While global capitalism has remained in the grip of a series of multi-dimensional and intertwined crises (including ongoing economic malaise, legacy of Covid, escalating impact of climate change, intensification of wars in different parts of the world – such as Ukraine, Palestine, and Africa –, the geopolitical crisis between Russia, China, and the West, and the mounting debt crisis in the Global South), the past three years have also seen a welcome resurgence of strike action and social conflicts in many different countries around the world.

With the onset of the global financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century there had already been a comeback of strikes and labour struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as a series of strikes against austerity in Western Europe. While the level of workers’ resistance was generally not sustained for long, there were elements of the global crisis that continued to create widespread anger and radicalisation, with an increasing political generalisation about the capitalist system and the problems it creates, particularly amongst young people shaped by social movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the Climate Action movement.

More recently, there was also a new upsurge of angry and defiant strike movements at varying levels of intensity and momentum in numerous countries, with workers rediscovering their power when they take collective action.

The revival of such strike activity has contributed to an undermining of the long predominant view that such action was no longer feasible due to widespread structural changes in the composition of the working class towards ‘precarious’, insecure and fragmented work contexts that make trade unionism and collective action near impossible.