The big picture: Workers are harder to come by, possibly giving employees more leverage for demands. That could be one reason why strikes, while rebounding, are still well below pre-pandemic levels.

But some employers aren’t bending first, causing enough of a stalemate to invite strikes in the first place.

The bottom line: Workers — fed up that employers’ pandemic-era boom times aren’t translating into better pay, benefits and working conditions — are hitting the picket lines.

“Kellogg is making record profits. The executives are reaping the benefits off our backs,” Daniel Osborn, a maintenance planner at Kellogg’s Omaha, Nebraska, plant told Axios last week.