Striking for the Future: How Workers and Lawyers Protect Society Together

By Erica Beth Askin

A recent article on Law.com, originally published on Corporate Counsel, compared striking workers to “ill-tempered,” “angry” kids in the back seat while on vacation, conditioned to demand more and more ice cream from their parents. But here’s the crux: strikes aren’t vacations, workers aren’t kids, and management isn’t the parent.

Striking workers are, in fact, the parents of a society fighting for its future. At the end of the day, after organized workers have considered the risks – including the real, immediate pain on their pocketbooks – they have decided that their strike is necessary for securing a decent standard of living for those who depend on them. They thus ensure their families, communities and our society as a whole can thrive.

As labor lawyers, we also face a hard choice. We can either play it safe and advise organized labor to accept concessions or minor improvements, or we can align ourselves with the very people who keep our society moving forward. Today’s labor movement isn’t about making noise just for the sake of it. Strikes are intentional, strategic moves to reshape the future, and to challenge often deeply entrenched power dynamics. Organized workers know the stakes are high, and so is the potential for large scale, meaningful change.

Strikes as Strategy

Comparing striking workers to children undermines their agency and misrepresents the calculated risks they take. Workers vote to have a strike as a last resort, not as a childish outburst when their brains are on fire. It’s almost cliché at this juncture to go on about the benefits we’ve inherited from strikes – the eight-hour workday, weekends off, child labor laws—because it’s so well established. But contrast this with the image used in the article of Longshoremen recently picketing near the Port of New Orleans. Seeing it recalls the New Orleans General Strike of 1892, where 30,000 workers, from dockhands to streetcar operators, banded together to demand fair wages, reasonable hours, and safe conditions. Back then, Black and white workers stood side by side, defying Jim Crow’s racial divisions in a shared response to exploitation. They weren’t demanding ice cream, they were claiming their right to live and work with dignity.

This legacy continued in 1907, as Black longshoremen again led a strike to demand equal pay and safer conditions, challenging a system that underpaid and undervalued them. Despite fierce opposition, they pushed forward a strike that connected the struggle for racial and economic justice. Their courage still reverberates in the labor movement.

Today, the scene may look different. We see labor disputes over artificial intelligence, protections in a new age of viruses and climate change, maintaining a healthy work/life balance with overwhelming workloads and the cost of living now requiring two good incomes. However, the core issues remain similar. Just as the dock workers in New Orleans stood together to resist an economic system that viewed them as disposable, today’s organized workers push back against economic ploys that degrade their work and often put their lives in serious jeopardy. And just as then, management won’t be the ones gifting workers their rights. Today’s work stoppages—whether involving 45,000 workers or just a handful—draw on this history.

It’s hard to credit the condescending image of kids with their brains on fire demanding more ice cream. That’s because workers only strike when their needs are serious. They only strike because they’ve tried other avenues and have been ignored. And when they strike, they risk their livelihoods to protect the ones they love. They’re saying to their own children and to all of us, “Working people are worth more.”

Labor Lawyers, Strategic Allies

As lawyers supporting strategic strikes, we’re not indulging “chaos”—we’re advancing a cause that’s long overdue. Our job is to help workers achieve lasting victories by advising on strategy, building cases, and representing their voices so they resound effectively in the legal system. We help turn what might be perceived as petty disruption into long-term change. Each strike we support causes a shift in the way we value labor in our society, not just a day on the picket line.

To the future labor lawyers reading this: your work has the power to set new standards. And for those already in the trenches, let this be your encouragement that the daily grind of casework, planning and strategy-building is a step on a larger mission. Every time you help secure a win for working people, you’re writing the next chapter in a long history of societal change.

This article was originally published on Law.com. Read the full article here: Striking for the Future: How Workers and Lawyers Protect Society Together (Subscription is required.)