My son ditched school with over a thousand other students yesterday in Denver.
I was a square and worked, but I didn't shop.
From what I've read, a lot of people participated in some form.
In organizing terms, it looked like a successful stress test - inviting people to commit to something more significant than before (weekend rallies)
My love and appreciation to all who organized and participated. These are important steps of increasing mass non-cooperation
@clayton I agree. Every step people are willing to take helps others who want to take those steps be able to. I know there are a lot of union contracts that are all set to simultaneously end on international workers day this year and I would like to hope that we can keep momentum going into that. A number of simultaneous strikes could have to ability to build into a proper General strike and the only off ramp the bosses affected have is to try to negotiate early.
@R4D10_411310p47HY my understanding is that the general strike being coordinated by unions is 2028, but I agree with your general point and hope.
And with the weakened position of us working class folks here in the U.S., having two more years to build to a true general strike feels right and more attainable than later this year.
@clayton I think time and dragging things out works against us generally. There is nothing that gets these systems of support built quite like an active crisis. A lot can happen in 2 years and a lot of liberals can go back to brunch in that time. Trump could abolish unions and make all strikes illegal by then. Everybody thinks certain things have to be in place for a strike to happen. If we wait for those things, there will never be a strike. Strike while the iron is hot.
@R4D10_411310p47HY Labor law in this country intentionally prevents unions from solidarity strikes. That's why the general strike plan was called for 2028 because each union needs to intentionally organize their bargaining agreements to "just so happen" to coincide with each other.
But yes! I agree! We should strike while the iron is hot. That means though that union participation would be much less formal, essentially wildcat strikes. At least that's my understanding.
@clayton Yeah, I guess I had head wrong about it being this year, but essentially to participate now, a lot of strikes with union participation would indeed be wildcat strikes, but honestly asking permission for a strike kind of defeats the purpose. If we can get a lot of community buy to a general strike with simultaneous wildcat union strikes, we could actually put the bosses on their back foot for a change.
And the short term goal of blocking the latest funding proposed to ICE was successful, at least temporarily.
That paragraph should read, *community response to the murder of Alex Pretti*
If widespread protests hadn't erupted, I doubt the Democrats would have blocked the bill.
