Industrial action (UK, Ireland and Australia) or job action (Canada and US) refers collectively to any measure taken by trade unions or other organised labour meant to reduce productivity in a workplace. Quite often it is used and interpreted as a euphemism for strike, but the scope is much wider. Industrial action may take place in the context of a labour dispute or may be meant to effect political or social change. Specifically industrial action may include one or more of the following:
- Strike
- Occupation of factories
- Work-to-rule
- General strike
- Slowdown (or Go-slow)
- Overtime ban
Famous quotes containing the words industrial and/or action:
“I know no East or West, North or South, when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice. If it is my fortune to live to see the industrial chain broken from every workingman’s child in America, and if then there is one black child in Africa in bondage, there shall I go.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“This nation asks for action, and action now.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)