Official Strike

Categories: Company Management

Ahhh, those unions. They're always making life hard for shareholders (even when they themselves are shareholders).

Management negotiated. They cajoled. They bent. They offered that 38-hour work week, but the union wanted 32 hours, and finally management slammed down a clipboard and declared, "We are not Greece." So, undeterred, they struck...officially.

That move then brings in all kinds of federal inspectors to be sure everyone is following the rules. A bunch of lawyers, looking to make a name for themselves as do-gooder public defenders against The Man, then try to get air time on television. The company management decries how bad it feels about having to do this, but they were given no choice, right?

So the strike happens, and union strike reserves come out of their well-coffered bank accounts to pay the strikers (who aren't paid during the strike).

In history, the ballgame has been all over the map with who wins and who loses. The most famous loss was the strike of the Air Traffic Controllers union, when Reagan fired all of them and computers replaced most of them. In other eras, unions completely shut down the company, and management had to come back begging. Caveat Strike-tor, or something like that.

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