Unofficial Strike

An unofficial strike is a work stoppage by union members that is not endorsed by the union and that does not follow the legal requirements for striking. Workers engaging in unofficial strikes have little legal recourse if they are fired and do not receive strike pay. An unofficial strike is also called a wildcat strike or an unofficial industrial action.

In the United States, an unofficial strike is illegal under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and courts have held that employers are entitled to fire employees who engage in them. However, U.S. workers are entitled to request that the National Labor Relations Board terminate their relationship with their labor union if they feel that said union does not represent their interests. When workers do this, any strike action they may undertake afterward is technically unofficial, but it is not illegal, as terminating the relationship with the labor union removes the conflict between sections 7 and 9(a) of the NLRA.

A notable unofficial strike was that of West Virginia teachers in 2018. This strike started out as an official strike, but since it failed to maintain the support of union leadership, it evolved into an unofficial strike. Striking teachers demanded higher wages and affordable, comprehensive healthcare; despite being unofficial, the strike was successful and inspired other unofficial teachers’ strikes in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arizona, in which the striking teachers demanded increased school funding and better pay.

Some other notable wildcat strikes started off as unofficial strikes but later gained the support of union leadership and became official strikes. These included the Baltimore municipal strike of 1974, in which municipal workers initiated a strike action for better working conditions and higher wages, and the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968, in which black sanitation workers in the segregation-era city fought for better pay and safer working conditions. Due to the racial factors at play in the Memphis strike, it became a part of the Civil Rights movement, drawing the attention of black community leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.

In May 1968, unofficial strike actions spread across the entire nation of France, causing the French president, Charles de Gaulle, to flee the country briefly and bringing the economy and government to a halt. This is was the first unofficial strike to affect an entire nation.