Summary
A 24-hour general strike in Greece on Wednesday shut down transport, schools, and government offices as workers protested high living costs.
Unions are demanding a 10% pay raise and the return of holiday bonuses cut during Greece’s financial crisis.
They accuse Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of not doing enough to tackle inflation, despite recent minimum wage increases.
Hospitals operated on emergency staff, while protests and marches were planned.
Many say wages have not kept up with the rising costs of energy, food, and rent.
The one tool Americans refuse to use.
Apparently we haven’t been fucked enough yet. I’m honestly curious how low we will go. I suspect there is no bottom and Americans are just flesh bags trained to seek out meat grinders.
Refuse? This was called by unions. In the US, that kind of union activity is illegal. What system do you think we can use in the US to call for a general strike that enough people would 1) be aware of the strike 2) agree with the need for a strike and 3) be able to participate without harming their livelihoods? Cause in Greece, the answer for all three was unions. Here in the states… I don’t know if anything is setup for that. Even reaching enough people to begin with would be tough.
Like, be rightly angry at the laws in the US that make this nigh impossible, maybe raise awareness, but don’t blame the damn victims.
Do you think the strikes that got us workers rights in the first place were legal at their time?
They were attacked by the oligarchy, sometimes with dozens of people killed.
You dont get anything done against an oligarchy if you play by their rules.
People forget that strikes are a civil option to the alternative.
Unions aren’t the sole proprietor of the strike. It’s so disheartening to realize over and over again people like yourself have no imagination. No heart. No ingenuity and have to be constantly shown what is possible.
Hey. You’re the one shoveling disheartening shit, not me. Pretending a general strike would be easy here in the states is one of the other reasons why it’s so fucking hard to do. Every time someone half-asses one, people buy into the hype, and then nothing happens makes it less likely for an actual general strike to happen. It’s a logistical nightmare that could only work if you got unions to buy-in, and that would require coordinating contract expirations to coincide around the time you want the strike to happen, since unions in the states can’t legally go on a solidarity strike. I’m definitely not saying it’s impossible, but crying that it’s actually really easy and the fact that America hasn’t done it is because we all actually like the taste of boot is the actual demotivating opinion to shovel.
No, it will work if we get your buy in, but youre already 3d chessing yourself out of it. Like, we’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas. Literally.
Self fulfilling prophecy.
Ok, I presume you’re American since you know how easy it’d be.
How far along are you in your plan for the general strike?
Considering everyone I talk to has given up just like the OP, not very far. Hey, it doesn’t have to be that way. You could commit to it right now and spread the word. I’m just one guy who will keep advocating. You could too. If I’m mathing correctly, that would double my efforts.
Sorry, I’m not American.
But you’re just starting now? How would you know how easy it is or isn’t already?
Miss me with your bullshit. You can support the cause now, no matter where you live, or you can be another negative force in a sea of negativity.
I won’t waste my time with you, though, that’s for sure.
The first problem is the polarisation. If people that are perceived to be Democrats call out a general strike, 50 percent won’t participate. Vice versa if perceived GOP does this. The polarisation and politicisation of every topic is what stops you from organising effectively.
Ha, like either of them would ever do that
It’s not a both-sides thing. The right hates the left for identitarian reasons. We are the “other” and must always be hated. If the left takes a position, the right will oppose it, even if they supported it first. The left hates the right for their ideological reasons that would be largely irrelevant if the right actually called a general strike.
Sorry I did not mean to both-side it. I am well aware that a union push will never come from the GOP. The main point was that because everything has become politicized there are no independent voices that can call for a national strike. If you want to dive deeper into why all is politicised you obviously come back to the conservative sphere (FOX, etc), so this is definitely not a both sides are bad argument.
…which is very much by design. The “Ownership Class” have understood the value of “Targeted Divide and Conquer” for a while now. A line from Metallica’s Master of Puppets comes to mind: Keep them tired it makes them well.
This is also very evident in the reactions to the election. Trump and the GOP were all screaming and hollering about election fraud right up until it looked like they wound win. Then crickets. Everyone is in only when their own team is winning.
That logic really falls apparent when you consider that GOP is the one pushing unions out.
You make it sound like both parties have a strategy to help the workers… no… only one does.
Part of one at best. Certainly not its leadership.
The first problem is people looking for problems, instead of signing up or lending support. You are the real problem.
Tell that to the Democrat Governor in NC who’s surrounded by wolves, gridlocking the whole state to a standstill year to year so nobody gets what they want.
Our system is part of the problem, if not Subject A.
I understand troubleshooting as someone who has worked as a project manager.
First, you have to have a project to start troubleshooting it.
I can simultaneously lend support and analyze why the probability of success is quite small. Anyway, this is an anonymous forum. Start a petition and I will sign it with my name.
No, I mean real support. Yes, we will need people to analyze and strategize but that comes after we see movement. You can pre-empt some of the stuff and formulate some arguments, but that shouldn’t be your opening line.
The thing we need now is people to call for one. I’m trying but I get so much push back its been difficult to not get discouraged.
If you want to show support, the thing that would help the most is another voice that keeps the idea of a strike in the discussion. Which discussion? All of them.
Good luck.
Union leaders don’t want to risk their position and union by breaking the law. American law highly restricts when a strike can happen. The punishment for companies is generally a fine or a do over for things like a ballot. Punishment for a Union is often the dissolution of the Union.
Basically we need to completely rebuild the ideology around unions. Right now if a union were to strike illegally, get dissolved, stay on strike, and then prevent scabs from entering; they would be beaten, arrested, and ridiculed by fellow workers. We won’t ever see a large strike in the US until workers remember that they are the de facto source of wealth and start acting like it.
We don’t refuse I think it’s just too hard to coordinate.
I’ll take any day off work. I’m looking for excuses!
It’s not like people need to even get into the streets. Everyone just coordinate to call in sick one day. Just one day to show yourselves the power you have, then go from there.
American billionaires want self driving cars specifically because they can’t strike.
No, but they can burn…
Unless it’s pedestrians, the backs of trucks, road signs, irregular barriers, animals…
But the people who build and maintain the roads can.
unless you’re talking about tow truck drivers it will take a while for maintenance problems to catch up with the strike. This is, in my mind, why billionaires hate trains the most.
Well, based on the recent election results, I suspect there’s literally no limit to how low Americans will go.
Badwater Basin? Lower.
Lake Assal? Lower.
Dead Sea? Lower.
The canyon under the Denman Glacier? Lower.
Challenger Deep? Lower.
TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL‽
Lower.
Bonus Panel: do the rising sea levels from anthropogenic climate change give us a bit of an advantage?
What the fuck are you talking about? Let me guess, you work at Taco Bell?
Dude. Any one of the European countries doing this is as small as one of our states. Even the largest ones aren’t the same size and scale as our largest ones. Then each state is diverse to a suprising level and has individual groups, laws and viewpoints that affect them all differently. And that’s all ignoring the politics of everything. And ignoring that Americans have zero safety nets for when they are out of work for something like a strike. Most don’t have enough food or money saved to survive a strike. You are very obviously ignorant of life here, whether you live here or not. A nationwide general strike is impossible here. When I see a coordinated strike across all of europe, you might have a point. And if a general strike is decided here I will be among the first to sign up. But until then you are too ignorant of the states and their people to make any assertion as to what is possible here.
I’m not ignorant. I know there are too many people like you who refuse to participate because they have no faith in themselves or others. I will now and forevermore count you as opposition. It’s your short sightedness that will prevent meaningful change.
Lol now and forevermore. Can you be any more dramatic? I’m not being short sighted, I’m being realistic. And even if I am I can turn stupid sentiments like that around and say it’s your inaction that prevents it. If you think it’s so possible and easy and you have the know how, then get it moving. Or are you not going to do shit but bitch on the internet either? I’ll sign up when you have a date and meaningful involvement and I’ll happily eat my words and apologize and admit short sightedness that I thought was just a realistic take. I’m not opposed to strikes, I just think a general strike across all industries across all 50 states is so unfathomably complex as to be practically impossible. I don’t think you could even get lip service to one let alone active participation. There are too many hurdles and logistic issues and not enough discomfort across all people to spur us over them on that all 50 states level.
Disregarding clinicallydepressedpoochie’s weird blend of a hero complex and defeatist puritanism, the concept of one big union organizing strikes across trades and states, while never really successful, did play a significant part in galvanizing workers and popularizing unions. Even in smaller countries where general strikes are more common, they remain isolated events, but they do a lot to promote the potential unions have in giving workers a voice, and grow unions’ ranks by increasing enrollment.
Thanks for a level headed comment and that link. I’ll read it more in depth later. I’m all for unions, I wish my particular sector of industry had more unions because we get fucked pretty hard. I’d be interested in joining if there was one for what I did. Convincing others might be difficult though because many don’t see our treatment as poor for some reason. (Contast overtime, on-call, and burnout levels of work are standard practice)
There’s good reason for that, outside of a few industries, American unions were pretty comprehensively dismantled by the likes of Reagan. We’re resilient creatures, we’ll tolerate a lot before burning out, but people will also demand better conditions if they’re shown they can have a say. We just don’t have many contemporary examples of workers wielding that kind of power in the states. The guilds in the movie industry are a steadfast counterexample, though, and united auto workers have been showing some muscle recently. There’s no denying it’s a really tough battle, but people will fight back if they’re given some hope.
Yeah that’s a good point. I do cheer those groups on and supoort them when I can.