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.
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.
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.
General strikes are illegal
This is fucked up beyond belief. Strikes should be a right for every single worker
Apparently this just applies to unions and federal workers, though. At least as it was written in the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947. But yeah, the fact that it’s illegal for unions to call for general strikes is indeed fucked up beyond belief. Unions are an essential part of organizing strikes.
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.
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.
That is a very short amount of time to organize a nation.
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.
Oops, I didn’t realize last Friday was a no purchase day. I only spent $5 at a secondhand store, so the spirit was still there.
I bet the second hand store owner used that $5 to go and buy a baseball bat to beat up puppies and seals. You’re a monster, I hope you know that.
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.
Obviously its both
A general strike is much longer.
General strikes aren’t things you can use your PTO for to get a three-day weekend. That’s like protesting a brand by buying their product and then destroying it.
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.
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.
Good question. NLRB would be nice to have, too.
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?
No call no show sends a stronger message if you’re privileged enough to be able to do that. If not, call in sick. Or go-slow all day. Do what you can.
privileged enough to be able
My European mind can’t comprehend this. Strikes are a right for every single worker, even the most unprivileged ones (with very few exceptions for public safety reasons)
exceptions for public safety
Like nurses, firefighters… but that’s exactly fucking why you have multi-industry unions. So when nurses need a raise, engineers can strike on their behalf.
This is why every time deregulation in general comes up, I suggest we start with the Taft-Hartley act.
Holy shit, even overriding a presidential veto for that shit. Imagine if Congress had balls like that today.
The last time was with Trump
To elaborate on the situation in The Netherlands: You can only strike when certain conditions are met. In short, you use it as a final measurement to force your employer to change something if other less radical measurements were ineffective.
In this case, most employers have absolutely no influence over whatever ICE does, so I’d highly doubt a strike would be ‘allowed’ for something like this over here in The Netherlands.
It’s illegal not to show up to work? I mean on the picket line maybe. But a general strike is more about not showing up than demonstrating. What are they going to send soldiers house to house and force you to go to work at the point of a bayonet?
Employees striking illegally or unauthorized can first of all have their pay withheld (which sounds obvious, but is very rare in The Netherlands). Second of all, they can be forced to pay damages to their employer. And as an extreme measure, their employment contract may be terminated without being able to collect government unemployment benefits later.
That does all seem rather plausible ways to get fucked. If the strike was really general they couldn’t do that to everyone, but if it fizzled out they could. At least your government is not trying to create the fourth reich at the moment, albeit they are sucking enough that the 4th reich aligned far right can run as reform on fake populism and win, then all bets are off.
People who can strike should also go to places of work that people can’t and contribute to sit-ins and slowdowns.
Yeah, I’m in.
Depends where you work, I suppose.
finally americans doing something that works
keep striking
Thank you for this. Sucks the local chapters are primarily organized on discord. Seems pretty risky that they could all be shut down in one fell swoop.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to put any of your information in a “protest” form…
I own my own very very very small business (its me, my wife, my sister-in-law and a friend in another state) - what’s the consensus on what we should be doing for things like this? Do I strike myself?
You close down for the day and don’t buy anything. It’s quite clearly spelled out: No work. No school. No shopping.
Any other questions?
Simple yes would have sufficed.
Your business does not create money from nowhere. You buy things, and you sell things. You are part of a bigger economy, and you are striking that.
That’s fair just seems like your anger is misdirected at people who want to help. Most info is framed for W9s. I felt I was asking a legitimate question.
I suppose the any other questions bit was unnecessary, but I was trying to point out that it was listed in the post in a rather humorous way. I apologize because it does sound a bit snarkier than intended. Sorry.
No worries I do appreciate the response
In your defense, it’s kind of a dumb question. Whether you own your business or not, if you’re trying to participate, you don’t work. It’s that simple… (Sorry if you see this, OP)
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.
One day “general strike”, or as we in Germany call it: “Regular Sunday”
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.
Should also add to not use any social media platforms at all too.
I’ll check here to see if everyone is off…
Last I checked lemmy isnt a corporate shithole, yet.
Would like updates on a platform like Lemmy tho! A pic of folks in the streets can go a long way
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.
