![]() The general strike could even be a single day of action like the series of global strikes that have recently helped the concept gain visibility in the United States. It might be one large action - like Seattle’s weeklong general strike of 1919 - or it might be a series of continuous actions, like France’s recent nationwide strikes over the government’s plan to reform the country’s pension fund system. The mass strike is rather the indication, the rallying idea, of a whole period of the class struggle lasting for years, perhaps for decades.” The general strike can take different forms. In 1906, Rosa Luxembourg wrote in The Mass Strike, her seminal text on the subject, “It is absurd to think of the mass strike as one act, one isolated action. The concept of a general strike emerged from early-20th-century leftist thought. The idea is to put pressure on the government to meet the people’s demands in the same way a work stoppage pressures a company to address grievances. It therefore requires a significant proportion of all workers’ participation to be effective. ![]() Whereas strikes in the United States are usually undertaken by workers at a single company (like McDonald’s workers going on strike last year to demand a higher minimum wage) or within a single industry (like a teacher strike), a general strike encompasses workers in as many industries as possible and might disrupt the market more completely. Strikes tend to be undertaken by unionized workers who are protected by law, but the tactic can be used by nonunionized labor too. Workers create value for their bosses, and without workers, companies can’t be productive. A strike is a work stoppage tactic used to pressure management to fulfill certain demands. While the form a general strike would take is very much up for debate, the concept has been around for a long time. The proposition of a general strike raises a lot of questions, but here’s a primer on what work has gone into the concept so far. Companies and the government have been reluctant to provide meaningful support for workers in the form of paid sick leave, hazard pay, and other protections.īut while labor organizing is well underway in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, the demands and parameters of a general strike remain undefined, the hashtag still more of a rallying cry than a statement of purpose. ![]() The Times reported on Thursday that 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, the most to ever do so in a one-week period. ![]() Businesses across the country are closing and downsizing, which means people are being laid off in droves, many losing their employer-sponsored health insurance in the process. ![]() The possibility of a general strike seems more real than it ever has in America as labor conditions have become more dire than they’ve ever been in recent memory. Writer and activist Naomi Klein tweeted that she was joining #GeneralStrike2020, and activist Bree Newsome Bass said that she supports “a general strike for all these workers who are deemed ‘essential’ but still aren’t earning livable wages while working in unsafe conditions.” This week, as the coronavirus pandemic rapidly spread across the country and the president suggested that people should soon start returning to work in a desperate bid to stabilize the economy, the hashtag #GeneralStrike - calling on workers everywhere to walk off the job - began trending on Twitter. ![]()
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