Workforces in New Jersey and nationwide are on strike at an unprecedented rate. There have been more strikes so far in 2023 than any other year in recent history, according to experts — including by actors and writers in Hollywood to nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
Todd Vachon, assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, says it seems workers have had enough.
“Really the underlying thread across all of these is that there has been decades and decades in which workers have been producing more and more for their employers,” Vachon said. “Employers are generating greater and greater profits and the employers have not really been sharing in those gains.”
Some labor experts say that growing public support for unions and an increase in employee leverage have prompted more strikes. Vachon predicts we will continue to see more workers walking off the job as long as the economy stays strong and the labor market remains tight.
