[james-skemp]

I thought the same thing as they. From the article:

"The strike, which is not authorized by the union that represents the graduate student employees, is in violation of the current bargaining agreement, the university said."

It's not clear that the union authorized it, despite what they're quoted as saying further down the article.

I don't know enough about unions to know whether they could authorize a strike after not explicitly authorizing initially.

It reads like the union didn't authorize the strike, but was fine seeing what would happen/causing a reaction.

[scarmig]

At the legal level, unions are obligated to prevent wildcat strikes. That's why people talk about a grand bargain between labor and capital happening mid century: unions would channel labor conflict into a bureaucratic process, and in return capital would agree in principle to negotiate with the union.

In practice, union bureaucrats really dislike wildcat strikes. They dissipate the negotiating power of the union; they basically show the entire hand of the union's most powerful weapon, at a time the union views as suboptimal. And it's usually the threat of a strike, not the strike itself, that companies are more scared of: a company highy desires to avoid a disruption, but if it's already in progress, they don't have an incentive to negotiate unless the union has a really strong hand.

[cardiffspaceman]

I wonder if the union seriously considered a strike or not. I read the article but I missed anything that indicated deliberation over the striker's cause on the part of the union. In the grand bargain the union has to refrain from merging with management or else it is illegitimate.

[scarmig]

Probably not, because the strikers obviously had no leverage. The union officials knew exactly how this would go down, and they accurately believed that more subtle means of pressure would allow the workers to maximize their benefit.

[zdragnar]

Why would the union strike? The wages were exactly what they had bargained for, and the majority had voted in favor of. It isn't like they were working without a contract.

[kaikai]

There is a no-strike clause in their contract, so they couldn’t have had an official strike.