OVER the last year, we have seen a general decline in the large national strike action taken by trade unions. We are very far away from the huge national action across sectors we experienced during the 2022-23 “strike wave,” a period of action that saw more than 170,000 workplaces reported as taking strike action, according to our report launched in December 2024.

Despite a period of “settling in” for this Labour government, with many unions welcoming access to ministers, and the progression of the employment rights Bill, industrial action and workers’ struggle continue.

The Sheffield bin strikers have just passed a year of action in their bid for recognition from Veolia. Strike Map itself has spent time and resources in supporting the nationally important Birmingham bin strike, which has been on all-out action for the last six months.

Even within our NHS, we have seen long, difficult disputes. I am not just talking about the resident doctors’ dispute, but more locally in Gloucestershire, the incredible phlebotomists have managed over 150 days of strike action.

I mention these actions as these more localised disputes don’t often grab the same headlines and coverage as the big national disputes with the government. Throughout the data we collected in 2022-23, as Dr Andy Hodder and Dr Stephen Mustchin, the authors of our first-ever report, show, these smaller strike actions continue to be important and need to be understood and supported throughout our movement.

With the decline in national action and the change in government, this has meant a change in how Strike Map, as a project, views itself. For without strikes, what is Strike Map?

Well, the experience of 2025 shows us that Strike Map is a project that has the potential to encourage, generate, and co-ordinate solidarity. More than a digital map: a mobiliser of mass solidarity activity.

It will be no secret to readers of this paper of the national importance of the Birmingham bin strike, which has seen workers facing cuts of £8,000 and above, implemented by government-backed commissioners, and a central government committed to not reversing austerity, especially in local government.

These workers are not just facing a council, a group of commissioners, but a minister, Angela Rayner MP, who would rather spend more time in City Hall discussing strike breaking than on the pickets with the workers this government is supposed to champion.

This dispute continues to rumble on, and these workers have been incredible, leading over six months of all-out action. We began supporting these workers by fundraising, selling £1 “I support the Birmingham bin strike” badges as designed by Football Lads and Lasses Against Fascism for the 2017 dispute.

In a few days, we raised £1,000, and in a week, £2,000. As we packed our bags to go and meet the strikers to deliver our small contribution of solidarity, we felt good about moving our digital project into the real world.

It was our arrival at the picket lines on the morning of meeting strikers at Lifford Lane that we were reminded of the most important thing. Not money, not posts on social media, but turning up.

For hours, we spoke to workers, we heard about the impact of these cuts and what it meant to their families, and the strong resilience and resistance to these cuts.

Workers described how they saw Birmingham Council as going after every worker if it wins this one, that other councils would follow suit — especially those run by Reform UK. So, while the money was gratefully received, we knew we had to do something bigger, something more.

That is why we began planning with others across the movement: Megapicket 1 (May 9 2025), and Megapicket 2 (July 25 2025). This is not a new idea. Large-scale mass pickets have been written throughout our history. If workers can support each other to win, we build a more powerful movement, a stronger class, that sees our future in more action, that can recruit, develop and train generations of activists, rebuilding membership and relevance.

Despite the media littered with general secretaries making fools of each news outlet, one at a time, and historic levels of support for trade unions (YouGov and other polls showed at the time), the 2022-23 strike wave saw very little solidarity action and co-ordinated action at a time when it was most needed and possible.

Facing down a hugely unpopular Tory government, the union movement was provided with an opportunity and helpful conditions to act together and show the power of the movement once again.

Something you would want to join and be a part of. An answer to our systemic decline, not recruitment events with stress toys or trolley coins, but working-class power, a united front that can improve your life.

Today, we are supporting our national affiliate Aslef at their solidarity rally in Hull, after one of their members was sacked for raising health and safety concerns, leading to 73 days of action and counting. This dispute, like Sheffield and Gloucester, fits into that localised, long and bitter category I discussed above.

So, while it is not the same as the Birmingham Megapickets we have organised, we have encouraged and promoted the movement to show up today and show Hull Trains, like Birmingham Council, that our movement will stand you down.

To help with this rally, we have co-ordinated a letter signed by 30 trade union general secretaries, which warns the employer their actions “could damage safety culture across the rail industry,” and vows to “use the full power and ‘weight’ of our movement to make sure Hull Trains is held to account for these actions.”

This visible, public commitment to uniting around Aslef and taking on just one employer could be replicated across all disputes. This level of solidarity in person at the rally and union leaderships using their structural power to rebalance class forces in workers’ favour is important.

While we face a slow-growth economy, rising inflation, and a government that refuses to take the decisions needed to deliver their promise to “make work pay,” there is a chance the horizon sees fewer coffee mornings with ministers and more disputes and ballots for national action.

It is our hope that building solidarity during a period of reduced national action will mean that when we reach a period of national action by multiple unions in the future, we will be better placed to take that action together, build a force of power that can win for all workers.

The reality is, we may not have to wait that long. The Royal College of Nurses is continuing to discuss its rejection of the latest government offer for nursing, and the BMA resident doctors are fresh from another round of action (with other groups of BMA members in the process of balloting), and the PCS is engaged in multiple disputes with the government, and the recent announcement that RMT will be taking action on London Underground shows that larger national action could be closer than you think.

Today, we target Hull Trains, but make no mistake, we are putting all employers on notice. Mass solidarity action is back; the movement is coming for you.

Henry Fowler is co-founder of Strike Map (strikemap.org).