The use of sit down strikes in the early 1900s was

A sit-down strike is a labour strike and a form of civil disobedience in which an organized group of workers, usually employed at factories or other centralized locations, take unauthorized or illegal possession of the workplace by "sitting down" at their stations.

The attraction of the tactic is that it prevents employers from replacing them with strikebreakers or removing equipment to transfer production to other locations. Neal Ascherson has commented that an additional attraction is that it emphasizes the role of workers in providing for the people and allows workers to in effect hold valuable machinery hostage as a bargaining chip.[1][verification needed]

Workers have used the technique since the beginning of the 20th century in countries such as United States, Italy, Poland, Croatia, and France. However, sit-down strikes are now uncommon.