cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
I’m all for protesting in any way possible but a general strike in three days seems really ambitious. Most strikes take months to arrange since people will need to stock up on food and household items or they risk the strike ending before the strikers get their demands.
These kinds of strikes are intended to be short term, it’s a single day strike. It’s not about stopping work until demands are met, yet. It’s about proving to those in charge that there are enough people in agreement that the next step will be much more costly if things don’t change.
Sometimes they are smart enough to get the message, other times they either think they’re smarter because they are narcissistic or inherently will win because of money.
At this level though if you actually manage to coordinate an effective strike day, what you usually end up with is hundreds or thousands of smaller organizations that can’t survive and prolonged strike siding with the strikers and getting changes made, because the cockweasels at the top still rely on the smaller companies they stepped on to get there.
That’s how I see this as well. It’s a shot across the bow much like the one day strike in MN.
Many people in the US have no experience participating in this sort of thing. I hope that this is a wake up call for the citizenry as much as for the corporations and oligarchs running the country.
The problem with a “shot across the bow” is that to the enemy it can just look like you are missing and wasting ammo.
Yes, a warning shot does rely somewhat on the intelligence of the opponent. But that is their problem.
In this analogy, though, if you even get 10% participation in a one-day cessation of economic activity, that is something the companies and therefore the governments notice. It is not something they want to repeat, or get more popular participation. It is in fact better than a warning shot in that respect. It is an attack on the money.
I think you are ascribing a lot more importance to 10% than economists and capitalists do.
Nearly 60% of of day to day spending is by the top percentage of the wealthiest. I am trying to be a realist here. The bottom 60% of Americans make up about 20% of the spending, 10% participation would be about a 4% change in profit which recent Tariffs have been higher and more impactful.
It is not a good idea to keep purposefully missing while the enemy isn’t wasting their shots. Cause they are landing most of theirs.You’re talking about a boycott. A strike is people refusing to work
And yet most of the comments in here are talking about doctors appointments and going out for dinner. I am confusing it but it seems I’m not alone in that.
We are not in the right crowd to organize a strike, which would be better with actual business owners involved, but I understand we should get what we can.
Why is it so bad to take an honest look at what we are trying to accomplish and our methodology? I thought Lemmy liked science and actual data. I’m peer reviewing this so we can adjust the methodology and try to focus better.
I want to succeed I am just not gonna pretend we get there without effort.
As far as I understood it’s supposed to be a one day strike but repeating every friday which is a great way to build up the necessary momentum.
How much food do you need to eat in 24 hours that this is a concern for you?
That’s not the concern. A 24 hour strike isn’t a strike. That’s a protest. Most strike last for days or weeks because you want to get something out of the strike.
A general strike doesn’t last for weeks. A strike and a general striker different things.
Striking workers are trying to change business decision, but if everyone participates in a general strike it causes enough damage in a day that it’s effective. The threat is you’ll do it again if things don’t improve.
A general strike doesn’t last for weeks.
A Finnish general strike in 1956 lasted for 20 days.
In 1905 the strike lasted 7–9 days depending on the city, and the shortest one we’ve had was 6 days.
What’s the point? Anything you delay doing that day we will made up with spending in the future.
These strikes don’t really work. If you’re stocking up in anticipation then you’re not really striking because you still contributed a day earlier.
A better option would to just go local.
General strikes are illegal in the US. The people coordinating them could be arrested. Also, jobs can fire workers on the spot for participating in them, even if the workers are part of a union and the union want to participate. There are no protections for this. Not to mention, national guards have been sent in to shut down general strikes in the past. There’s a reason they never happen. The likelihood of one ever succeeding is highly unlikely considering the current situation. Doing it multiple days? You realize most people live paycheck to paycheck? Nobody wants to tell their kids they’re going to be homeless.
General strikes are illegal in the US.
It’s not illegal to strike on a date with other people. It’s illegal for unions to call for a “general strike” because it’s considered them calling a strike on behalf of other non-union employees for other businesses.
Also, jobs can fire workers on the spot for participating in them
Not always, (though yes, it would probably be likely for many people) since they can use things like sick/vacation days conveniently timed right, or if they’re backed up by a union, they might have a contract that helps to prevent at-will firing without certain specific causes, excluding striking.
However, if enough people strike, it’s kind of hard to enforce coming into work via firings, as it’s similar to if an entire unionized company goes on strike. What are you gonna do? Fire every single worker and shut down for good the next day because the only person running every single operation is the remaining CEO?
even if the workers are part of a union and the union want to participate.
As long as the union doesn’t say “this is a general strike” and just says “we are striking on this date for better working conditions”, and that date happens to be the same day other unions are striking, it’s legal. There is no law preventing different unions from striking on the same dates, and it would take very long for any legal process to try and make that claim before the strike has already occurred.
national guards have been sent in to shut down general strikes in the past.
This is the most likely outcome in my opinion. However, it’s still kind of hard to actually enforce the end of a general strike. It’s one thing to arrest someone, or to stop them from doing a given thing, but it’s another to forcibly remove people from their homes and make them work no matter their condition or reason.
Essentially, I’m saying it’d be messy.
Doing it multiple days? You realize most people live paycheck to paycheck? Nobody wants to tell their kids they’re going to be homeless.
This is the biggest hurdle, though there is a degree to which it can be mitigated, at least for a little while. For example, there are a lot of people with backyard and community gardens, small businesses with stockpiles that are willing to support their community as we’ve seen with the current situation in Minnesota, not to mention that if the situation got bad enough you’d probably just see people stealing from their nearest billionaire-owned store because fuck it, why not screw them over more?
To clarify, I’m not like, disputing your actual overarching thesis here, or saying a general strike is easy or likely to succeed, I’m just saying it’s not entirely impossible :)
By all means, people should try. Not saying people shouldn’t. The mountain to overcome fascism isn’t going to get any smaller as we dive deeper into it. And a strike wouldn’t even have to happen in every area or even every state. It just has to happen enough to shut stuff down across the US. I just worry that most things tend to start out small and grow with time. For all of the reasons I stated, this can’t start out small. It has to start loud and strong. If it starts out small, it will get crushed in a way that scares people away from trying again.
since they can use things like sick/vacation days conveniently timed right
American workers live in such a different world. Not once in my 34 years on earth would it have occurred to me to go on sick leave or spend one of my holidays on strike. Absolutely insane.
You realize most people live paycheck to paycheck? Nobody wants to tell their kids they’re going to be homeless.
People have to realize the alternative is having their kids growing up in a fascist regime, where they can be murdered on the streets without consequences simply because some “regime official” is having a bad day.
I am not saying it’s easy but it also won’t get any more easier when people don’t act now. In the end stage people trying to resist the regime will be insta killed or worse. Now you can still talk to like minded people and organize. Tell them you want to strike but are afraid of the consequences, maybe they will offer help.
You realize most people live paycheck to paycheck?
Yes, that’s why it takes months to organize a normal strike, let alone a general strike. A one day strike isn’t a stike, it’s a protest.
The difficult thing is people need to organize it outside of work. If management gets wind of that kind of stuff, they can fire and replace any workers they know are participating long before it actually happens.
That’s highly illegal if we’re going by the NLRA.
Now whether those companies get a wrist slap for firing people in today’s political climate? That’s a different question entirely but firing someone for striking or organizing a strike has been illegal for almost a century.
In a right to work state, they don’t need to give a reason. Any rules against firings are pretty much unenforceable, and the company is considered innocent unless proven guilty.
They don’t need to give a reason but if a company fires someone who is organizing a strike and that person has been a decent employee then the labor board is going to side with the person, not the company since it’s obvious why they were fired. Amazon keeps getting in trouble for this exact thing. Which is why amazon et al are trying to get the NLRB dismantled.
Right to work laws make it so workers in a union shop don’t need to join the union.
Are you thinking of at-will employment? It’s a common mixup.
While that’s true, every state except for Montana has at-will employment. Despite that, unions often negotiate contract requirements that effectively guarantee job security. But if you live in a right to work state, chances are there isn’t even an option to join a union at your job, giving you no means of collective bargaining.
Going homeless at the same time as many others opens the possibility to make communities helping each other out (food, protection, communication).
I know, it is wishful thinking, but building such communities in a peaceful way during a general strike with enough time is better than a sudden brutal civil war scenario, I think.
You won’t get food easy if you have to fear getting shot as soon as you leave your house and they can’t run companies efficiently only with AI and MAGA workers.
That is a very short amount of time to organize a nation.
It’s also ineffective in the short term as a strike, because the rich will just wait it out. One day of slightly lower productivity isn’t going to grind things to a halt. What makes a strike powerful is that it continues until grievances are remedied. A true strike takes months or even years to organize, and it takes a lot of unionized money to keep people from going broke during an extended strike. After all, the strikers need to be able to wait out the rich and powerful. Those union dues are largely to allow the union to pay striking workers.
However, with all of this being said, this kind of thing is good for normalizing strikes. America largely doesn’t strike. But if you can establish a new normal for protests, it makes the larger things much much easier to organize in the long term.
Yeah, I guess they have to start somehow.
If people keep striking every Friday it will be noticed. Sure, it won’t be as impactful as striking every day, but it starts a good foundation to build on while having some immediate impact.
This is what I commented elsewhere. We dont even need organized strikes. We need organized tech classes to get the general public out of the hands of the technofacist oligarchy. The reason they have power is 98% of the population is addicted to x, fb, insta, and being spied on their google phones 24/7 for ad revenue and surveillance, and people are fucking stupid about technology. They have no idea the billionaire corporations glean off them from their ignorant use of their phones.
Read up. Last Friday was no purchases, this friday is no work and no purchases. This is not a short term thing (unless we decide to have a general strike with clear demands soon.
I am happy to hear it’s supposed to be a regular thing. This can lead to great momentum. Reminds me of fridays for future which became a huge worldwide movement (sadly disrupted and essentially killed by Covid).
Ysk, this isn’t a general strike. It’s a protest, at best.
It’s not a general strike if it doesn’t come from the Generél region of France. Otherwise it’s just sparkling absenteeism.
honestly where the fuck r the unions? we need them
They were captured decade ago, first by organized crime and then by the industries. Unions have never modernized for the digital age.
There has also been a huge, prolonged campaign of union busting specifically to weaken their power in these political scenarios
But that has been happening since unions first started, when they burned strikers and their families alive.
literally illegal in the US for unions to call for a general strike, its insane
It is and I wasn’t saying this in expectation of them calling for a strike right out of left field like this but unions have political weight and i haven’t seen any union leaders stepping up and speaking out in a meaningful way.
Unions are made of normal people and the normal US citizen pretends to be a millionaire thus doesn’t need to be in a union.
Also the ratio of people that want to be in a union to positions available in a union is like 1000:1
You can just join a union, they don’t have a wait list…
Tell that to all the people who’ve been on Union wait lists for years.
https://www.iww.org/membership/ It’s literally the easiest thing in the world to become a member. There’s strength in numbers, so please join.
How will this help me get off the waitlist and into a union job?
This will get you to be a union member and you will be able to bargain collectively.
The high paying jobs will come once enough people are organized in your industry. You can’t have it the other way around.
In my area the only union jobs are government employees and a few contractors that contract with the government. My wife has a union job but they’re almost impossible to get. I’ve never been able to land one.
In my area the only union jobs
what you do is join a union independently of your job
Good question. NLRB would be nice to have, too.
They should strike on a Tuesday instead.
I’m all for this. My Tuesday meetings are the most annoying.
Why?
- cause it’s generally the most productive day of the week
- to silence any voices claiming they’d only do it for the long weekend
Taco Tuesday!
Freedom Friday is the same day
Let’s get it boys and girls. I’m ready
Is it better to skip work entirely or go and just goof off? Probably the former?
Depends where you work, I suppose.
Is there no union or organization locally that you can ask? Protest isn’t an individual action, it’s a social organized action, so you ideally should get involved with local orgs or your work’s union for this
Oh, that’s an idea. Unfortunately my work has no union. Tech is full of rugged individuals.
Good moment to join a union by yourself (and/or a socialist org like the PSL) and ask or directly organize yourself together with such orgs!
finally americans doing something that works
keep striking
I don’t think it’s a good idea to put any of your information in a “protest” form…
One day “general strike”, or as we in Germany call it: “Regular Sunday”
The winter storm that pushed people inside for 2 days has more impact than a single day purchase blackout.
If a country can shrug of massive storms and fires… I just don’t know what message this is actually supposed to send.
We seem to want instant gratification to work in the real world, we want a lack of suffering and to make it as quick and easy as possible.If you have an addiction you don’t lose it in a day. In Shawshank redemption, Andy Dufresne doesnt get to leave out the front door, he has to crawl through a river of shit to come out clean the other side.
We have a river of shit to wade through, I think we need to come to terms with that.While I am pessimistic about this Friday, I also try to translate it into meaningful action.
I’ve definitely severely dropped how much “consumerist” spending I go with across the year. This includes lots of different kinds of common luxuries, and instead making use of farmer’s markets and libraries for food and entertainment. From what I have heard on a few anecdotes, the drop in spending around Christmas was significant to retailers, and should hopefully contribute to pessimism towards fascist ideology.
People are still ordering things online. Inside works (i.e. Warehouses, factories, offices) still go on.
Yes, and the people that think its a good idea to order something with same day delivery from amazon in a snow storm are probably the same ones that will ignore the call for a strike.
We have to ignore the outliers we can’t get, but we nees to understand that The System at large will ignore our outliers as well. A one day strike that has less impact than a storm physically blocking streets will be seen as an outlier.
Not a dig, but just a fact.
Yea I’m the same. I don’t understand how people think this is effective over other methods. There are just so many more options and awareness for spreading a message now. Protesting this way was born out of a time when we didn’t even have telephones. Information was entirely different. Plus with authoritarians controlling narratives, they can really control a lot of public opinion so methods need to be implemented to counter that. Just an example, I see people projecting images within cities. That’s amazing, why not organize that. Every city, projections of police executing Alex and abusing their authority. They’ll take one down but have 20 more at the ready to project it again. If we’re getting hundreds of millions in the streets, there’s got to be something else we can do than just stand around for a few hours.
I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday. But I can avoid going out for dinner or groceries.
So… you think there will be people working at your doctor’s office on a day of a General Strike? This is very entitled attitude. I mean, I get it, I am a nurse and I anticipate the general public will rely on our ethical code to ensure emergency rooms are staffed as well as the other inpatient floors so people in need for acute health care will have beds and care. However, what if we just don’t show up? There is a nurses’ strike in NYC, staff from major hospital systems are not showing up for work. There is a plethora of temporary healthcare employee agencies recruiting strike crossers – some for almost $200/hr. Why can’t those hospitals just pay their nurses? They are certainly able to pay these scabs.
I wonder if you expect the police, teachers, garbage collectors and firemen to also show up for their jobs to continue to make your life smooth and safe? That is an antithesis of a general strike’s impact. Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant, the rest of us have to carry society and humanity.
Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant
Don’t “police, teachers, garbage collectors and fireman” kinda rely on other professions to do their jobs? Why do you need to put other workers down? Pretty sure as a teacher I relied on a school bus driver to get the students to me, an HVAC guy to make sure that the building was comfortable, architects and construction workers to create the building, electricians……….
The comments you are leaving seem to me like compassion fatigue and burnout.
So… you think there will be people working at your doctor’s office on a day of a General Strike? This is very entitled attitude.
They texted me today reminding me of the session, and also reminding me that I still have to pay if I don’t show up to my appointment at this point. Also my health issue seriously needs to be addressed.
3 days notice is not a lot of time. And the doctor is holding me accountable to my side of the agreement that I made prior to this strike being announced, my only option is to pay for the treatment, whether I receive it or not. What’s with the personal attack? I said I would refrain from work, and shopping of any form. I feel like I’m doing what I can under the limited notice. I have a long workday tomorrow, but am still preparing to buy groceries after work to avoid spending anything on Friday.
Why can’t those hospitals just pay their nurses? They are certainly able to pay these scabs.
what does this have to do with 3 days notice of a one day strike? What does this have to do with your hostility directed at me?
Some of you realize your jobs are really unimportant, the rest of us have to carry society and humanity.
I am not in a great headspace mentally, and you attacking me, acting like I’m one of those people that is ignoring everything that’s going on, it’s hurtful and counter productive. I’m doing the best that I can.
Take care of yourself and do what you think is right. Judging the other posts of the person your replied to they’re just there to spread division. Don’t feed the trolls, they’re probably getting fed enough on the Russian troll farm already.
Even if the unions aren’t involved, this is a walkout/boycott, not a general strike.
There need to be actual demands before life returns to normal for the government to feel actual pressure.
It’s planned for one day which sounds less than useless. Only sustained strikes and protests are effective.
A one day general strike across the US would be an amazing achievement. If we can pull that off it’s a great place to start. Would a more sustained effort have to be planned? Probably, but being able to achieve this shows that the people are serious about this and the threat of a more sustained strike can be taken seriously.
This. Don’t forget how uncultured civil action is in the US. They literally replaced it by 2A. Buy a gun and ammo, and you never have to protest. A one day general strike would bring awareness to the OPTION of civil action to way more than we care to admit.
Exactly. We need to build these muscles and demonstrate to other would-be protesters that acting en masse is possible. Otherwise, everyone new to this just feels like they’re sticking their neck out.
If it has a set end date then it’s a party not a protest.
Yeah, not going to be effective. Make it a week, and you might turn some heads a tad.
To be effective a general strike needs to be open ended, indefinite, until demands are met. We are not there yet, organizing some smaller ones is a good practice run perhaps, but just preparing for the real one.
In 500 bc, then 350 bc or so, the plebians of Rome had general strikes, decamping to a hill and refusing work until demands were met. One was a written set of laws as the rich were just making shit up as they went. Another was getting tribunes, every tribe got one and they could veto the senate, offer sanctuary, were sacrosanct, elected to one year terms. The second general strike expanded the tribunate.
The Peoples’ tribunes are the only reason their republic lasted for 500 years. Until the imperial boomerang came back on them as well, the tactics they used warring with other peoples were brought home by their own politicians.
Some people are going to stock up the day before, completely defeating the purpose
Consider it practice.
Just saw a thing yesterday about what china calls the “kill line” it’s basically how most people are paycheck to paycheck and one expense can topple people into poverty and homeless. I’m thinking the tariffs goal was to move that line so less people can take action.
I roll my eyes that these all are on Fridays 🙄
I mean, it’s fine. Go ahead, it will help, but it’s not really a general strike. It’s a day of protest. Come on America, you don’t really get how this works. You can’t use your PTO to challenge authority. It’s the same as protesting a company by buying their product to destroy like MAGA does.
Turns out it’s hard to orchestrate hundreds of millions of people spread out over 9 millions square kilometers isn’t exactly easy to do, but I’m sure you have a better strat
Turns out it’s hard to orchestrate hundreds of millions of people
spread out over 9 millions square kilometers isn’t exactly easy to do,who are blissfully unware of anything happening around them and are comfortable sitting at home consuming media and games and don’t want to risk their jobs because they don’t have the security of community, because everyone has embraced being rugged loners as personality traits and not an obstacle to better lives.FTFY
Yes that is part of the difficulty of organizing them—that and theres many millions of those people and they are spread out. How do you reach them over such vast distances and impact them? Would love to hear how you would have achieved it?
My original comment was only to clarify that a friday protest isn’t remotely a “general strike” so I wish that outlets, forumgoers and media would stop using the term because it’s reducing the power behind the word. Actual general strikes have been performed in our modern world and have crushed governments. This isn’t doing that, and I fear too many naive people are going to think that a couple friday marches on PTO are going to make anyone in seats of power cry.
I never said it’s bad to march and protest, it IS having an impact, but by itself it won’t move anything because the people in power don’t actually care about the will of the people, if all you’re doing is saying you’re unhappy, well great. They WANT you unhappy.
I don’t know how to get hundreds of millions of Americans to understand this, neither do you. None of us do, but we can keep trying and we can keep making sure that our language isn’t getting watered down because we want to believe in things that aren’t real. This is all going to get worse before it gets better, and people will point to it and say “See? General strikes don’t work!” when we haven’t even done one yet.
Are the semantics really a hill you are gonna die on? Alright guys, go get the organizers to change all the banners to reword it so this guy is satisfied—sorry but that’s what’s needed in this moment!
I’m being snarky, but what’s your desired goal? What does success look like to you here, if people listened to you instead of calling it a 1-day general strike?
Some day in the future:
“Hey guys, we’re going to do an indefinite general strike!”
“What’s that?”
“Remember that one day thing you all did on Jan 30? It’s nothing like that!”
“Sweet! I’ll go to work then!”I don’t think you agree that the above scenario is your intended goal, so enlighten us with a corrected conversation
Nah, you’re too reactionary, I’ll pass.
Then make it a week. It starts with someone. It could start with you.
Don’t ask for a Superman. They don’t exist.
We do things as a community and a collective, its the only way it works.It can start with any one of us. I’ve started, but seems easy for me, if everyone puts in a little effort, and some of us put in a lot, we can make an impact.
It’s this, or bloodshed.
Either way, our comforts are lost. I’d rather suffer on my terms, than theirs.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a Pretti Good idea/start. But, there needs to be more, like a definded list of demands. Otherwise, it’s just an ignorable protest.
Organizations like the PSL do have lists of demands and are actively building a movement around this to gain momentum. You should check them out :)
That’s not a strike, that’s just called being unemployed.
