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?
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.
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.
The people strike.
Congress says: that’s illegal now!! Go back to work!
Why the fuck would we? Literally what could possibly convince people that the gov is going to arrest a million people for striking? Genuinely, how braindead are people that that is a concern?
I would suggest you not underestimate just how unbelievably stupid our current president is and how likely he is to actually use the United States army against its own people regardless of how legal or illegal it actually is. Not to mention his sycophantic Congress that will blithely stand by and let him do whatever the fuck he wants. This is what corruption looks like.
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?
Being working class doesn’t just mean you perform work. It’s a social class defined by the relation to the means of production.
Soy farmers in the US own their fields, own their equipment, set their own hours, and directly profit from selling commodities on the market. They’re small business owners, they are not workers. Workers don’t own or control shit, they sell their labor to someone else who actually owns capital and land. Workers toil under a boss and soy farmers do not, they are their own boss.
Interesting. I can certainly see the distinction. Does that make them part of the middle class?
They’re basically small business owners.
But what class are they? Or are you saying they are a class themselves?
That said, most small business owners I know work way to hard and end up with very little in the end. It is hard to compete with the large corporations. But in the past, if the area they lived in experienced significant growth, they often made a killing on the business property alone. Farmers don’t really have that since they live on the business property.
Kinda feels like they should be their own class really. Though I suppose there is a big difference between farmers who own their land, and the ones where the bank essentially owns it… and they just pay rent with no real hope of wver paying it off.
In the past we’d call them wealthy landed peasantry, but under capitalism they’re just petite bourgeoisie.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What is the point if scheduling a strike so far in advance? Also, aren’t UAW leadership aligned with Trump?
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.
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.
Basically letting the turnip destroy the country for nearly 4 years…
The article says that a 1947 law makes it almost impossible for unions to organize a general strike.
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.
Anything that would cause real economic damage and put power back in the hands of workers will be treated as “illegal” regardless of what the books say. But what could they realistically do, arrest everyone in their homes who didn’t go to work that day?
Wildcat strikes are “illegal” in the sense that your employer is allowed to retaliate with firing you or docking pay if you do so. I highly doubt someone’s going to prison for not showing up at a regular job.
But what could they realistically do, arrest everyone in their homes who didn’t go to work that day?
Considering that the US has the highest incarcerated population in the world, it’s not like they aren’t trying to do this very thing.
Just corporate dictatorship things…
I fear that the average american can’t afford to strike, because of the lingering threat of poverty from losing employment and getting crushed by outstanding debt. But this is a sign, that there are already not enough worker’s rights.
From far away it looks like a construct.
Far too many Americans don’t even get sick leave at their jobs.
Untill they swear her in and while this government is shut down I’m not doing shit.
Her?
I believe a Congress women is not being sworn in since she said she would vote to release the files and the speaker of the house is blocking that. Without swearing in she is effectively unable to officially partake in votes.
Aaahhhh democracy.
I think they are referring to the US Speaker of the House refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva after she won a special election in Arizona.
Sabo, the cat ;)
It’s really needed at this point
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.
Can we do the next one on a weekday?
Everyday should a be a part of the no kings movement. Week ends plus week days. Hell we got some holidays coming up. No kings day on halloween is going to be great.
I would rather spend their days than our days
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.
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
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.
Finally some political leadership. Now get UAW and teamsters and longshoremen on board. The teachers and nurses. The rest will fillow
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.
I think you misunderstand teamsters. Why do you have this perception?
I have this perception from:
- Sean O’Brian trying to cozy up to the republican party by speaking at the RNC
- The leadership choosing not to endorse Kamala during the election (since it would piss off their conservative members)
- the locals repeatedly endorsing local republican politicians this year, despite seeing the destruction of federal unions and anti-worker rhetoric from the republican party
- First hand account from many left-leaning teamsters that so many of their fellow members are self-procliamed MAGA or right wing Trump voters (according to a source from wikipedia, 60% of the membership voted for Trump) who are only in the union because it directly benefits them financially.
I’d love to see those right-wing members come to their senses and vote to join a general strike, but I just don’t see it happening. They even voted not to strike while negotiating their UPS contract, which resulted in (IMO) only modest improvements, and couldn’t even secure AC units to be retrofitted to their trucks to prevent people dying of heatstroke.
Sean O’Brian trying to cozy up to the republican party by speaking at the RNC
See I knew this would be the first one coming. Sean O’brian took the time the RNC afforded him and delivered possibly the most progressive speech in the history of US political conventions. Not one of the most, but possibly the most progressive speech of all time, perhaps even eclipsing Roosevelt. They were offered a platform, they took it and did what they wanted with it, uttered not one iota of support for Trump or Republicans. He literally called corporation’s economic terrorists.
Since it happened there has been a bad faith interpretation on the part of some “leftists”, especially here, that because he took an opportunity afforded to them, it makes them “bad person”, because they utterly lack the curiosity to find out anything more than what their initial, team-sports reaction is. The reaction you are demonstrating says nothing about Sean O’Brian; it says everything about you.
As well, the Teamsters went on to not endorse Trump, even though it was the Republican convention they were invited to.
You didn’t address any of my other points.
I’m basing my opinions on repeated examples of Teamster leadership failing to fight back against the establishment, not ‘sports-team’ reactions.
When asked about Chavez-DeRemer’s stance on the right-to-work section of the PRO Act, O’Brien said that he is working with senators such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to come up with a version of the PRO Act that “may not include that.”
“That’s the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn’t work for it—but more importantly, what’s going to work for the American worker,” O’Brien said.
In the same Fox News interview, O’Brien also said the Teamsters do not want to see anyone losing their job, but that “[Trump] thinks he’s within his right,” when asked about the personnel-slashing Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration’s widely decried deferred resignation program for nearly all federal employees. Multiple federal employees unions are currently battling the Trump administration in court over its actions targeting federal workers and federal agencies.
With those statements, O’Brian is publicly stating that he still thinks he can reason and plead with an out-and-out proven anti-labor party that just destroyed federal unions. That makes him either naive or an idiot, and for his sake I hope it’s the former.
We need all unions to come together as one movement to effectively fight this dictatorship from taking power, but based on previous evidence, a significant portion of the Teamster membership are unlikely to want to join that fight (obviously, some will, but they will be in the minority).
You’re ignoring that a majority (60%) of its membership are conservative, and not endorsing Trump doesn’t make it much better, since that lack of endorsement of Kamala (whom I don’t even like, but clearly was the harm reduction option) only speaks to the fact that they have so many right-wing members, the leadership had to fence-sit in fear of not getting elected again by their pro-Trump members.
If you’re a left-wing Teamster trying to steer your brothers and sisters away from MAGA, then more power to you. But don’t delude yourself that the Teamster leadership or right-wing members are going to be the ones leading the charge against this regime.
I would love to be proven wrong, but at best I could see them hopping on the bandwagon if the winds change and the regime begins to implode on itself.
You didn’t address any of my other points.
Because they were stupid points and not worth addressing, so they were dismissed. You’re mad because someone didn’t put on a jersey and cheer for your team.
Alternatively, If the Democrats wanted to get the teamsters endorsement, why didn’t they do more to show that they would be a pro-labor, anti-capitol party, as O’Brien laid out in the speech he gave (which you seem to be entirely ignoring the contents of). This same argument applies to the Muslim vote, to the progressive vote, to all the blocks that the Democrats failed to make appeals to in this election cycle because the they thought they needed to run on was “Trump Bad”, while constantly silencing criticisms of their own inadequacies.
What you are doing here is just repeating the same, failed logic that handed Trump 2024. And instead of blaming the people who actually had the power to change things, you want to blame “someone else”. Democrats could have invited Sean O’Brien to the convention, since they hadn’t endorsed, and see what they had to say and asked what it would have taken to get the Teamsters endorsement. Likewise, they could have given Palestinians a voice at the convention and asked them what it would take to keep them in the fold. And we can go on down the line.
But reality is that Democrats are the failure here. Not any other party is to blame other than the Democrats themselves for the outcomes of the election of 2024. If they wanted the Teamsters endorsement, they needed to do more to show up for it, and they chose not to.
And that knee-jerk, team sports, emotional response was exactly what I had hoped you would put on display, and it makes it all the more clear we should be dismissing voices that are only in this for their own validation.
Voters do not owe the Democratic party jack fucking shit, and the Democratic party owes its voters, literally everything. If the Democratic party, and the card carrying Democratic party member, have not gotten this through their thick, Blue No Matter Who skull, the Democratic party will never be fixed.
As I said in my previous response, I’m not fan of the Kamala, nor the democratic party for the very reasons you mention. But to frame it as the Teamsters withholding their endorsement for the same reasons that leftists refused to vote for Kamala is disingenuous.
If the Democrats wanted to get the teamsters endorsement, why didn’t they do more to show that they would be a pro-labor, anti-capitol party
Democrats are neoliberals, they’ll never be anti-capital (hence their failure), but they certainly weren’t as anti-labor as the Republican party.
You keep trying to paint my views as a simplistic sports team analog, but it doesn’t hold up. I’m pointing out real gripes with Teamster leadership and the depressing state of the membership, which I wish weren’t the case. I am not randomly smack talking them because I’m on some other team (do you think I’m in the UAW? I’m not).
you want to blame “someone else”
I’m not blaming anyone. I doubt an official Teamster endorsement would’ve made a difference in the election. I’m pointing to it as a prime example that the base of the Teamsters is conservative enough that taking an overt leftist stance is likely political suicide for Teamster leadership.
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 Europeans are way ahead of the Americans in this regard.
We need to stop paying taxes.
I stopped the day he was elected, opted out and put what would be going to taxes into a VT and VXUS index funds, hopefully to cover me when the time comes to pay.
I realize that’s investing in fascist companies enabling this, but I will Shashank Redemption crawl through fascist shit to not fund this administration and cover my own ass.
Best plan I could think of, I’m all ears if someone has a better idea. So far, I’m up.
I stopped paying taxes on the last tax day. My wife and I cheated our asses off on our taxes and I changed my business around to make my money much harder to track. I’ve also gotten very good at creating charitable donations and keeping records. My wife, unfortunately, works for the state gov, so its a lot harder to hide her money, but we do our best to pay as little as possible through use of charitable donations, depreciation of assets, and a host of other tricks. I doubt she’ll spend more than 5k in taxes this year. A huge decrease from what she spent last year. I will be paying nothing because, to the government, I appear unemployed.
If even roughly 30% of US taxpayers did this, it would absolutely cripple the federal government. They would not be able to fund their gestapo, they would be forced to make concessions and the executive administration would lose a ton of power. This is the way to bring down Trump. Not violent revolution – legitimate looking tax trickery. The IRS doesn’t have the staff to deal with it and with them receiving less and less money it would just be a downward spiral of helplessness for them.
Jesus. Since when does BuzzFeed own HuffPost?
That hurts my brain. what!?
All you need to do is shutdown AWS for a few days. All the apps will fail and the corporations will lose all that advertising money.
