cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
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.
I’m curious what made US companies that much more successful at destroying unions than the companies in my home, Denmark. It’s not like companies weren’t trying their hardest to fight unions in the early 1900’s. People died at the strikes and protests.
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.
So how did the general strike go?
Never even heard of it till now, so it probably didn’t work the way they wanted it to.
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.
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.
Do you have a copy of the rule book by chance?
“The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country—and the first general wildcat strike in history—was May 1968 in France.[105] The prolonged strike involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row,[105] and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government.”
This entire wiki article is a list of HUGE events in history that were affected by general strikes and what was involved in organizing and challenging them.
A one-day protest is fine, but it’s not a “general strike.”
With the amount of indoctrination that has happened in the US, it makes sense that most don’t know how to adequately protest or strike.
At this point in time, it finally appears people are slowly understanding protests as a means to signify discontent. However, the line remains blury as to what is a protest and what is a strike.
A general strike should leave a long lasting mark resulting from halting of the economy - but a single day will only reinforce the fact that strikes which are effectively just protests aren’t going to work.
I started watching network nightly news again after throwing it away for years and years, because I want to see what the average American who isn’t stuck online sees every night while cooking dinner for 3 screaming kids and having to juggle two jobs. NBC, ABC, even CBS.
It’s so bad. It’s dishearteningly bleak when you realize how much of the population catches blurbs and snippets of actual issues sandwiched between stories about weather and a local boy-scout who grew the biggest pumpkin, and of course the required nightly “true crime” story about a spouse who murdered their partner and had an affair.
I have nobody to scream at, nobody to shake. They didn’t even MENTION the strikes (protests) so far on any network, they have not shown the scale of the marches and the chaos on the streets of American cities. To say nothing of the neutral, blameless tone they use.
They only just barely started taking the people’s protests against ICE like an actual news story after Alex Pretti was murdered, because at a certain point, even the hand of the state can no longer dismiss or avoid actual reality.
This is because there are three forces of political capital in the country broadly. The strongest is the liberal masses, the majority. Farmed cattle used for the labor and attention spans and purchasing power. Middle-class America holds ALL the power because they have the most money and keep the system moving… as a result, they are manipulated and sedated the hardest.
The second force is nationalism. About 20% - 30% or so of the population are illiterate, rural or wannabe-rural grown toddlers screaming and waving guns and hating everything that moves, while worshipping the flag and kissing the king’s ass. Armed groups of nationalists have been the driving force of political capital for thousands of years, it’s no different now.
The last group is progressivism. Arguably the weakest, almost not worth mentioning it has so little power now, but is still technically on the list because we’re still here, still trying.
But it’s all shifting, as leftists start taking up arms and marching in larger and larger numbers, the networks and marketing companies have no choice but to notice it. This is because the liberal middle class is now noticing it, and when THEY shift, everything shifts.
To this end, I support continued protests and marches, even if they’re utterly pathetic by historical standards for moving systems.
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.
finally americans doing something that works
keep striking
There is no union in my industry.
I am in the pot industry. None of those will help me.
AFL-CIO is the umbrella = every industry falls under it
One day “general strike”, or as we in Germany call it: “Regular Sunday”
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)
ignore webadict. since the strike is for 🇺🇲gov, do not do business with them, or contractors working with the government. You can continue your business with comrades involved in the strike.
if when you can donate, do so.
We donate a lot of what extra we can to supporting causes thanks for the reply comrade!
The government does not operate in a vacuum. Corporations and their owners support these policies and actions, which is why economic boycotts are part of the strike.
Corporations and their owners
Comrades are not the rulers🤦♀️. Are you the ruling class?
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)
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.
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
But even in Europe you can get backlash for it especially in a very small business. That’s why it only really works when it’s organised and everyone is participating.
That’s why it only really works when it’s organised and everyone is participating
So like… a general strike? :)
Where in Europe? General strikes are illegal in Germany
I’m from Italy. Here general strikes are common.
They should have a general strike demanding the right to general strikes.
I don’t see how it’s enforceable, you don’t have to picket, just no one shows up for work at that same time, what are they going to do?
Technically they are not illegal here - they are just not protected under the (very strong) strike protection laws.
So workers in Germany could go into general strikes but they would not be covered by strike law and therefore just absent from work. Which of course is an issue - but in case of a proper general strike, what are they gonna do, fire everyone? Especially in times when there are countless positions open?
So one would only get into trouble work wise,but not otherwise - one would not get arrested, cannot get sued (besides a very limited scope worklaw wise),etc. Only certain kind of civil servants (similar but not as common as the Pubblico Impiego in Italy) will get in trouble if they go on strike. E.g. cops, fireman, teachers, municpial clerks (but not muncipial workers and not all kind of clerks),etc.
Which I find somewhat fair as our strike protection laws are far reaching (afaik even a bit further than in Italy) and the employer is often as fucked by politics as the staff. So it’s a somewhat tradeoff I personally can live with. (Seen from my time as an employee. These days I am a small employer,but as left as ever,and from a employers point of view wouldn’t care to much - but the nature of my business supports it.)
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.
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!
Depends where you work, I suppose.
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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
Finally it’s on a day I actually don’t have to be at work. I can do this one.
…do you not know how strikes work?
The reality for most people is that they can’t afford a strike. Rent, food, gas are all blockers. Criticizing those who can’t strike and aren’t scabs will only hurt your movement and cause people to just not want to help.
then join a union! they can supplement your pay when on strike.
I’m in a union (SEIU) and they are definitely not going to supplement my pay. Also- I do caregiving. I don’t know how it works to strike when my client would die if no one showed up. Work without clocking in? That seems counter productive…
medical fields usually have some sort of clause that prevents complete strike, like the postal service. you can still strike but in that case it’s without union authorisation.
here the metalworker’s union is paying striking workers at tesla 125% of their regular salary and have the funds to continue doing that for about 200 years.
The vast majority of Americans don’t have that option.
why not?
Because most places in the USA have atrocious worker protection laws. Even if you’re in a name brand, corporate job with thousands of people on board with unionizing, they can close your office or fire everyone with no repercussions.
Just look at Blizzard, Google, Starbucks, etc… They take a chainsaw to any union talk and have never been bothered with consequences. If you’re employed by a tiny, family owned business you have even less leverage. Your personal relationship to the owner is much more important to achieving your goals than paperwork solidarity with the 2 other employees.
but i mean… the entire reason unions work is because of a mandate from the masses. if they close an office the only reasonable counter-action is for every other office to unionise too.
Because of a lack of said unions
from what i hear there are unions everywhere in the us. why are they not doing anything?
It’s not that simple unfortunately. Sure there are national unions, but they’re very specific in the industries they operate it. They are long standing institutions with the influence and funding to boot, your local tenant union or random coffee shop “union” does not have the resources or influence to make any of that happen. I knew some people in FL who tried to unionize their coffee shop they worked for and the owners just straight up shut the business down instead of capitulating, they were all out of a job after that.
i mean national unions exist to strengthen the local chapters.
I guess I’m more nihilistic in my viewpoint. I’ve only seen small unions fail whether through inaction, ineptitude, or busting. In non multimillion dollar industries, they basically are impossible to form successfully. That shouldn’t mean forming them shouldn’t be attempted, it’s just the reality that I observed.
The reality for most people is if we went on strike we would be the only one at our job to do it and we would be reprimanded or fired.
We all live paycheck to paycheck and if we miss a day of work then we don’t get paid and we can’t pay our bills and we die.
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
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.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 :)
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.
That’s not a strike, that’s just called being unemployed.
