Lula by giving his party the opportunity to focus public attention away from domestic problems and "to exploit a patriotism that used to be the monopoly" of the country's right-wing opposition party.
Rodrigues also said that Trump's tariffs against Brazil had no economic justification given that the United States runs a trade surplus with the country, which makes it seem as though Trump "wants to interfere in the internal politics and the justice system of Brazil through international commerce," which is not something likely to be popular in the country.
A leading editorial published in Estadão delivered even harsher criticism of the American president, whom it likened to a member of the mafia.
"Trump is using the threat of import tariffs on Brazil to obligate the country to surrender to his absurd demands," wrote the editors, who further said that Trump "lied shamelessly in his letter to justify the drastic measure" he imposed on Brazil. The editorial concluded by imploring "true Brazilians" to "not let yourselves be the dogs of an American president who shames the ideas of democracy."
Globo also reports that members of the conservative opposition party held an emergency meeting to discuss how to respond politically to Trump's tariffs. One unnamed Senate leader who spoke with the publication described Trump's surprise announcement as "a shot in the foot."
"Who's going to be in favor of this?" the Senate leader wondered. "Who's going to go against their own country?"
Brazilians have for decades been suspicious of the United States' intentions toward their national sovereignty since the U.S. backed a military coup in 1964 that ousted its democratically elected left-wing government and replaced it with a dictatorship that lasted for more than two decades.
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