They shouldn’t call them that. It’s just a walk out. Maybe it’s OK to call it a dress rehearsal or practice run but the point would be to test community support mechanisms and get the word out, not to “put the corpos on notice” or lend virtue to someone’s extra personal day. The truth is it’s not much of a stress test if it’s just 1 day. Also it’s crying wolf. General strikes should damage the economy and an extra snow day just doesn’t. It fails that goal even if it feels nice to say they participated in a “general strike.”
But the more insidious problem is one of logistics, tactics, and reserves.
With protests, there’s often rotating participation so overall support/resource/attention burnout isn’t a brick wall issue. People generally know how many protest days they have to give up front and using them up just means they’ll need to be replaced by another protestor. The point is showing up if you can.
But “1-day general strikes” steal actual person-days from the real general strike (a protracted war of attrition between workers and the economy where the workers hurt themselves to hurt their enemy). Meaning, it actually helps corporations not just by dis-carding useable cards in our deck prematurely_and_ revealing to the opponent our possible hands, it also subtracts drawable cards from our reserves since each of those person-days eventually must be borne by mutual support networks later on.
I agree, but they should be active days, to get people plugged in, motivated, and should not be confused with general strike especially since a bunch of people already mistake general strikes as “boycotting work.” But everything I read says that’s a mistake, because those people end up scabs since they were allowed to think it was another paid holiday.
Maybe local labor unions (who broadly supported the general strike) and community organizations know more about the situation and appropriate response there than either of us 🤷♂️
Don’t forget to bring your memeable sign! Remember, protesting is about showing how clever and good a person you are! I hope you have great weather for your parade!
I’ll join the general strike that lasts for more than a day
I mean, join the one that lasts a day, too.
They shouldn’t call them that. It’s just a walk out. Maybe it’s OK to call it a dress rehearsal or practice run but the point would be to test community support mechanisms and get the word out, not to “put the corpos on notice” or lend virtue to someone’s extra personal day. The truth is it’s not much of a stress test if it’s just 1 day. Also it’s crying wolf. General strikes should damage the economy and an extra snow day just doesn’t. It fails that goal even if it feels nice to say they participated in a “general strike.”
But the more insidious problem is one of logistics, tactics, and reserves.
With protests, there’s often rotating participation so overall support/resource/attention burnout isn’t a brick wall issue. People generally know how many protest days they have to give up front and using them up just means they’ll need to be replaced by another protestor. The point is showing up if you can.
But “1-day general strikes” steal actual person-days from the real general strike (a protracted war of attrition between workers and the economy where the workers hurt themselves to hurt their enemy). Meaning, it actually helps corporations not just by dis-carding useable cards in our deck prematurely_and_ revealing to the opponent our possible hands, it also subtracts drawable cards from our reserves since each of those person-days eventually must be borne by mutual support networks later on.
“1-day General Strikes” are not general strikes!
People are strengthened by working together and organizing community action at any scale, not weakened.
No.
Organized community action that accomplishes nothing emboldens fascists who increasingly realize you pose no threat to them.
Sure, but if the only “working together” is to just whine “I don’t like this”, that’s not really worth the effort is it?
Strength for the people is only really useful when it’s used to act.
I agree, but they should be active days, to get people plugged in, motivated, and should not be confused with general strike especially since a bunch of people already mistake general strikes as “boycotting work.” But everything I read says that’s a mistake, because those people end up scabs since they were allowed to think it was another paid holiday.
Maybe local labor unions (who broadly supported the general strike) and community organizations know more about the situation and appropriate response there than either of us 🤷♂️
You’ll need to settle for 2 hours on a random Saturday
Don’t forget to bring your memeable sign! Remember, protesting is about showing how clever and good a person you are! I hope you have great weather for your parade!
Make sure you stay in your designated out of the way corner and clean up after yourselves so that people don’t even know you were there!