Labor strikes within America were somewhat common events in our history with some being successful, some not, some being violent, some not, but through it all labor strikes were part of the American fabric from the late nineteenth century to the infamous steel labor strike of 1959. While there have been strikes since 1959, the decline of labor power has been consistent since that time, as reported by prospect.org that: "In the early 1950s, one out of three American workers belonged to them, four out of ten in the private sector. Today, only 11.8 percent of American workers are union members; in the private sector, just 6.9 percent." The decline of labor power within American has been precipitous, unprecedented, and ultimately incredibly damaging to labor, wages, benefits, job, and to all the common people that aspire to achieve the American dream.
The fact of the matter is, many people complain about their wages, and complain about their work hours, and complain about their benefits, and complain about the way that they are treated, yet they continue to work as a suffering servant, mainly because one way or another, they need some sort of wage in order to try to make their way in the world, and something is certainly better than nothing. The most significant issue with those that are unhappy with their wages, especially in jobs which are considered to be readily interchangeable from one person to another, is that they as an individual, have in essence, absolutely no bargaining power, in that no matter what that they say to their Manager or to management, they that control their wages, know that that particular person is probably very easy to replace. This means that on an individual level it is almost futile to believe that you can negotiate for yourself a better wage package, and furthermore, even though there may be other jobs available for you, the job conditions at those places of employment, will be eerily the same.
As the old saying goes, there is strength in numbers, and there is strength too in having a union represent you as well as your fellow workers in negotiations with corporations. Quite frankly, even the very best employees are often unskilled in negotiating for themselves a better pay package, simply because they do not possess that sort of initiative or confrontational mindset. In today's world, there are millions of jobs that simply do not pay well, and will not in the future pay well, and that are currently occupied by non-union employees. It is these jobs that cry out for union representation, because of the sheer size of the labor force and also the fact that in aggregate the labor numbers involved are truly humongous.
The fact that jobs with McDonald's, Yum! Brands, Wal-Mart, and Target have very little union representation is no strange coincidence but is part and parcel of the corporate mentality of each of these behemoths. Look, it makes all the sense in the world, for these massive corporations to not desire nor want union representation at their respective companies because their overriding objective is to make money for the executives and the stockholders of each company, and labor is an important cost component that they wish to suppress in cost. That does not mean, however, that this viewpoint is either fair, or right, because it isn't. These big organizations have their labor force over a barrel, with the only real hope for such a large labor force is in uniting into one strong organization and then truly having a seat at the table to negotiate fairly with management.
As it stands today, because these workers are non-union, there isn't a real option to go on strike, because there is no collective agreement amongst all of these laborers, nor is there one central laboring body designated to negotiate for them. Today, we will occasionally see an organized one-day strike which while having symbolic importance, doesn't really change a thing. Additionally, there is the cry for "Fight for 15", but that fight often lacks the power and teeth that only a real united labor force can provide.
There aren't any labor strikes today, mainly because labor has been divided and conquered, so that what you often have is the lowest paid workers fighting amongst themselves for the right to simply have a job, no matter the pay.