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Strikes and Lockouts

Map No. 358

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This map shows people involved in labour disputes that were tackled either by employees withholding their labour (a strike), or by employers preventing employees from working (a lock-out). That halting labour can work as a protest from both employees and employers demonstrates part of the mutual dependence of these groups.

Between 1980 and 1995 on average 13.5 million participated in strikes and lock-outs each year. The territories with the most participants were China, India, Spain and Australia. The highest rates were in Guyana, Israel and Azerbaijan. In most territories some workers now have some right to strike - although they can suffer severely if they do withdraw their labour.

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito." unknown, undated

Territory size shows the proportion of all people participating in a strike or lock-out that occurred there between 1980 and 1995.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page