General Strike: A large, coordinated strike across many sectors or regions, aimed at achieving broad political or social change rather than a single workplace demand.
Industrial Action: An umbrella term covering all forms of labor protest: strikes, slowdowns, work-to-rule, etc.
Labor: The collective human work, effort, and skill that create goods and services. Also used to describe workers as a collective group.
Labor Action: Any organized effort by workers to assert their rights or improve conditions—can include strikes, slowdowns, walkouts, petitions, or demonstrations.
Labor Movement: The broader social and political movement advocating for workers’ rights, power, and dignity.
Labor Rights: The legal and moral rights of workers, including fair pay, safe workplaces, and the freedom to organize and strike.
Lockout: When management temporarily shuts down a workplace or blocks employees from working to pressure them during a labor dispute.
Management: The group within an organization that directs and oversees operations, sets policy, and represents the employer’s interests in relation to labor. (Note: many managers, especially frontline and mid-level, are in fact workers and can strike, too!)
Mass Slowdown: A coordinated reduction in work speed by large groups of workers — disrupting production without a full walkout.
Mass Stoppage: A broad halting of work across industries or regions, often similar in scale to a general strike.
Mutual Aid: Voluntary networks of people helping one another directly—sharing food, funds, transportation, or care outside of government or corporate systems.
National Strike: A strike coordinated at the country level, often organized by major unions or coalitions to demand economic or policy reforms.
Picket Line: A visible line of striking workers outside a workplace, demonstrating solidarity and discouraging others from crossing to work.
Rule of Law: The principle that everyone, including leaders and institutions, is subject to the same legal rules and due process—meant to protect fairness and accountability.
Scab / Strikebreaker: A person who continues to work or replaces striking workers during a strike — often seen as undermining solidarity and collective action.
Sick-Out: When many workers call in sick simultaneously as a form of protest, often used in workplaces where striking is restricted.
Solidarity: Shared commitment and unity among individuals or groups supporting each other’s struggles for justice, dignity, and improved conditions.
Strike: A collective work stoppage by employees to protest conditions or demand change—a powerful form of labor pressure on employers or governments.
Union: An organized association of workers that represents their collective interests in bargaining, workplace rights, and advocacy.
Unionization: The process of forming or joining a union to gain collective bargaining rights.
Walkouts: When workers, students, or participants collectively leave a workplace, school, or event as protest or to show solidarity.
Work Slowdown: A smaller-scale or localized version of a mass slowdown, sometimes called a “soft strike.”
Work-to-Rule Campaign: Workers strictly follow every rule and policy to the letter, slowing operations and highlighting how much effort normally goes above and beyond the rules.
Bread and Roses: A slogan from early labor movements meaning workers deserve both fair pay (“bread”) and quality of life, beauty, and dignity (“roses”).
Coalition Building: Forming alliances between organizations, unions, or movements that share overlapping goals—amplifying strength through cooperation.
Collective Action: Any coordinated effort by a group of people to achieve a shared goal — strikes, protests, boycotts, or campaigns.
Collective Bargaining: Negotiation between workers (usually via unions) and employers to determine wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions.
Collective Power: The amplified influence people have when acting together toward a shared purpose.
Community: A group of people connected by place, purpose, identity, or care, whose relationships form the foundation of collective action.
Direct Action: Immediate, collective action (such as a sit-in, blockade, or strike) taken to achieve a goal without going through formal institutions.