The most common type of non-violent conflict is the ordinary labor
strike. In a strike, the workers withdraw their cooperation from the
employer until he meets their demands. He suffers, because as long as
they refuse to work for him it is impossible for him to produce the
goods or services upon the sale of which his own living depends. Usually
he is fighting for no principle during such a strike, so that he is apt
to calculate his monetary loss from it against the advantages he would
have to surrender in order to reach an agreement. When he concludes that
it would be cheaper to give in, it is possible for the management and
the strikers to arrive at a settlement. If the employer does feel that
the principle of control of an enterprise by its owner is at stake, he
may hold out longer, until he actually loses more by the strike than he
would by conceding the demands of the strikers, but even then he
balances psychological cost against monetary cost, and when the latter
overweighs the former he becomes receptive to a settlement.
During the strike the workers are going through much the same process. A
strike from their point of view is even more costly than it is to the
employer. It is not to be entered upon lightly, since their very means
of sustenance are at stake. They too have to balance the monetary costs
of their continued refusal to cooperate against the gains that they
might hope for by continued resistance, and when the cost becomes
greater than the prospective gain they are receptive to suggestions for
compromise. They too may be contending for the principle of the right of
organization and control over their own economic destinies, so that they
may be willing to suffer loss for a longer period than they would if
they stood to gain only the immediate monetary advantages, but when
immediate costs more than overweigh ultimate psychological advantages,
they too will be willing to capitulate.
In the meantime the strikers have to see to it that the employer does
not find someone else with whom he can cooperate in order to eliminate
his dependence upon them. Hence they picket the plant, in an attempt to
persuade others not to work there. If persuasion is not effective, they
may resort to mass picketing, which amounts to a threat of violence
against the persons who would attempt to take over their jobs. On
occasion the threat to their jobs becomes so great that in order to
defend them they will resort to violence against the strikebreaker. At
this point, the public, which is apt to be somewhat sympathetic toward
their demands for fair wages or better working conditions, turns against
them and supports the employer, greatly adding to his moral standing and
weakening that of the strikers, until the strikers, feeling that the
forces against them are too great, are apt to give way. The employer
will find the same negative reaction among the public if he tries to use
violence in order to break the strike. Hence, if he does decide to use
violence, he tries to make it appear that the strikers are responsible,
or tries to induce them to use it first. It is to their advantage not to
use it, even when it is used against them. Labor leaders in general
understand this principle and try to avoid violence at all costs. They
do so not on the basis of principle, but on the basis of expediency.[39]
In the great wave of enthusiastic organization of labor that swept over
the United States in 1936 and 1937, American labor copied a variant of
the strike, which had been used earlier in Hungary and in France.[40]
Instead of leaving the property of the employer and trying to prevent
others from entering it to take their places, workers remained on a "sit
down strike" within the plants, so that the employer would have been
forced to use violence to remove them in order to operate the factory.
These strikes were based in part upon the theory that the worker had a
property right to his job, just as the employer did to his capital
equipment. Such strikes were for a time more successful than the older
variety, because strike-breaking was virtually impossible. However, it
was not long before public opinion forced the abandonment of the
technique. It was revolutionary in character, since it threatened the
old concept of private property. The fear of small property holders that
their own possessions would be jeopardized by the success of such a
movement, made them support the owners of the plants against the
strikers, who were then forced to give way. In this case the public's
fear of revolutionary change was greater than their dislike of violence,
so they even supported the use of physical force by the employers and
the police authorities to remove the strikers from the plants. The very
effectiveness of the method which labor was employing brought about its
defeat, because the public was not yet persuaded to accept the new
concept of the property right of the laborer to his job.