The 1974 Baltimore municipal strike was a strike action undertaken by different groups of municipal workers. It was initiated by waste collectors seeking higher wages and better conditions. They were joined by sewer workers, zookeepers, prison guards, highway workers, recreation & parks workers, animal control workers, abandoned vehicles workers, and eventually by police officers. Trash piled up during the strike, and, especially with diminished police enforcement, many trash piles were set on fire. City jails were also a major site for unrest.

The Baltimore strike was prominent within a wave of public sector strikes across the United States. All of the striking workers were members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a relatively radical and expanding national union. AFSCME President Jerry Wurf attained national notoriety for allegedly urging workers to "let Baltimore burn" if their demands were not met.

In the 1960s, a combination of civil rights struggles, white flight, and the loss of manufacturing jobs led Baltimore's African American population to gain an increasing share of the city's public sector jobs. However, many of these jobs did not pay a living wage, and the workers were not allowed to unionize until after the turbulent events of spring 1968 (see Memphis Sanitation Strike and Baltimore riot of 1968).

The city itself, losing many tax-paying residents to the suburbs, was already suffering from budget shortfalls and beginning to shift toward privatization of services. The 1971 election of Mayor William Donald Schaefer consolidated this trend and signaled the erosion of what small gains in black control had already been won.

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