It is appalling for most people to know that what is famously given the label of ‘the land of the free’, does not allow its public sector employees to strike. The basic right to channelize your dissatisfaction cannot take the form of strikes which are, by the way, allowed to private sector employees. It’s not just that it’s not allowed, what’s shocking is that a strike by the public sector employees of the United States is deemed a crime. It is mentioned under 5 U.S.C. (1976) prohibiting an individual from holding a governmental position if he, ‘participates in a strike, or asserts the right to strike against the Government of the United States ....”.  If strikes there are not prohibited by any particular statute, they are prohibited by common law. It can appear to be confusing because private-sector employees are in fact, allowed to strike.

‘United States v. United Mine Workers’ 

The Supreme Court of the United States drew clear lines between this distinction in the case called ‘United States v. United Mine Workers’ [330 U.S. 258 (1947)].  The emergency powers provided under the ‘War Labour Disputes Act’, the government intervened in a private workmen’s dispute by ‘seizing’ affected mines and therefore, becoming its employer. The federal government called upon the judiciary’s assistance in determining the applicability of an Act called the ‘LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act’ to an interceding government employer. The Court declared that the above-mentioned Act was not applicably declaring the following:

"...there is an old and well-known rule that statutes which in general terms divest pre-existing rights or privileges [in this instance, securing injunctive relief] will not be applied to the sovereign without express words to that effect."

The Court, therefore, validated the issuance of an injunction against the striking union. This result would have been very different had it been a case where the employers were entities from a private enterprise. This case set a straight-forward precedent that declared that policies related to labour which are prevalent in the private sector are not applicable in the public sector. The judgement explains why the ‘Norris-LaGuardia Act’ is important for the workers’ freedom of ‘association, self-organization and designation of representatives’ and ends it with the following lines : 

“These considerations, on their face, obviously do not apply to the Government as an employer or relations between the Government and its employees.”

The case mentioned as mentioned above illustrates the legal consequences of treating industry and its employees as inhuman tools of progress. When the government seized the coal mines from a private entity and turned it into a public enterprise, the nature and functioning of coal mines remained the same. But what the change in ownership did was drastically harm the rights of the workers who were working in the very same establishment. Later on, the government did return the coal mines to the private entity but it is indeed a curious distinction that exists because of this precedent that has been moulded over the years.