《社会保障概论》课程教学资源（课后阅读资料）APSR_Volume112. Issue 4.Nov 2018_The_Right_to_Strike_A_Radical_View

American Political Science Review (2018)112,4.905-917 doi:10.1017/S0003055418000321 American Political Science Association 2018 The Right to Strike:A Radical View ALEX GOUREVITCH Brown University orkers face a common dilemma when exercising their right to strike.For the worst-off workers to go on strike with some reasonable chance of success,they must use coercive strike tactics like mass pickets and sit-downs.These tactics violate some basic liberties,such as contract,associa- tion,and private property,and the laws that protect those liberties.Which has priority,the right to strike or the basic liberties strikers might violate?The answer depends on why the right to strike is justified.In contrast to liberal and social democratic arguments,on the radical view defended here,the right to strike is a right to resist oppression.This oppression is partly a product of the legal protection of basic economic liberties,which explains why the right to strike has priority over these liberties.The radical view thus best explains why workers may use some coercive,even lawbreaking,strike tactics. very liberal democracy recognizes that workers literature on neighboring forms of protest like non- have a right to strike.That right is protected violence,civil disobedience,conscientious refusal,and in law.sometimes in the constitution itself.Yet social movements. strikes pose serious problems for liberal societies.They The right to strike raises far more issues than a single involve violence and coercion,they often violate some essay can handle.In what follows,I address a particu- basic liberal liberties,they appear to involve group larly significant problem regarding the right to strike rights having priority over individual ones,and they and its relation to coercive strike tactics.I argue that can threaten public order itself.Strikes are also one of strikes present a dilemma for liberal societies because the most common forms of disruptive collective protest for most workers to have a reasonable chance of suc- 4号 in modern history.Even given the dramatic decline in cess they need to use some coercive strike tactics.But strike activity since its peak in the 1970s,they can play these coercive strike tactics both violate the law and significant roles in our lives.For instance,just over the infringe upon what are widely held to be basic liberal past few years in the United States,large illegal strikes rights.To resolve this dilemma,we have to know why by teachers paralyzed major school districts in Chicago workers have the right to strike in the first place.I argue and Seattle,as well as statewide in West Virginia,Ok- that the best way of understanding the right to strike is lahoma,Arizona.and Colorado:a strike by taxi drivers as a right to resist the oppression that workers face in played a major role in debates and court decisions re- the standard liberal capitalist economy.This way of un- garding immigration;and strikes by retail and food- derstanding the right explains why the use of coercive service workers were instrumental in getting new min- strike tactics is not morally constrained by the require- imum wage and other legislation passed in states like ment to respect the basic liberties nor the related laws California,New York,and North Carolina.Yet,despite that strikers violate when using certain coercive tactics their significance,there is almost no political philoso- The argument proceeds in three sections.The first phy written about strikes.This despite the enormous lays out the dilemma.The second describes the oppres- sion that workers face.The third then argues for seeing Alex Gourevitch is an Assistant Professor of Political Sci- the right to strike as a right to resist oppression and ence,Brown University,36 Prospect St.,Providence,RI,02912 compares it with liberal and social democratic versions (Alexander_gourevitch@brown.edu). of the right to strike. I would like to thank the following people for very helpful indi vidual conversations about this essay:Samuel Arnold,Joshua Braver. Candice Delmas,Leah Downey,David Estlund,Nicholas Frayn,Har- THE DILEMMA rison Frye,Andreas Kalyvas,Karl Klare,Jeffrey Lenowitz,Frank Lovett,Chris Muller,Suresh Naidu,Jeppe von Platz,Peter Ram- Here are some general facts about strikes and labor say,Corey Robin,Julie Rose,Lucas Stanczyk,and Carla Yumatle. markets that present liberal societies with a dilemma.A I am also grateful to political theory workshop participants at the following colleges and universities:University of Virginia,Prince- strike is a work stoppage to achieve some end.Higher ton University,MIT,Brown,New School,University of Chicago skilled,low-supply workers,who usually enjoy better (Human Rights Workshop),Stanford,Tufts,Dartmouth(Workshop wages,hours and conditions,can carry off a reasonably on Economic Justice),Washington University,Columbia University effective strike with little coercion and no significant (September Group),University of Pennsylvania,McGill University lawbreaking.That is because they are hard to replace. (Left Political Theory).I would also like to thank the Radcliffe In- stitute for Advanced Study for generously supporting a year of leave So long as they exercise adequate discipline,workers during which I was able to write and revise this article will have a reasonable chance of succeeding if they refuse to work.Production slows or stops altogether. Received:August 18,2017;revised:March 9,2018;accepted:May 18, 2018.First published online:June 21,2018. For instance,during the Verizon strike of 2016,Verizon I There is asmattering of essays or book chapters from the 1970s and 80s,almost none of which talk to each other,by Michael Walzer,Don There are a number of reasonable empirical assumptions built into Locke,Brian Smart,and Sheldon Leader,as well as an excellent book this statement.For the moment,I am characterizing a broad differ- by L.J.Macfarlane.To my knowledge,there are only two more recent ence in what it takes to carry off a strike with a reasonable chance articles that engage strikes in a sustained way (Gourevitch 2016c, of success.Therefore,I make generalizations that are reasonable but Borman 2017). that might not hold in particular cases. 905

American Political Science Review (2018) 112, 4, 905–917 doi:10.1017/S0003055418000321 © American Political Science Association 2018 The Right to Strike: A Radical View ALEX GOUREVITCH Brown University Workers face a common dilemma when exercising their right to strike. For the worst-off workers to go on strike with some reasonable chance of success, they must use coercive strike tactics like mass pickets and sit-downs. These tactics violate some basic liberties, such as contract, associa￾tion, and private property, and the laws that protect those liberties. Which has priority, the right to strike or the basic liberties strikers might violate? The answer depends on why the right to strike is justified. In contrast to liberal and social democratic arguments, on the radical view defended here, the right to strike is a right to resist oppression. This oppression is partly a product of the legal protection of basic economic liberties, which explains why the right to strike has priority over these liberties. The radical view thus best explains why workers may use some coercive, even lawbreaking, strike tactics. Every liberal democracy recognizes that workers have a right to strike. That right is protected in law, sometimes in the constitution itself. Yet strikes pose serious problems for liberal societies. They involve violence and coercion, they often violate some basic liberal liberties, they appear to involve group rights having priority over individual ones, and they can threaten public order itself. Strikes are also one of the most common forms of disruptive collective protest in modern history. Even given the dramatic decline in strike activity since its peak in the 1970s, they can play significant roles in our lives. For instance, just over the past few years in the United States, large illegal strikes by teachers paralyzed major school districts in Chicago and Seattle, as well as statewide in West Virginia, Ok￾lahoma, Arizona, and Colorado; a strike by taxi drivers played a major role in debates and court decisions re￾garding immigration; and strikes by retail and food￾service workers were instrumental in getting new min￾imum wage and other legislation passed in states like California, New York, and North Carolina. Yet, despite their significance, there is almost no political philoso￾phy written about strikes.1 This despite the enormous Alex Gourevitch is an Assistant Professor of Political Sci￾ence, Brown University, 36 Prospect St., Providence, RI, 02912 (Alexander_gourevitch@brown.edu). I would like to thank the following people for very helpful indi￾vidual conversations about this essay: Samuel Arnold, Joshua Braver, Candice Delmas, Leah Downey,David Estlund, Nicholas Frayn,Har￾rison Frye, Andreas Kalyvas, Karl Klare, Jeffrey Lenowitz, Frank Lovett, Chris Muller, Suresh Naidu, Jeppe von Platz, Peter Ram￾say, Corey Robin, Julie Rose, Lucas Stanczyk, and Carla Yumatle. I am also grateful to political theory workshop participants at the following colleges and universities: University of Virginia, Prince￾ton University, MIT, Brown, New School, University of Chicago (Human Rights Workshop), Stanford, Tufts, Dartmouth (Workshop on Economic Justice), Washington University, Columbia University (September Group), University of Pennsylvania, McGill University (Left Political Theory). I would also like to thank the Radcliffe In￾stitute for Advanced Study for generously supporting a year of leave during which I was able to write and revise this article. Received: August 18, 2017; revised: March 9, 2018; accepted: May 18, 2018. First published online: June 21, 2018. 1 There is a smattering of essays or book chapters from the 1970s and ’80s, almost none of which talk to each other, by Michael Walzer,Don Locke, Brian Smart, and Sheldon Leader, as well as an excellent book by L.J.Macfarlane. To my knowledge, there are only two more recent articles that engage strikes in a sustained way (Gourevitch 2016c, Borman 2017). literature on neighboring forms of protest like non￾violence, civil disobedience, conscientious refusal, and social movements. The right to strike raises far more issues than a single essay can handle. In what follows, I address a particu￾larly significant problem regarding the right to strike and its relation to coercive strike tactics. I argue that strikes present a dilemma for liberal societies because for most workers to have a reasonable chance of suc￾cess they need to use some coercive strike tactics. But these coercive strike tactics both violate the law and infringe upon what are widely held to be basic liberal rights. To resolve this dilemma, we have to know why workers have the right to strike in the first place. I argue that the best way of understanding the right to strike is as a right to resist the oppression that workers face in the standard liberal capitalist economy. This way of un￾derstanding the right explains why the use of coercive strike tactics is not morally constrained by the require￾ment to respect the basic liberties nor the related laws that strikers violate when using certain coercive tactics. The argument proceeds in three sections. The first lays out the dilemma. The second describes the oppres￾sion that workers face. The third then argues for seeing the right to strike as a right to resist oppression and compares it with liberal and social democratic versions of the right to strike. THE DILEMMA Here are some general facts about strikes and labor markets that present liberal societies with a dilemma.A strike is a work stoppage to achieve some end. Higher skilled, low-supply workers, who usually enjoy better wages, hours and conditions, can carry off a reasonably effective strike with little coercion and no significant lawbreaking.2 That is because they are hard to replace. So long as they exercise adequate discipline, workers will have a reasonable chance of succeeding if they refuse to work. Production slows or stops altogether. For instance, during the Verizon strike of 2016, Verizon 2 There are a number of reasonable empirical assumptions built into this statement. For the moment, I am characterizing a broad differ￾ence in what it takes to carry off a strike with a reasonable chance of success. Therefore, I make generalizations that are reasonable but that might not hold in particular cases. 905 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000321

Alex Gourevitch used many replacement workers,as it was their legal on strike with some reasonable chance of success they right to do,but those replacements could not do the job have to use one of these coercive tactics.6 effectively.Installing,servicing,and repairing copper- But what is the actual dilemma?It is the following.A -00081v0000/L0LoL wire and FIOS systems turned out to require weeks of basic principle of political morality in any liberal capi- training and further on-the-job experience.After seven talist society is that all persons enjoy basic liberties on weeks,the company still was unable to service existing the condition that they extend the same basic liberties lines,let alone install new ones.Exercising a great deal to everyone else and that these liberties should be en- of discipline and commitment,but no coercion or vi- shrined in law.You are free to exercise your basic lib- olence against replacements or managers,the Verizon erties so long as you do not coercively interfere with workers slowed production enough to win concessions others in the enjoyment of their same liberties.But the op//s (Gourevitch 2016b). aforementioned coercive strike tactics violate a num- However,low-skill,high labor supply workers in sec- ber of these basic liberties as they are commonly un- tors like service,transportation,agriculture,and basic derstood,both in law and political culture.They vio- industry are in a different situation.These kinds of late the property rights of owners and their managers workers,in part because they are in such high supply, the freedom of contract and association of replacement tend to have less bargaining power and therefore usu- workers,and they threaten the everyday.background ally enjoy lower wages,longer hours,and worse work- sense of public order of a liberal capitalist societ-in- ing conditions.3 On top of which,they are more vul- sofar as law and order is commonly identified with obe- nerable to forms of illegal pressure.For instance,con- dience to the law and uninterrupted flow of commerce. 元 sider the problem of wage theft,where employers fail The dilemma is that the right to strike,when exercised to pay the full wages and benefits that workers are by the majority of worst-off workers,seems to con- legally due.Wage theft is almost exclusively a problem flict directly with the basic economic and civil liberties affecting low-wage workers,64%of whom experience of large numbers of other people and with the back- it weekly and who on average lose 15%of their income ground legal order that secures those liberties. each year to their employers (Judson and Francisco- To resolve this dilemma,we need to know what has McGuire 2012).These workers already earn incomes moral priority:the basic economic and civil liberties not far from the poverty line.They are therefore the as they are enforced in law,or the right to strike.If ones we intuitively think should have the strongest the former,then the right to strike must be limited by case for a right to strike.Yet,even if all of the cur- the requirement to respect the legally protected basic rent workers walk off and respect the picket,replace liberties of owners,managers,and replacements.That ments are much easier to find,train,and put to work. would mean that,in the typical case,the majority of So workers might refuse to work but,once replaced. easily replaced workers cannot exercise their right to they will have little chance of slowing or stopping pro- strike with a reasonable chance of success.However,if duction.For example,this is one of the challenges fac- the right to strike has priority,then workers are not ex 是 ing workers like Walmart or McDonald's workers who ante restrained by the basic economic and civil liberties have done single-day strikes for demonstration and of others and they might be permitted even to engage protest purposes,but have not struck long enough to be in mass civil disobedience when violating those liber- replaced.4 ties.To know which way to think,we need an account What this means is that the majority of workers,who of why workers have the right to strike in the first place are relatively easy to replace,often have to use some A definitional note before proceeding.Three terms coercive tactics if they want to go on strike with some get used in the context of strikes with a great deal of reasonable chance of success.These tactics either pre- ambiguity:violence,coercion,and force.I cannot,in vent managers from hiring replacements,prevent re- this essay,address all such sources of ambiguity but placements from taking struck jobs,or otherwise pre- two things must be said.One source of ambiguity is vent work from getting done.The classic coercive tac- whether these terms are moralized or not.Here I use tics are sit-downs and mass pickets.5 Sit-down strikes them in a non-moralized sense-the use of violence.co- involve occupying the workplace so that no work can ercion,and force might be justified or unjustified,but be done.Mass pickets are when strikers and their sup- to call something an act of violence/coercion/forcing porters surround a workplace with a wall of picketers does not,in itself,imply a judgment that the act was so that no people or supplies can get in or out.For wrong.The other source of ambiguity lies in how these the majority of relatively easy to replace workers to go terms are defined.Each are different but related ways of interfering with and limiting people's freedom.I will use violence to refer to acts intending to cause physical harm to individuals.So,when the police,as part of their 3 Regularly updated tables showing that earnings for groups like strikebreaking activities,beat up picketers during the service workers,food prep,and retail workers are below the na- Justice for Janitors strike in 1990,they committed acts tional median can be found at this website:https://www.bls.gov/emp/ of violence.Forcing is when someone has no reason- p table_104.htm. able alternative to a course of action.So,workers are See the Fight for 15 strikes,which are best summarized and sourced forced to enter the labor market when they have no at the (inaccurately named)Wikipedia entry,"Fast Food Worker Strikes":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_worker_strikes 5 I set aside sabotage,the other common tactic,because it raises fur- For accounts of these tactics and their restriction in US law,see ther issues that I cannot address here. White(2010,2014):Pope(2004). 906

Alex Gourevitch used many replacement workers, as it was their legal right to do, but those replacements could not do the job effectively. Installing, servicing, and repairing copper￾wire and FIOS systems turned out to require weeks of training and further on-the-job experience.After seven weeks, the company still was unable to service existing lines, let alone install new ones. Exercising a great deal of discipline and commitment, but no coercion or vi￾olence against replacements or managers, the Verizon workers slowed production enough to win concessions (Gourevitch 2016b). However, low-skill, high labor supply workers in sec￾tors like service, transportation, agriculture, and basic industry are in a different situation. These kinds of workers, in part because they are in such high supply, tend to have less bargaining power and therefore usu￾ally enjoy lower wages, longer hours, and worse work￾ing conditions.3 On top of which, they are more vul￾nerable to forms of illegal pressure. For instance, con￾sider the problem of wage theft, where employers fail to pay the full wages and benefits that workers are legally due. Wage theft is almost exclusively a problem affecting low-wage workers, 64% of whom experience it weekly and who on average lose 15% of their income each year to their employers (Judson and Francisco￾McGuire 2012). These workers already earn incomes not far from the poverty line. They are therefore the ones we intuitively think should have the strongest case for a right to strike. Yet, even if all of the cur￾rent workers walk off and respect the picket, replace￾ments are much easier to find, train, and put to work. So workers might refuse to work but, once replaced, they will have little chance of slowing or stopping pro￾duction. For example, this is one of the challenges fac￾ing workers like Walmart or McDonald’s workers who have done single-day strikes for demonstration and protest purposes, but have not struck long enough to be replaced.4 What this means is that the majority of workers, who are relatively easy to replace, often have to use some coercive tactics if they want to go on strike with some reasonable chance of success. These tactics either pre￾vent managers from hiring replacements, prevent re￾placements from taking struck jobs, or otherwise pre￾vent work from getting done. The classic coercive tac￾tics are sit-downs and mass pickets.5 Sit-down strikes involve occupying the workplace so that no work can be done. Mass pickets are when strikers and their sup￾porters surround a workplace with a wall of picketers so that no people or supplies can get in or out. For the majority of relatively easy to replace workers to go 3 Regularly updated tables showing that earnings for groups like service workers, food prep, and retail workers are below the na￾tional median can be found at this website: https://www.bls.gov/emp/ ep_table_104.htm. 4 See the Fight for 15 strikes, which are best summarized and sourced at the (inaccurately named) Wikipedia entry, “Fast Food Worker Strikes”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_worker_strikes. 5 I set aside sabotage, the other common tactic, because it raises fur￾ther issues that I cannot address here. on strike with some reasonable chance of success they have to use one of these coercive tactics.6 But what is the actual dilemma? It is the following.A basic principle of political morality in any liberal capi￾talist society is that all persons enjoy basic liberties on the condition that they extend the same basic liberties to everyone else and that these liberties should be en￾shrined in law. You are free to exercise your basic lib￾erties so long as you do not coercively interfere with others in the enjoyment of their same liberties. But the aforementioned coercive strike tactics violate a num￾ber of these basic liberties as they are commonly un￾derstood, both in law and political culture. They vio￾late the property rights of owners and their managers, the freedom of contract and association of replacement workers, and they threaten the everyday, background sense of public order of a liberal capitalist societ— in￾sofar as law and order is commonly identified with obe￾dience to the law and uninterrupted flow of commerce. The dilemma is that the right to strike, when exercised by the majority of worst-off workers, seems to con￾flict directly with the basic economic and civil liberties of large numbers of other people and with the back￾ground legal order that secures those liberties. To resolve this dilemma, we need to know what has moral priority: the basic economic and civil liberties, as they are enforced in law, or the right to strike. If the former, then the right to strike must be limited by the requirement to respect the legally protected basic liberties of owners, managers, and replacements. That would mean that, in the typical case, the majority of easily replaced workers cannot exercise their right to strike with a reasonable chance of success. However, if the right to strike has priority, then workers are not ex ante restrained by the basic economic and civil liberties of others and they might be permitted even to engage in mass civil disobedience when violating those liber￾ties. To know which way to think, we need an account of why workers have the right to strike in the first place. A definitional note before proceeding. Three terms get used in the context of strikes with a great deal of ambiguity: violence, coercion, and force. I cannot, in this essay, address all such sources of ambiguity but two things must be said. One source of ambiguity is whether these terms are moralized or not. Here I use them in a non-moralized sense—the use of violence, co￾ercion, and force might be justified or unjustified, but to call something an act of violence/coercion/forcing does not, in itself, imply a judgment that the act was wrong. The other source of ambiguity lies in how these terms are defined. Each are different but related ways of interfering with and limiting people’s freedom. I will use violence to refer to acts intending to cause physical harm to individuals. So, when the police, as part of their strikebreaking activities, beat up picketers during the Justice for Janitors strike in 1990, they committed acts of violence. Forcing is when someone has no reason￾able alternative to a course of action. So, workers are forced to enter the labor market when they have no 6 For accounts of these tactics and their restriction in US law, see White (2010, 2014); Pope (2004). 906 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000321

The Right to Strike reasonable alternative to entering the labor market- sonable alternative but to find a job.s They cannot pro- say,because finding a job is the only way to earn the duce necessary goods for themselves,nor can they rely money they need to meet their basic needs.?Coercion on the charity of others,nor can they count on adequate is a specific kind of forcing.It is the removal of reason- state benefits.The only way most people can gain reli- able alternatives to a course of action and making it able access to necessary goods is by buying them.The known to the coerced agent that she has no reasonable most reliable,often only,way most people have of ac- alternatives.So.the state coerces workers into not en- quiring enough money to buy those goods is through gaging in sit-ins and mass pickets when it pronounces employment.That is the sense in which they have no those tactics unlawful,makes it known that the tactics reasonable alternative but to find a job working for an are illegal,and commits to the use of police violence employer.Depending on how we measure income and to enforce that law.The threat of violent law enforce- wealth.about 60-80%of Americans are in this situa- ment is enough to say that workers are coerced into tion for most of their adult lives. following the law.Again,these are examples of what This forcing is not symmetrical.A significant mi- violence,forcing,and coercion mean,but to call them nority is not similarly forced to work for someone acts of violence/forcing/coercion is not,so far,a norma- else,though they might do so freely.That minority tive judgment about whether they are justified or not. has enough wealth,either inherited or accumulated or This terminological parsing might seem tedious but both,that they have a reasonable alternative to enter- is necessary both to grasp the stakes of the dilemma ing the labor market.So,this first dimension of oppres- above as well as the nature of the argument I will make sion comes not from the fact that some are forced to about resistance to oppression.The framing dilemma work,but from the fact that the forcing is unequal and has to do with the use of coercive,not violent.strike tac that asymmetry means some are forced to work for tics that give workers a reasonable chance of inducing others.10 That is to say,what makes it oppressive is the employers to renegotiate terms.A further dimension wrong of unequally forcing the majority to work,for to that dilemma is whether the state is justified in using whatever purpose,while others face no such forcing 4号 violence and coercion to prohibit the use of coercive at all.That way of organizing and distributing coer- strike tactics or whether workers are justified in break- cive work obligations,and of imposing certain kinds of 'asn ing the law. forcing on workers,is an unjustifiable way of limiting their freedom and therefore oppressive.To fix ideas,I THE FACTS OF OPPRESSION IN TYPICAL call this the structural element of oppression in class LIBERAL CAPITALIST SOCIETIES societies To explain why the right to strike is a right to resist oppression,I first must give an account of the relevant For a fuller analysis of workers being asymmetrically forced to oppression.Oppression is the unjustifiable deprivation work,or forced into particular occupations see Cohen(1988a,1988b), of freedom.Some deprivations or restrictions of free Ezorsky(2007),and Stanczyk(unpublished).These are primarily an- dom are justified and therefore do not count as op- alytic descriptions of forcing,not normative analyses of what is wrong with that forcing pression.The oppression that matters for this article is the class-based oppression of a typical liberal capitalist For the 60-80%statistic,see Henwood(2005,125).The statistics on wealth among the lower deciles is complex.A recent study shows society.By the class-based oppression,I mean the fact that the net wealth of the bottom 50%is roughly 0.So at least 50%of that the majority of able-bodied people find themselves US households are forced to use job-related income to meet annual expenses,though that has to be modified for those who receive (in- 8 forced to work for members of a relatively small group sufficient to live on)welfare benefits(Saez and Zucman 2014;Wolff who dominate control over productive assets and who, 2012) thereby,enjoy unjustifiable control over the activities 10 To be clear,the oppression here is not with any and all unequal and products of those workers.There are workers and and asymmetric forcing but with the inequality that arises from the then there are owners and their managers.The facts I class structure of society.For instance,it is not oppressive nor an refer to here are mostly drawn from the United States unjust constraint on individual freedom,to force the able-bodied to do some work to support the disabled,children,the sick.the elderly. to keep a consistent description of a specific society or the otherwise socially dependent who cannot perform a share of While there is meaningful variation across liberal cap- necessary labor.Though even there,there is some presumption that italist nations,the basic facts of class-based oppression that burden of working for those who cannot work should be shared do not change in a way that vitiates my argument's ap- equally,and that individuals should not be forced to work for any purpose and under any conditions whatsoever.What I am describing plicability to those countries too.Empirical analysis o as oppression is not the very fact that some work and others don't. 四 each country to which the argument applies,and how but the inequality and asymmetry that arises from the inequalities it would apply,is a separate project. in ownership and control.This forcing is unequal in that some able- The first element of oppression in a class society re- bodied-and even some who by all rights should not have to work at sides in the fact that (a)there are some who are forced all-are forced to work while other able-bodied individuals are not forced to work.And it is asymmetric in that those who have to work into the labor market while others are not and (b) are.on the whole,forced to work for those who hire them.under those who are forced to work-workers-have to work conditions controlled primarily by employers. for those who own productive resources.Workers are My account here of the oppressive distribution of coercive work forced into the labor market because they have no rea- obligations and exploitative relationships relies in part on argu- ments made in Stanczyk (2012;unpublished book manuscript;un- published).Stanczyk provides further arguments about the injustice of unequal,coercive work obligations,with which I agree but that are 7 On forcing see Cohen(1988a):Ezorsky(2007). unnecessary for the argument here. 907

The Right to Strike reasonable alternative to entering the labor market— say, because finding a job is the only way to earn the money they need to meet their basic needs.7 Coercion is a specific kind of forcing. It is the removal of reason￾able alternatives to a course of action and making it known to the coerced agent that she has no reasonable alternatives. So, the state coerces workers into not en￾gaging in sit-ins and mass pickets when it pronounces those tactics unlawful, makes it known that the tactics are illegal, and commits to the use of police violence to enforce that law. The threat of violent law enforce￾ment is enough to say that workers are coerced into following the law. Again, these are examples of what violence, forcing, and coercion mean, but to call them acts of violence/forcing/coercion is not, so far, a norma￾tive judgment about whether they are justified or not. This terminological parsing might seem tedious but is necessary both to grasp the stakes of the dilemma above as well as the nature of the argument I will make about resistance to oppression. The framing dilemma has to do with the use of coercive, not violent, strike tac￾tics that give workers a reasonable chance of inducing employers to renegotiate terms. A further dimension to that dilemma is whether the state is justified in using violence and coercion to prohibit the use of coercive strike tactics or whether workers are justified in break￾ing the law. THE FACTS OF OPPRESSION IN TYPICAL LIBERAL CAPITALIST SOCIETIES To explain why the right to strike is a right to resist oppression, I first must give an account of the relevant oppression. Oppression is the unjustifiable deprivation of freedom. Some deprivations or restrictions of free￾dom are justified and therefore do not count as op￾pression. The oppression that matters for this article is the class-based oppression of a typical liberal capitalist society. By the class-based oppression, I mean the fact that the majority of able-bodied people find themselves forced to work for members of a relatively small group who dominate control over productive assets and who, thereby, enjoy unjustifiable control over the activities and products of those workers. There are workers and then there are owners and their managers. The facts I refer to here are mostly drawn from the United States to keep a consistent description of a specific society. While there is meaningful variation across liberal cap￾italist nations, the basic facts of class-based oppression do not change in a way that vitiates my argument’s ap￾plicability to those countries too. Empirical analysis of each country to which the argument applies, and how it would apply, is a separate project. The first element of oppression in a class society re￾sides in the fact that (a) there are some who are forced into the labor market while others are not and (b) those who are forced to work—workers—have to work for those who own productive resources. Workers are forced into the labor market because they have no rea- 7 On forcing see Cohen (1988a); Ezorsky (2007). sonable alternative but to find a job.8 They cannot pro￾duce necessary goods for themselves, nor can they rely on the charity of others, nor can they count on adequate state benefits. The only way most people can gain reli￾able access to necessary goods is by buying them. The most reliable, often only, way most people have of ac￾quiring enough money to buy those goods is through employment. That is the sense in which they have no reasonable alternative but to find a job working for an employer. Depending on how we measure income and wealth, about 60–80% of Americans are in this situa￾tion for most of their adult lives.9 This forcing is not symmetrical. A significant mi￾nority is not similarly forced to work for someone else, though they might do so freely. That minority has enough wealth, either inherited or accumulated or both, that they have a reasonable alternative to enter￾ing the labor market. So, this first dimension of oppres￾sion comes not from the fact that some are forced to work, but from the fact that the forcing is unequal and that asymmetry means some are forced to work for others.10 That is to say, what makes it oppressive is the wrong of unequally forcing the majority to work, for whatever purpose, while others face no such forcing at all.11 That way of organizing and distributing coer￾cive work obligations, and of imposing certain kinds of forcing on workers, is an unjustifiable way of limiting their freedom and therefore oppressive. To fix ideas, I call this the structural element of oppression in class societies. 8 For a fuller analysis of workers being asymmetrically forced to work, or forced into particular occupations see Cohen (1988a,1988b), Ezorsky (2007), and Stanczyk (unpublished). These are primarily an￾alytic descriptions of forcing, not normative analyses of what is wrong with that forcing. 9 For the 60–80% statistic, see Henwood (2005, 125). The statistics on wealth among the lower deciles is complex. A recent study shows that the net wealth of the bottom 50% is roughly 0. So at least 50% of US households are forced to use job-related income to meet annual expenses, though that has to be modified for those who receive (in￾sufficient to live on) welfare benefits (Saez and Zucman 2014; Wolff 2012). 10 To be clear, the oppression here is not with any and all unequal and asymmetric forcing but with the inequality that arises from the class structure of society. For instance, it is not oppressive nor an unjust constraint on individual freedom, to force the able-bodied to do some work to support the disabled, children, the sick, the elderly, or the otherwise socially dependent who cannot perform a share of necessary labor. Though even there, there is some presumption that that burden of working for those who cannot work should be shared equally, and that individuals should not be forced to work for any purpose and under any conditions whatsoever.What I am describing as oppression is not the very fact that some work and others don’t, but the inequality and asymmetry that arises from the inequalities in ownership and control. This forcing is unequal in that some able￾bodied—and even some who by all rights should not have to work at all—are forced to work while other able-bodied individuals are not forced to work. And it is asymmetric in that those who have to work are, on the whole, forced to work for those who hire them, under conditions controlled primarily by employers. 11 My account here of the oppressive distribution of coercive work obligations and exploitative relationships relies in part on argu￾ments made in Stanczyk (2012; unpublished book manuscript; un￾published). Stanczyk provides further arguments about the injustice of unequal, coercive work obligations, with which I agree but that are unnecessary for the argument here. 907 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000321

Alex Gourevitch This structural element leads to a second,interper- United States,18%of current employees and sonal dimension of oppression in the workplace itself. 37%of workers in their lifetime work under non- Workers are forced to join workplaces typically char- compete agreements(Bunker 2016).These clauses :000100006/L0LoL acterized by large swathes of uncontrolled managerial give managers legal power to forbid workers from power and authority.This oppression is interpersonal working for competitors.The contract that the in the sense that it is power that specific individuals- Communications Workers of America had with employers and their managers-have to get other spe- Verizon until 2015 included a right for managers cific individuals-employees-to do what they want to force employers to perform from 10 to 15 hours We can distinguish between three overlapping forms of overtime per week and to take some other that this interpersonal,workplace oppression takes: day instead of Saturday as an off-day (Gourevitch subordination,delegation,and dependence. 2016a).These legal powers are not parts of the managerial prerogatives that all employers have. Subordination:Employers have what are some- Rather.they are voluntarily delegated to employ- times called "managerial prerogatives,"12 which ers by workers.In many cases,though the delega- are legislative and judicial grants of authority to tion is in one sense voluntary,in another sense it is owners and their managers to make decisions forced.This will especially be the case if workers. about investment,hiring and firing,plant location, who are forced to find jobs,can only find jobs in work process,and the like.13 These powers come sectors where the only contracts available are ones from judicial precedent and from the constella- that require these kinds of delegations. tion of corporate,labor,contract,and property Dependence:Finally,managers might have the law.Managers may change working speeds and material power to force employees to submit to assigned tasks,the hours of work,or even force commands or even to accept violations of their workers to spend up to an hour going through se- rights because of the worker's dependence on curity lines after work without paying them(In- the employer.A headline example is wage-theft, 4号元 tegrity Staffing Solutions,Inc.v.Busk 2014).Man- which affects American workers to the tune of $8- agers may fire workers for Facebook comments. $14 billion per year(Eisenbray 2015;Judson and their sexual orientation,for being too sexually ap- Francisco-McGuire 2012:NELP 2013;Axt 2013) pealing,or for not being appealing enough(Emer- In other cases,workers have been forced to wear son 2011:Hess 2013;Strauss 2013;Velasco 2011). diapers rather than go to the bathroom,refused Workers may be given more tasks than can be per- legally required lunch breaks,or pressured to work formed in the allotted time,locked in the work- through them,forced to keep working after their place overnight,required to work in extreme heat shift is up,or denied the right to read or turn on air and other physically hazardous conditions,or puni- conditioning during break (Oxfam 2015;Bennett- tively isolated from other coworkers (Greenhouse Smith 2012;Egelko 2011;Greenhouse 2009,3- 2009.26-2749-55,89,111-112:Hsu2011:JOM0 12;Little 2013;Vega 2012).Other employers have 2013;Urbina 2013).Managers may pressure em- forced their workers to stay home rather than go ployees into unwanted political behavior(Hertel- out on weekends or to switch churches and al- Fernandez 2015).In all of these cases,managers ter religious practices on pain of being fired and 15.501 are exercising legally permitted prerogatives.14 The deported (Garrison,Bensinger,and Singer-Vine law does not require that workers have any formal 2015).In these cases,employers are not exercising say in how those powers are exercised.In fact,in legal prerogatives,they are instead taking advan- in3黑ea8s tage of the material power that comes with threat- ening to fire or otherwise discipline workers.This ordination in the strict sense:workers are subject material power to get workers to do things that em- to the will of the employer. ployers want is in part a function of the class struc- Delegation:There are also other discretionary le- ture of society,both in the wide sense of workers gal powers that managers have not by legal statute being asymmetrically dependent on owners,and in or precedent but because workers have voluntar- the narrower sense of workers being legally subor- ily delegated these powers in the contract.For dinate to employers. instance,workers might sign a contract that al- lows managers to require employees to submit Subordination,delegation,and dependence add up eys to random drug testing or unannounced searches to a form of interpersonal oppression that employers (American Civil Liberties Union 2017).In the and their managers have over their employees.The weight and scope of this oppression will vary,but those 12 The one book-length study of managerial prerogatives is Storey are variations on a theme.Employers and managers en- (2014).On the "core of entrepreneurial control"see Atleson (1983 joy wide swaths of uncontrolled or insufficiently con- 67-96). trolled power over their employees.This is the sec- 13 On the injustice of these"managerial prerogatives"see Stanczyk ond face of oppression in a class society and it is a (unpublished),Hsieh(2005),and Anderson(2015,2017). 14 On the sense in which the workplace is properly understood as a live issue.For instance,during the Verizon strike of tue den and a mocr the 2016,one major complaint was that,when out on the job,hanging cable,or repairing lines,some technicians United States or England (Greenberg unpublished;Rosioru 2013). had to ask their manager for permission to go to the 908

Alex Gourevitch This structural element leads to a second, interper￾sonal dimension of oppression in the workplace itself. Workers are forced to join workplaces typically char￾acterized by large swathes of uncontrolled managerial power and authority. This oppression is interpersonal in the sense that it is power that specific individuals— employers and their managers—have to get other spe￾cific individuals—employees—to do what they want. We can distinguish between three overlapping forms that this interpersonal, workplace oppression takes: subordination, delegation, and dependence. Subordination: Employers have what are some￾times called “managerial prerogatives,”12 which are legislative and judicial grants of authority to owners and their managers to make decisions about investment, hiring and firing, plant location, work process, and the like.13 These powers come from judicial precedent and from the constella￾tion of corporate, labor, contract, and property law. Managers may change working speeds and assigned tasks, the hours of work, or even force workers to spend up to an hour going through se￾curity lines after work without paying them (In￾tegrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk 2014). Man￾agers may fire workers for Facebook comments, their sexual orientation, for being too sexually ap￾pealing, or for not being appealing enough (Emer￾son 2011; Hess 2013; Strauss 2013; Velasco 2011). Workers may be given more tasks than can be per￾formed in the allotted time, locked in the work￾place overnight, required to work in extreme heat and other physically hazardous conditions, or puni￾tively isolated from other coworkers (Greenhouse 2009, 26–27, 49–55, 89, 111–112; Hsu 2011; JOMO 2013; Urbina 2013). Managers may pressure em￾ployees into unwanted political behavior (Hertel￾Fernandez 2015). In all of these cases, managers are exercising legally permitted prerogatives.14 The law does not require that workers have any formal say in how those powers are exercised. In fact, in nearly every liberal capitalist country, employees are defined, in law, as “subordinates.”15 This is sub￾ordination in the strict sense: workers are subject to the will of the employer. Delegation: There are also other discretionary le￾gal powers that managers have not by legal statute or precedent but because workers have voluntar￾ily delegated these powers in the contract. For instance, workers might sign a contract that al￾lows managers to require employees to submit to random drug testing or unannounced searches (American Civil Liberties Union 2017). In the 12 The one book-length study of managerial prerogatives is Storey (2014). On the “core of entrepreneurial control” see Atleson (1983, 67–96). 13 On the injustice of these “managerial prerogatives,” see Stanczyk (unpublished), Hsieh (2005), and Anderson (2015, 2017). 14 On the sense in which the workplace is properly understood as a place of government created by law, see Anderson (2017, 37–73). 15 This is just as true in Sweden and social democracies as it is in the United States or England (Greenberg unpublished; Rosioru 2013). United States, 18% of current employees and 37% of workers in their lifetime work under non￾compete agreements (Bunker 2016). These clauses give managers legal power to forbid workers from working for competitors. The contract that the Communications Workers of America had with Verizon until 2015 included a right for managers to force employers to perform from 10 to 15 hours of overtime per week and to take some other day instead of Saturday as an off-day (Gourevitch 2016a). These legal powers are not parts of the managerial prerogatives that all employers have. Rather, they are voluntarily delegated to employ￾ers by workers. In many cases, though the delega￾tion is in one sense voluntary, in another sense it is forced. This will especially be the case if workers, who are forced to find jobs, can only find jobs in sectors where the only contracts available are ones that require these kinds of delegations. Dependence: Finally, managers might have the material power to force employees to submit to commands or even to accept violations of their rights because of the worker’s dependence on the employer. A headline example is wage-theft, which affects American workers to the tune of $8– $14 billion per year (Eisenbray 2015; Judson and Francisco-McGuire 2012; NELP 2013; Axt 2013). In other cases, workers have been forced to wear diapers rather than go to the bathroom, refused legally required lunch breaks, or pressured to work through them, forced to keep working after their shift is up, or denied the right to read or turn on air conditioning during break (Oxfam 2015; Bennett￾Smith 2012; Egelko 2011; Greenhouse 2009, 3– 12; Little 2013; Vega 2012). Other employers have forced their workers to stay home rather than go out on weekends or to switch churches and al￾ter religious practices on pain of being fired and deported (Garrison, Bensinger, and Singer-Vine 2015). In these cases, employers are not exercising legal prerogatives, they are instead taking advan￾tage of the material power that comes with threat￾ening to fire or otherwise discipline workers. This material power to get workers to do things that em￾ployers want is in part a function of the class struc￾ture of society, both in the wide sense of workers being asymmetrically dependent on owners, and in the narrower sense of workers being legally subor￾dinate to employers. Subordination, delegation, and dependence add up to a form of interpersonal oppression that employers and their managers have over their employees. The weight and scope of this oppression will vary, but those are variations on a theme.Employers and managers en￾joy wide swaths of uncontrolled or insufficiently con￾trolled power over their employees. This is the sec￾ond face of oppression in a class society and it is a live issue. For instance, during the Verizon strike of 2016, one major complaint was that, when out on the job, hanging cable, or repairing lines, some technicians had to ask their manager for permission to go to the 908 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000321

The Right to Strike bathroom or to get a drink of water.As one striker said subject to dominating authority,and made asymmet- in an interview,"Do I have to tell my boss every single rically dependent in the economy does not produce minute of what I am doing?This is basic human dig- a fair way of distributing the obligation to work and nity"(Gourevitch 2016b).If they did not ask or wait to the rewards of social production.Rather,it constrains get clear approval from their manager,then they were their freedom in a way that secures the exploitation of guilty of a time code violation and were suspended for one class by another.The weight of these different op- up to six weeks.The strike made workplace control a pressions is unevenly experienced across different seg- direct issue and one measure of its success was a change ments of workers.Various factors modify the basic facts in disciplinary proceedings(ibid.).To take another ex- about class and oppression.We have seen,for instance, ample,the Fight for $15 strikes have made control over the difference between being in a high labor supply ver- scheduling a central demand,even managing in certain sus a low labor supply sector.High labor supply sec- states and municipalities to pass laws mandating min- tors involve more intense labor competition,resulting imal regularity and predictability in weekly schedules in weaker bargaining power for workers and intensified (Andrias2016,47-70). oppression.The opposite holds for lower labor sup- So,if the first face of oppression is that workers are ply sectors-like software programmers or fiber-optics forced to work for some employer or another who technicians-whose greater bargaining power means does not face a similar kind of forcing:the second face they face class-based oppression less intensively.This is that workers are forced to become de jure and de has downstream consequences for our analysis of par- facto subordinates to a specific employer.16 The third ticular strikes,but it does not affect the argument for face of oppression is the systematic distributive ef- the right to strike itself. fects of structural and interpersonal oppression.While My description of the economy is controversial. some instances of class-based oppression are idiosyn- Some will either reject aspects of the empirical descrip- cratic,in general it has consistent distributive effects. tion,find it too underspecified to agree,or they will The structural and interpersonal oppression of work- disagree with the normative interpretation of it as in- 4号元 ers produces wage-bargains and limits on wealth ac- volving systematic,unjustified restrictions on workers' cumulation that reproduce workers'economic depen- freedom.Any attempt to give a more detailed account dence on employers,their over or underemployment, of this political economy of exploitation would leave and thereby allows a relatively small group of owners no room for the rest of the argument.In what follows, and highly paid managers to accumulate most of the the reader does not have to agree with every aspect of wealth and income.I cannot discuss the extensive lit- my description of liberal capitalist arrangements.One erature on inequality.I can only cite some generally need only agree that the typical liberal capitalist econ- well-known facts and papers pointing to the role of in- omy is characterized by considerable,class-based op- equalities in power as determining factors in these out. pression of workers,for reasons similar to the ones I comes.17 To the degree that inequalities are a product of have just provided,to then think that the right to strike structural and workplace oppression,distributive out- can be seen as a right to resist oppression. comes are their own dimension of oppression and serve to reproduce those basic class relationships.Above all, there is one unjustifiable distributive effect of this op- THREE VERSIONS OF THE RIGHT TO STRIKE:RADICAL,SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC, pression:that the majority of wage-bargains ensure the AND LIBERAL reproduction of that oppressive class structure.At any given point in time,a majority of workers do not earn There is more than one way to justify the right to strike enough to both meet their needs and to save such that and,in so doing,to explain the shape that right ought they can employ themselves or start their own busi- to have.As we shall see,there is the liberal,the social- nesses.They must therefore remain workers or,to the democratic,and the radical account.Any justification degree they rise,they do so either by displacing others of a right must give an account not just of the interest or by taking the structurally limited number of oppor- it protects but of how that right is shaped to protect that tunities available.18 interest.In the case of the radical argument for the right Each of these different faces of oppression to strike,which I will defend against the other two con- structural,interpersonal,and distributive-is a distinct ceptions,the relevant human interest is liberty.Work- injustice.Together they form an interrelated and mutu- ers have an interest in resisting the oppression of class ally reinforcing set of oppressive relationships.The var- society by using their collective power to reduce that eys ious ways in which workers are forced to work.made oppression.Their interest is a liberty interest in a dou- ble sense.First,it is an interest in not being oppressed, 16 For a more extensive catalogue of the legal and de facto powers or in not facing certain kinds of forcing,coercion,and that employers have to command their workers in a wide range of subjection to authority that they shouldn't have to.Any matters see Maltby(2009),Greenhouse(2009),and Bertram,Goure- resistance to those kinds of unjustified limitations of vitch.and Robin (201). freedom carries with it,at least implicitly,a demand The most famous work is,of course,Thomas Piketty's,although the for liberties not yet enjoyed.19 That is a demand for a social determinants of the inequality he discovers are hotly debated control over portions of one's life that one does not yet (Piketty 2014,237-76).See also Saez and Zucman 2014:Mohun 2014 orthe ee wrkerniduly tee but collee- 19 David Borman makes a similar and important argument for tively unfree to leave his or her class position,see Cohen(1988b). the right to strike as a version of the "right of justification"or 909

The Right to Strike bathroom or to get a drink of water. As one striker said in an interview, “Do I have to tell my boss every single minute of what I am doing? This is basic human dig￾nity” (Gourevitch 2016b). If they did not ask or wait to get clear approval from their manager, then they were guilty of a time code violation and were suspended for up to six weeks. The strike made workplace control a direct issue and one measure of its success was a change in disciplinary proceedings (ibid.). To take another ex￾ample, the Fight for $15 strikes have made control over scheduling a central demand, even managing in certain states and municipalities to pass laws mandating min￾imal regularity and predictability in weekly schedules (Andrias 2016, 47–70). So, if the first face of oppression is that workers are forced to work for some employer or another who does not face a similar kind of forcing; the second face is that workers are forced to become de jure and de facto subordinates to a specific employer.16 The third face of oppression is the systematic distributive ef￾fects of structural and interpersonal oppression. While some instances of class-based oppression are idiosyn￾cratic, in general it has consistent distributive effects. The structural and interpersonal oppression of work￾ers produces wage-bargains and limits on wealth ac￾cumulation that reproduce workers’ economic depen￾dence on employers, their over or underemployment, and thereby allows a relatively small group of owners and highly paid managers to accumulate most of the wealth and income. I cannot discuss the extensive lit￾erature on inequality. I can only cite some generally well-known facts and papers pointing to the role of in￾equalities in power as determining factors in these out￾comes.17 To the degree that inequalities are a product of structural and workplace oppression, distributive out￾comes are their own dimension of oppression and serve to reproduce those basic class relationships. Above all, there is one unjustifiable distributive effect of this op￾pression: that the majority of wage-bargains ensure the reproduction of that oppressive class structure. At any given point in time, a majority of workers do not earn enough to both meet their needs and to save such that they can employ themselves or start their own busi￾nesses. They must therefore remain workers or, to the degree they rise, they do so either by displacing others or by taking the structurally limited number of oppor￾tunities available.18 Each of these different faces of oppression— structural, interpersonal, and distributive—is a distinct injustice. Together they form an interrelated and mutu￾ally reinforcing set of oppressive relationships. The var￾ious ways in which workers are forced to work, made 16 For a more extensive catalogue of the legal and de facto powers that employers have to command their workers in a wide range of matters see Maltby (2009),Greenhouse (2009), and Bertram,Goure￾vitch, and Robin (2012). 17 The most famous work is, of course,Thomas Piketty’s, although the social determinants of the inequality he discovers are hotly debated (Piketty 2014, 237–76). See also Saez and Zucman 2014;Mohun 2014; Song et al. 2015; Barth et al. 2014; Mishel and Davis 2015. 18 For the sense in which each worker is individually free but collec￾tively unfree to leave his or her class position, see Cohen (1988b). subject to dominating authority, and made asymmet￾rically dependent in the economy does not produce a fair way of distributing the obligation to work and the rewards of social production. Rather, it constrains their freedom in a way that secures the exploitation of one class by another. The weight of these different op￾pressions is unevenly experienced across different seg￾ments of workers.Various factors modify the basic facts about class and oppression. We have seen, for instance, the difference between being in a high labor supply ver￾sus a low labor supply sector. High labor supply sec￾tors involve more intense labor competition, resulting in weaker bargaining power for workers and intensified oppression. The opposite holds for lower labor sup￾ply sectors—like software programmers or fiber-optics technicians—whose greater bargaining power means they face class-based oppression less intensively. This has downstream consequences for our analysis of par￾ticular strikes, but it does not affect the argument for the right to strike itself. My description of the economy is controversial. Some will either reject aspects of the empirical descrip￾tion, find it too underspecified to agree, or they will disagree with the normative interpretation of it as in￾volving systematic, unjustified restrictions on workers’ freedom. Any attempt to give a more detailed account of this political economy of exploitation would leave no room for the rest of the argument. In what follows, the reader does not have to agree with every aspect of my description of liberal capitalist arrangements. One need only agree that the typical liberal capitalist econ￾omy is characterized by considerable, class-based op￾pression of workers, for reasons similar to the ones I have just provided, to then think that the right to strike can be seen as a right to resist oppression. THREE VERSIONS OF THE RIGHT TO STRIKE: RADICAL, SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC, AND LIBERAL There is more than one way to justify the right to strike and, in so doing, to explain the shape that right ought to have. As we shall see, there is the liberal, the social￾democratic, and the radical account. Any justification of a right must give an account not just of the interest it protects but of how that right is shaped to protect that interest. In the case of the radical argument for the right to strike, which I will defend against the other two con￾ceptions, the relevant human interest is liberty. Work￾ers have an interest in resisting the oppression of class society by using their collective power to reduce that oppression. Their interest is a liberty interest in a dou￾ble sense. First, it is an interest in not being oppressed, or in not facing certain kinds of forcing, coercion, and subjection to authority that they shouldn’t have to.Any resistance to those kinds of unjustified limitations of freedom carries with it, at least implicitly, a demand for liberties not yet enjoyed.19 That is a demand for a control over portions of one’s life that one does not yet 19 David Borman makes a similar and important argument for the right to strike as a version of the "right of justification" or 909 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Shanghai JiaoTong University, on 26 Oct 2018 at 03:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000321