Strike

STRIKE. - It is the concerted abstention from work. The phenomenon is quite complex and can be studied from several points of view. Of particular interest here, and therefore taken into consideration, are the historical-phenomenological aspect, the juridical aspect and above all the moral aspect.

I. HISTORICAL-PHENOMENOLOGICAL ASPECT

The strike is substantially connected with the economic-social order commonly called capitalistic, and with the development and ever-greater power of this it became an ever more frequent and broader social phenomenon.

1. Considered statically: a) the strike presents itself in different forms. As to the manner in which it unfolds, there are either pure strikes, that is, pure and simple abstention from work, or abstention from work and simultaneously concern that the activity not be performed by others (for example, by removing the tools of work, or damaging the plant, or threatening those who might want to work, or occupying the factories, etc.). Simultaneous abstention of all the workers or successive abstention of small groups so as to paralyze the entire productive process (chain strike); abstention continued for a long time or abstention for brief periods, chosen in such a way as to obtain substantially the same result (intermittent strike). As to the activities that are suspended as a result of the strike, one must consider above all the essential public services (for example, the supply of gas and electric power in the cities, transport, etc.). As to the persons who take part in it, it suffices to recall the state employees. As to the extent it assumes, a distinction is made between the partial strike and the general strike. b) The strike pursues different aims: its own aims, if they concern the strikers directly, and aims of support for other strikers (sympathy strike); its own aims, moreover, are above all economic or political; in turn the economic aims can be either respect for and observance of clauses already recognized, or the attainment of new clauses. Historically it is not accurate to say that the strike has exclusively economic purposes. More than once it has purely political aims (attempts to influence the form of government, foreign policy, etc.). It suffices to recall certain Belgian strikes at the end of the last century tending to obtain the concession of universal suffrage and those of July 1950 for the abdication of King Leopold. c) The strike has different results; that is, good or bad, economic or social, for the parties involved or for third parties, for private individuals or for the authority. Economically harmful results are, for the parties involved, the loss of wages and of profit; for third parties, the lack, at least temporary, of goods and services or the increase in their cost. Economically good results can be, for example, for the workers (if the strike is economic and achieves its objectives) the advantages that derive from it. Socially harmful results are the stiffening that of necessity is produced between the parties involved, between these and third parties, between many citizens and the representatives of public power. It is inevitable in fact that the opposing parties entrench themselves in their own positions and regard each other as enemies; equally inevitable is it that third parties react to the damages they are forced to suffer and protest against the public power by which they consider themselves insufficiently protected. Nor are good social consequences lacking: the violent denunciation of hidden or open injustices, the forceful proclamation of trampled rights, etc. Therefore the strike is a very complex phenomenon, with positive and negative aspects.

2. Examined dynamically: a) the strike tends to broaden its objectives ever more; if initially it was predominantly an instrument of economic advancement of the working class, with the passage of time it has gone on assuming above all political tasks. It is not excluded that in the future it may come to be used for the strangest purposes (for example, sporting ones). b) The strike tends to present itself in technically ever more evolved forms, that is, in forms capable of inflicting ever greater damage on the adversary with the least damage for those who resort to it: by choosing the most suitable moment (for example, the pre-Christmas period for confectioners), by making the strike ever more universal, by reducing it to a succession of brief or partial strikes (intermittent strike; chain strike, etc.), by preventing the activity of strikebreakers, finally by that new form which is non-collaboration.

II. LEGAL ASPECT

The public authority could not remain indifferent to the strike and adopted attitudes ranging from the most absolute prohibition in law and in fact, to silence, to permission even in law. Compare, for example, for France the condition created by arts. 414, 415 and 416 of the Napoleonic Penal Code, under which the strike - and the lockout - were considered as crimes, with the situation created by the law of 25 May 1864, in which every prohibitory provision of the strike as such is repealed and only the criminal charges for offenses committed in the course of labor conflicts remain, with the intent of limiting its freedom, and finally with the provisions of the French Constitution of 1946 that place the strike among the fundamental rights of the citizen. A similar evolution occurred in England; from the very rigorous law of 1725 of George I, which imposed the death penalty, through the laws of 1800, 1824, 1825, one arrives at the repeal of the "Master and Servant acts" of 1867, then at the laws of 1871 and 1875, which no longer punish coalitions and strikes, save for certain limitations, and finally at the legal recognition of the "Trade Unions" (1871-76). Something similar, with the Fascist interlude, happens in Italy: from arts. 414, 415 and 416 of the Napoleonic Code extended to Italy, one passes to the Penal Code of 1889, which punished only violence and threats harmful to the freedom to work. The Fascist legal order prohibited the strike and the lockout (Law of 5 Apr. 1926, no. 503 and arts. 502-509 of the Penal Code of 1930). Finally the new Constitution in art. 40 establishes that "the right to strike is exercised within the framework of the laws that regulate it." These laws are still in preparation.

III. MORAL ASPECT

It seems necessary to distinguish between a perfectly organized society and an imperfectly organized society, and to reason first by hypothesis and then by thesis. By a perfectly organized society is meant not so much one in which there are no grounds for disputes, but rather one in which there exist and actually function institutions suited to obtaining justice; and by an imperfectly organized society, one in which such institutions do not exist or, if they exist, do not in fact operate.

1. In a perfectly organized society, where the institutions suited to obtaining justice exist and actually operate, it is not lawful to resort to a means which, if it can bring advantages, also brings disadvantages. On the other hand, in an imperfectly organized society, when it is a question of: a) a just cause; b) one not otherwise defensible; c) there exists a well-founded hope of success; and d) there is a certain proportion between the goods one hopes to obtain and the evils one fears one must cause, one does not see why the strike cannot be called legitimate.

2. Without doubt our society is imperfectly organized. Not only do causes of conflict occur, but the institutions suited to obtaining justice do not always exist, or, if they exist, they do not always in fact operate.

3. Can one think of reaching a perfectly organized society one day? However one answers, it is beyond doubt that today the strike, under certain conditions, is legitimate. The State therefore cannot prohibit it. At the same time, however, not everything is done once the legitimacy of the strike has been admitted. There remains the task of working, first of all, to remove the just causes that make recourse to that weapon legitimate, and then to create those institutions which, even in the case of a just cause, make it possible to obtain justice without having to resort to so dangerous an instrument.

The moral aspect therefore also demands the intervention of the legislator; and an intervention which, avoiding the unacceptable positions of complete prohibition and of total freedom, realistically sets in motion, together with the improvement of social conditions, the creation of suitable legislation. Such legislation, once it exists, binds in conscience and becomes a norm of conduct.

IV. PARTICULAR APPLICATIONS

The principles set out above require further clarification when one turns to particular cases. Here one should speak of the political strike, the sympathy strike, the strike in essential public services, the general strike and non-collaboration. A few remarks will suffice. It should be noted first of all that a strike would not be considered political when it was directed against the State, in the case where the State was the employer, for example in nationalized enterprises.

As for the sympathy strike, solidarity with those who suffer injustice, whoever they may be, is fundamentally human and Christian, deriving above all from natural and supernatural brotherhood; and this solidarity is not restricted only to one's fellow class members. Employers too are bound to be in solidarity with workers who suffer injustice, and conversely workers are bound to be in solidarity with employers when they are victims of injustice. One cannot therefore accept class solidarity in the sense that one must be in solidarity at any cost and in every case with those of one's own class against those of the opposing class. Moreover, those forms must be chosen which constitute an effective and not an apparent solidarity. From this point of view the strike often does not represent an act of solidarity at all. By broadening the strike, instead of strengthening the front, one runs the risk of weakening it, and therefore, instead of bringing help to the one attacked, one extends a hand to the aggressor; often it will be better, instead of striking, to continue working and to pass part of one's salary or wages to those who are striking, thus making it possible to continue resisting until victory. The truest solidarity may consist in the establishment and support of resistance funds, which allow workers to face the hardships of a strike and to continue it for a very long time or even indefinitely.

As for the strike in essential public services, the impact that their suspension produces, especially on poor people, is evident. The harm caused to third parties is therefore particularly serious here. The strike in essential public services can therefore be permitted only in extremely exceptional cases, when the insensitivity of the mass of citizens to the evident and repeatedly proclaimed injustice suffered by those employed in essential public services were solidly demonstrated.

As for the general strike, it must be granted only in extreme cases, of evident necessity and of proven insensitivity of the mass of citizens in the face of certain evident injustices.

The gravity of the cases recalled above shows that particularly for them the intervention of the legal order is necessary. It is above all on these points that the creation of those institutions which make it possible to arrive at composing disputes by ways less costly than the strike must begin.

Giovanni Battista Guzzetti