I know for many people the main condition is that their work wouldn’t be cool with it so would lose income or threaten job. in union strikes, a huge part of our dues goes towards a strike fund to make sure people get income when striking so i think i would like to see some crowd funding general strike fund or some sort of union type thing but anyone in working class can join & point of it is to organize and fund assistance, legal help, anti-retaliation.
I’d be down to general strike though, some massive positive changes in history have been via general striking since wealthy class freaks out.
what do y’all think?
Having a union to begin with.
Folks that stop by this post and don’t have a union, think about this. The reason you have the default concern about your job security, the reason you have inequality in the workplace and the reason “wage-slave” is a term, is because you, your peers, and your predecessors were propagandized away from unions or any form of worker solidarity.
Some of you might say, “but if I even talk about a union with co-workers, I’m fired”, or, “I read about how Walmart would rather stop having a butcher shop than let them unionize”. I say that’s exactly why you need one.
Unions in the US seems to mostly be focused on a single location (yes I know there are large/national as well), we mostly hear about how a single factory/plant/workshop/office is unionized, but others are not.
Here in Sweden, we have sector based unions, I am an IT technician, and a decade long member of the union for skilled service workers, we have unions for hospital staff, restaurant/hotel staff, transportation workers, dockworkers, and basically every other kind of worker has a union that fits them.
Here sympathy strikes/actions are also legal, when Toys 'R Us tried to establish stores without allowing union staff members, other unions started sympathy actions, the transport union would refuse to transport their goods, the graphic designers union would not print their ads or store materials, the financial workers union would not process their invoices, and so on, and despite them coming in hard with their whole “we don’t work with unions” crap, they soon caved in and did a 180, though that didn’t stop them from crashing and burning in a relatively short time after.
Currently we have a similar situation with Tesla, they refuse to sign a collective bargaining agreement with the auto workers union, when the strike started Tesla started bringing in strike breakers from other EU countries, this has been going on for a year now, and there are sympathy actions going on, dockworkers refuse to unload Teslas, so they are being shipped in by road with non union labour, postal workers have refused to send out license plates for new Teslas, this has lead to a weird situation where Tesla is sending the license plate to a separate guy who was recently discovered to be a convicted criminal, I don’t know how this solves the issue for Tesla, and the electrical workers union have refused to install new Tesla chargers.
Sweden has actually very few laws regulating the relationship between employers and workers, that is instead dealt with between the employers and the unions, we have no legal minimum wage, that is instead dealt with through negotiations between employers and unions, there are regular negotiations in every sector, including some strikes here and there to show the power of the union.
The US workers needs something like this, though I doubt it will ever be allowed to exist.
To bring this more in-line with OP’s question:
What if we had a general union that represented all workers generally and could provide support for things like general strikes?
Maybe make it a parent body made up of unionized/federated unions specific to each trade/discipline.
Something like the IWW or the AFL-CIO, but that represents all people by default. I’d argue that such a body could/should replace most of what the government does, and then membership is just citizenship. This could guarantee several worker’s rights within the union and enshrine democratic principles/practices.
In a well functioning society, that would be called the government.
Kinda my point, right?
Make the government represent the people in bargaining contracts.
Local governments.
They then manage the labor market to make it easy for people to get jobs.
Make labor representatives funded by taxes an elected position to bargain for you against an employer.
Like a public defender.
In a court, if necessary.
Where our constitutional rights apply.
Although considering the current balance of power, something promising this might actually end up being:
There is precedent for this: a contract for the sale of real estate in the state of NY requires a lawyer with a license to make sure that the deal is fair after some unfortunate abuses of the past.
Why can’t a contract for the sale of labor require a representative? And an organizing body? That’s elected from a given worker pool? Paid via taxes (dues)?
Unions have earned their bad reputation in the US. Union management is more evil that corporate management, and corporate management is not very good.
Yes corporate management isn’t always good, but they are not nearly as bad as union management makes them out to be. Meanwhile I’ve seen the sillyness that unions enforce (I can’t plug in a network cable - that is a union job) and I want nothing to do with them. Unions need to clean up their own act before trying to get me to join. I’m not against unions, but the way they work in the US I’m very against. Start looking in the mirror and seeing what the real world is like and not your strawman vision of what you think my issues are!
Unions in other countries work very different. If you live in Europe, you have no idea what unions in the US are like, so stop.
Back all this bullshit up with cited sources or fuck off with this concept that doesn’t even pass the smell test.
Perfect evidence here. People in unions refuse to acknowledge all the problems outsiders have with unions. My observations are just invalid and insulted.
One more reason I want nothing to do with unions.
He literally asked for something to back up your statements, he’s literally acknowledging your viewpoint and would be open to it if you were able to cite any references. If you want “outsiders” to listen to you, you have a responsibility to give them a reason to.
There, no insults, just a suggestion that if you want discourse, you need to have something beyond your opinion to back it up.
I’ve been in offices where I was told look for the union guy before plugging my network cable, don’t do it when he was looking.
There is a constant stream of hate on corporate management here, most of it without any evidence given. I want some evidence in return. Not that it exists, but that it is anywhere near as bad as people are saying.
Maybe you have just worked in really well managed places?
I’ve worked in a number of places. Some better managed than others. The fact that I see this variation is why union “management is always bad” talking points just turn me off.
Well hey I’m not in a union and I’ll insult you too, fish lips.
Yeah, how dare people ask you for [checks notes] evidence of radical claims. What is the world coming to?
How do you think unions in other countries gained the reputation and power that they have? Being in a union is the first step to have a better union.
General popular buy in.
If 5% of the country tries to strike it’s just going to get 5% of people fired with a poisoned reference on their CV, and get a story on page 3 of a billionaire owned newspaper. In the US right now 45% of the country would actively oppose a general strike, 30% would be oblivious to it happening until they got to work that day and wondered why Chris and Pat aren’t in, and 20% would decline for fear of reprisal (sans union protection).
If 5% of all US workers striked, it would be the largest strike in US history by magnitudes. This says there are 170m workers in the US, which would put 5% at 8.5m. The largest single strike seems to be the 1946 steel strike which consisted of 800,000. 5% of everyone striking would not be third page news, and it would do damage to the oligarchs. I would absolutely consider 5% to be generalpopulace buy-in. Youre right half the country would actively oppose it, though.
The lack of fear that I’m going to become homeless, arrested, prosecuted, or my position in life devalued significantly. It’s gambling at this point on whether it’s successful or not, as well as regarding any legal ramifications, which further hurts future employment prospects. No one wants to do business with a felon (except for the Big One), and job interviews aren’t nuanced enough for me to explain to political climate of the time, nor is there enough incentive for employers to take the chance on me over a candidate that is within 1-2% with none of the baggage.
Believe me, I’d love to change labor in the US, but there is 0 reason for me to have confidence in my fellow citizens at this point. Half the country voted for this.
I mean, more like a third, but yes absolutely. I think the biggest obstacle is, will my countrymen be with me if I stick my neck out? Or will I just be offering myself up to the fascism?
I should say half of voters, it’s just a distinction I’m too mad to make. But yeah, same issue. I don’t have any trust that sacrifice will be worth it in the current climate or near future unless drastic things happen.
Living in the US is like living within the prisoners dilemma. If we all work together, we could make the world an infinitely better place, but we’re all worried that a bunch of us won’t, and they’ll instead drive all of us off a cliff if they have even the idea that it might make them richer than their neighbor. Our worries are founded in the political landscape of today, where everywhere you look the world is getting worse, and there’s some rich republican smarmy asshole doing everything in their power to make it worse (while profiting from the chaos).
Absolutely. It’s also what kills me when people say “stop bringing politics into everything”. Everything in the US is inherently political. Reading a kids book at a library is political. The JROTC marching the flag at a football game. Getting medical care. Everything is tied into politics in one way or another.
Suspension of mortgage payments. As long as I have bills to pay, I’m working.
A decent plan with actionable goals and a strategy that will actually work.
Not working or buying something on one day doesn’t do shit
American wokers will never back a general strike. We are far too fractured and too far removed from the actual problems we face that nobody thinks they are part of the problem.
I don’t have a safety net and I’m employed well above where my qualifications on paper would get me hired in a new position so if I lose this job I’ll most likely be set back by years. Sorry but I’m not joining a strike. Good luck to anyone who does but I will almost certainly be fucked if I do. I’d contribute in other ways if there are any suggestions.
Where you put your money matters. We can’t completely avoid big box stores for food but we can at least not buy certain brands like Frito lay or nestle products. Buying from charity thrift stores (not goodwill or salvation army). Not buying anything on strike days. Lots of ways to do your part!
For it to be legal.
Yes, despite having fairly good workers rights, general and solidarity strikes are illegal in Germany. It’s so stupid.
Realistically, it’s complicated. I work remotely for a small company based out of California. The owners are awesome, reasonable, and fair. Their goal in running the company is to create good jobs for their employees and a good service for their customers. I’ve worked for them for 3.5yrs now and genuinely cannot imagine a better situation for myself short of being independently wealthy. I’m also the only person at my job that does what I do, so if I don’t work, I’m bringing real stress to the company, not to mention not being paid myself. Neither of those prospects are palatable. I’ve worked crappy corpo jobs in the past and wouldn’t have batted an eye at causing them some grief, but when you have an employer as great as mine, it’s a lot harder to realistically consider harming them.
I’m sure there is a point at which I would make the choice, and it’s something I think about regularly, but it’s more complicated for me than missing paychecks or even being fired from a mediocre job. If you’d told me 20 years ago to describe my dream work situation, it would basically be what I have now. Throwing that away is a tough prospect.
It’s really weird to strike at my job, because I work at a non-profit who genuinely does great work to help students go to college and university. Probably the worst part about our program is that some of the companies we take money from are shitty, but it’s hard to be mad spending evil money on educating students. They also give me an incredibly generous PTO program, meaning even if I don’t come into work for a day to strike, I’ll still get paid for the day, which seems antithetical to the purpose.
I’m still not gonna come into work on March 14th, and maybe if I can get all my coworkers to do the same it’ll still feel like a strike, but it’s just a weird situation.
Not working a BS job at a company of like 5 people would probably make a strike seem more meaningful. If I had income to spare, it would probably make more sense to fund someone else to strike at a major company or who does more meaningful work than for myself to strike.
A unprovoked war, I guess, would be an obvious one for me. A debt default would probably lead to one since everyone’s retirement account would be fucked.
I mean, I’d join one now if unions and major non-profits organized one. But I’m self-employed so it’s not a risk for me. I get why a lot of people can’t take the risk of being fired.
Student and worker unions striking together would build momentum for non union workers to strike, which is exactly why wealthy politicians outlawed it in 1947. They literally outlawed worker solidarity under Taft Hartley because it’s obviously effective. You don’t need more than 5-10% of the workforce striking before things grind to a halt, especially if you are coordinating along logistics and supply chains.
Look at effective recent strikes like UAW, start with several strikes across critical supply chains, and when management engages in bad faith negotiations keep adding more strikes.
Honestly? With how much money the rich has, a major prerequisite for me would be a massive wealth tax on their current fund.
With how much money most of the companies that are problem children today have, a general strike isn’t effective.
Take amazon for example, it has a yearly operating expense of 569B, and has a current operating debt of 52B (or a total of 338B in liabilities)
It keeps around 101B cash on hand in immediate withdrawable assets, and has a total of 624B in total assets.
Assuming the total yearly expenses can be easily dividable by 12(it likely couldn’t) and without knowing how much money they end up saving in salary due to the strike, In order for a strike to really hurt Amazon, you would need to strike for almost 3 months before you even start eating into it’s non-immediate withdrawal assets.
How many people do you know that has 3 months worth of salary stored up for a thing like this? I don’t know many.
A union /might/ have solved that situation but, that money doesn’t just appear out of thin air, its collected via dues, the same dues that the everyday person fights against, and if you don’t /currently/ have a union, you won’t have the funds built up.
Our local teachers union has that issue currently. They ruled that the union MUST accept people into it without paying the union fees, which more or less made it so the teachers union is all bark no bite as it couldn’t afford a general strike as a result of it, because they would need to pay everyone, including the people who aren’t actively contributing back.
It was easier as a student, but massive labour reform would be enough for me.
