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North American regimes of industrial legality provide workers with protected rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike. However, they also limit the freedom to strike.
Trade unions commonly accept and enforce these limits but at great cost to solidarity and militancy. This article examines the many ways law works against labour by restricting the freedom to strike and explores the practice of unlawful strikes in North America, including recent examples that resulted in successful outcomes. It concludes with reflections on the revival of unlawful strikes as a tactic for rebuilding and remobilizing the North American labour movement. While the article’s focus is North America, the discussion of unlawful strikes may also be relevant in other countries that limit the freedom to strike.
