New event for the no kings movement. Along with taking to the streets people who normally cant make it or are to anti social can start calling out the same day.
Untill they swear her in and while this government is shut down I’m not doing shit.
Jesus. Since when does BuzzFeed own HuffPost?
There has never been a true, nationwide general strike in the United States, though a series of post-World War II work stoppages remembered as the “great strike wave of 1946” mobilized five million American workers demanding leaders to address economic instability and untenable working conditions.
In its aftermath, congress cracked down with the Taft-Hartley act, a legislation prohibiting a broad range of union tactics, including calling for political strikes. The 1947 law is still in place, despite repeated attempts to repeal it.
Oh, imagine that.
I’m dubious that a general strike is possible in the US. All of the other countries that have had massive strikes affecting large chunks of the market were driven by large unions. Our unions don’t have that sort of sway and they rarely help others to maximize their diminishing bargaining power with the ongoing degradation of workers rights. Importantly this also happens on the supply side, the consumer side will just buy it tomorrow instead usually. A day of no productivity has much bigger consequences.
That being said, I’ll definitely participate.
When the economy falls we can organize enough to strike to hit critical mass, not yet.
The UAW was planning a general strike for May 1st 2028. I don’t know how willing they’d be to start a wildcat general strike, but they may join one.
Basically letting the turnip destroy the country for nearly 4 years…
What is the point if scheduling a strike so far in advance? Also, aren’t UAW leadership aligned with Trump?
It was planned before the election, and they likely didn’t anticipate Trump would win again.
From what I’ve seen the UAW leader is fairly left leaning.
What they are doing is asking all unions to set May 1st 2028 as the expiration date for their next labor contract. They aren’t actually scheduling a strike, just laying the groundwork.
The point as I understand it is that they’re allowing other unions to set their contract expiration to the same date, which increases the potential for pain during their next negotiations and makes for a quasi general strike across all unions who participated. It’s a pretty good idea all in all.
Also, it’s complicated who Sean Fain aligns with. He’s pro-tariff and praised Trump for incentivizing cars to be made in the US, although it seems like that’s the extent of it, and I wonder how he feels about it now that it’s been fully unmasked to just be market manipulation by Trump’s circle of billionaires. Sean’s speech still hit most of the socialist talking points of pro labor even though it was to a bunch of Republican donors, leading to the funniest and most revealing awkward silences after sections about how the working class is who provides all of the value in an economy.
Pro-tariff makes sense purely from a “protecting American labor” point of view. The ideal of them is to encourage internal markets to favor domestic production. However, that first requires domestic production to exist, and it also needs to be done in a way that doesn’t harm domestic production. The Trump tariffs aren’t this, obviously.
The article says that a 1947 law makes it almost impossible for unions to organize a general strike.
Just corporate dictatorship things…
Most strikes were illegal by polit definitions. Teamsters got into pitched club battles with cops and mob organized strike breakers.
Had guys with guns on standby in case of escalation too.
And they won, circa 19teens.
It’s preferable to break that anti-labour red scare law if it means avoiding the country getting to the point where civil war happens instead.
Finally someone calling for it. Let’s hope we can get it done and make it happen.
It’s never happened before because the working class has never been unified nationwide before. Soybean farmers in Utah are not connected to teachers in Boston or steelworkers in Pittsburgh or auto manufacturers in Michigan or nurses in San Diego. There’s never been a singular cause that affected all of those groups of people at the same time.
If it ever could happen, it would be because the President was a colossal dipshit who fucked every aspect of the economy across the country, except that would almost certainly cause the legislature to put an end to such rampant and corrupt tyranny.
Right?
The last time people across the country organized general strike of sorts the government went into action to make a law that made it illegal for unions to organize such a thing.
And with this corrupt Congress and this idiot president and this ridiculous SCOTUS, I think it’s likely they will worm their way into making a law that makes it illegal for any citizen to strike for any reason.
Trump already illegally outlawed government unions. And nothing, absolutely nothing, was done about it.
Right?
no, the official party platform of the GOOP is “whatever Drumpf says”.
this party also controls the legislatureAnd its donors haven’t felt it yet. Or if they have, they’re pretty sure they can buy up the wreckage after it all fails. Like they did after every other recession and depression since the 70s.
There’s never been a singular cause that affected all of those groups of people at the same time.
The attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were both pretty unifying. The former had an immediate and unambiguous opponent with Imperial Japan. 9/11 took weeks and months to figure out what happened and who did it, so it didn’t have as immediate a response.
For sure, there have been events that affected all Americans in various ways, good and bad, but the context of the conversation is events that would encourage a general labor strike. The moon landing, world wars, the Great Depression, the Macarena, big things happen. I probably could have been clearer by saying that nothing in history has unified the American working class as a singular political group to use our power as a labor force to exert pressure to stop oligarchical abuses by means of a general strike, but that seems overly pedantic.
You think soy bean farmers are working class?
I’m seriously curious, why do you imply they aren’t?
Yes, farmers do labor to produce things. That makes them workers.
“Farmer” has come to mean the corporate owner of fields in which crops are grown, rather than the people waking up at the ass crack of dawn to tend to the fields and bring in the harvest.
“Farm workers” are now the ones doing all the labor.
Has a politician ever called for a general strike in US history? He’s actually encouraging crippling his own economy?
We operate in a faith based monetary system in a global economy. Dear leader is destroying the faith and the global ties. The economy is already dead, they are in the final stages of replacing you with computer and robot
Our economy is already dead unless you’re a tech monopoly.
If the US falls any further under oligarchy control there won’t be an economy to work with, either because it’ll all be more or less centralized under various groups and various levels of control or because it’ll get too top heavy and collapse. Better to burn the old growth and start over now rather than let it fester and deal with a far far bigger fire.
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Wut. We need to cripple the economy. The general strike is our most powerful tool
I’m saying that it would be remarkable for a politician to call for that, and asking if it’s the first time in history.
Sorry for my lack of reading comprehension. Entirely my fault. I was wrong.
Summoning people of all backgrounds to unite and take a stand against President Donald Trump’s “tyranny,” the “ultra-wealthy” and corporate greed, Johnson said, “We are going to make them pay their fair share in taxes to fund our school, to fund jobs, to fund healthcare, to fund transportation.”
“Democracy will live on because of this generation,” he proclaimed. “Are you ready to take it to the courts and to the streets?”
It was an audacious declaration from the mayor, who has risen to the top of Trump’s list of enemies as he resists the vicious immigration operations and arrival of hundreds of National Guards currently shaking Chicago.
It’s really needed at this point
Honestly massive applause for Brandon Johnson. There are so many performative voices that call for a general strike, but it’s so rare to see someone with political power and a national stage call for one.
Finally some political leadership. Now get UAW and teamsters and longshoremen on board. The teachers and nurses. The rest will fillow
The guy is a mayor, and finds himself on the national stage. He is now a target of trumps. Staying in the public eye is self preservation. Not saying it can’t lead in the right direction.
That said, the major unions are run by poloticians as well. And laws don’t favor them on this. So they will stay out of it unless you get some new little guys who get elected to leadership by claiming they will do these things. But trump supporters are common enough in such unions that it would be challenging for that to happen. It’s more likely the unions unofficially join in after critical mass is achieved. Thier leaders don’t want to go to jail.
The UAW I could see getting onboard, but the Teamsters are so full of MAGA members and Trump loving leadership, I’d be astonished if they did.
Thanks Huff post, we need this idea to get talked about throughout the media and start gaining momentum. Even just the threat of a general strike will get a response, and any kind of work stoppages even if short of a general strike will cause enough disruption to get a response.
If people simply drove the speed limit and didn’t speed, if they took longer at lights to make a left hand turn then traffic would back up. Its the same effect as a general strike but without the target on your back.
Like work-to-rule.
Don’t block traffic. I’m all for a general strike, but keeping people from getting places has a lot of potential consequences that we don’t need to be responsible for. Everything from medical events to job interviews to court times could have pretty expensive or otherwise costly fallout. It’s putting the risk/target on someone else’s back instead of you making the statement yourself. It’s not just inconveniencing people. If you want to take a stand, take the risk yourself.
Nobody to sell them a coffee? Nobody to unlock the store at opening time? That’s fine.
While I mostly agree with the sentiment, blocking traffic can still be effective. Maybe only block/hinder places like shopping malls and other capitalist structures. Leave the public roads and access to hospitals/courts alone. The goal is to bring nationwide GDP to as close to a halt as possible, since wealth is the only thing these people care about.
Conditionally I think that’s a better stand, but nonetheless it’s shifting the fallout to others with little/no risk to the activist. IMO I still don’t think it’s great.
Blocking traffic doesn’t do shit and only pisses off the people in the lowest wage groups. It’s a way to get people to not be on your side.
Did you just ignore where I said to not block public roads? Sure sounds like you did
How about we just stay as far away from traffic as possible.
Obstructing freedom of movement really pisses off the general public, and drives them to seek authoritarian solutions.
Nothing turns people from “All Cops Are Bastards” to “Back The Blue” faster than cops driving through protest barricades.
Stay away from traffic.
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There’s no way this will happen at any level that will make a difference. And it’s too bad, as this is probably the only way to cripple his regime.
