cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
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.
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.
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.