# The 2026 strike wave

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The 2026 strike wave," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-strike-wave/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The proliferation of American strikes in early 2026, from Minneapolis to the Southern California ports, which John Kiriakou raised alongside a February reversal in the job market and the question of whether union membership was rising after years of decline. The economist Richard D. Wolff's answer placed it in the ordinary rhythm of capitalist downturns and ended on employers squeezing workers who were, he said, beginning to really fight back.*

- **Where Kiriakou saw strikes:** From Minneapolis to the Southern California ports
- **The labour-market signal:** February 2026 showed significant job losses, reversing previous months
- **The open question:** Whether union membership was rising after years of decline
- **Wolff's frame:** Capitalism has a downturn every four to seven years — 'It's 2026, we're due'
- **His closing line:** Employers are squeezing workers 'who are beginning, interestingly, to really fight back'

**The 2026 strike wave** is the spread of American industrial action that [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) raised with the economist [Richard D. Wolff](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/richard-wolff) in April 2026, together with a turn in the labour market.

## What Kiriakou put to him

Kiriakou's framing joined three things. February had *"showed significant job losses, and that was a real reversal from previous months,"* and he asked for a six-month forecast. Into that he folded *"the role of the proliferation of strikes from from Minneapolis to the to the Southern California ports,"* and what impact the strikes might have *"on rising union membership after years and years of decline, on wages, and on an economic recovery."*[1]

## The answer he got

Wolff did not treat the strikes as the starting point. His answer began with periodicity: capitalism, *"wherever it has settled, has had an economic downturn, on average, every 4 to 7 years"* — an average, so sometimes above and sometimes below.[2] The names change and the phenomenon does not: the dot-com crash in the spring of 2000, the subprime mortgage crash in 2008 and 2009, the Covid-19 crash in 2020. *"Well, do the math. It's 2026, we're due."*[3]

Added to the schedule were two shocks — the tariff regime and what he called the oil energy explosion — and on that basis he expected a downturn, noting that here he agreed with the head of JP Morgan Chase, *"with whom I don't agree on anything else."* If the war resumed, *"then all bets are off,"* and the comparison he reached for was 1929 to 1940: eleven years, unemployment peaking at 25 per cent, six times the rate at the time of the interview.[4][5]

The strikes entered his answer at the end, as a reaction rather than a cause. Fear of the coming downturn, and the beginning of adjustment to it, was *"provoking employers to squeeze the workers who are beginning, interestingly, to really fight back."*[6]

## See also

- [Richard D. Wolff](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/richard-wolff)
- [Trump tariffs](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/trump-tariffs)
- [2026 Iran war economic shock](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-iran-war-economic-shock)
- [United Food and Commercial Workers](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/united-food-and-commercial-workers)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 28:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1702s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/
2. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 28:54. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1734s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/
3. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 29:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1766s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/
4. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 29:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1798s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/
5. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 30:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1829s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/
6. Europe Is Running Out of Fuel w/ Richard Wolff (2026-04-17), at 31:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffVtXOhGXY&t=1863s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-17-the-deep-focus-show-europe-is-running-out-of-fuel-w-richard-wolff/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-strike-wave/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt