Is it Permissible to Go on Strike?

In the Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra (page 8b), the words of the Tosefta are brought: "The residents of a city are permitted to establish regulations regarding measurements, prices, and workers' wages, and to penalize those who violate them." This means that city residents are allowed to decide together to enact regulations on social and economic matters, and they may also punish those who violate these regulations with monetary fines and the like.

The Rama ruled similarly (in Choshen Mishpat, section 2) that in all such matters, we follow the custom of the city, even in cases where some city residents might suffer losses as a result.

Based on this, Maran Rabbeinu Ovadia Yosef (in Responsa Yechaveh Da'at, vol. 4, section 48) wrote that leaders of professional unions are permitted to use strikes as a tool to increase wages or improve working conditions and the like, as is common practice today. He brought support for this custom from several sources in the words of our Sages. He cited the Rashba's responsa (vol. 4, section 185), which states that if all practitioners of a particular craft in a city—such as butchers, dyers, sailors, and the like—agree on matters related to their profession with one consensus according to what seems right in their eyes, their agreement is valid according to Torah law. They can penalize anyone who violates their agreement as they see fit, because any group in one profession is considered like a city unto itself. (If there is an important Torah scholar among them who did not agree to their regulations, their agreement has no validity, as explained in the Talmud.)

Maran concluded that the country's custom of using strikes in factories and government institutions has valid basis. This excludes matters involving life and death, such as service in hospitals

and the like.

In other words, doctors and nurses are forbidden from initiating sanctions that could cause health damage to the public. They must deliberate together on how to protest without harming the public that needs their services. However, other laborers and workers who feel they have been wronged in their employment conditions are permitted to initiate sanctions and strikes to improve their situation.