Is America Pissed Off Enough at Trump and Musk for a General Strike?
There are some good reasons for that, notes Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. European workers have more job protections than their American counterparts; in France (where the “Yellow Vests” protestors of 2018-19 succeeded in getting the government to scrap a fuel tax), the right to strike is in the constitution. In the U.S., most contracts have no-strike clauses, Windham said, and in an economic strike, companies can replace striking workers. Federal workers do not have the right to strike. And without a national healthcare system, American workers stand to lose health insurance along with their jobs if they strike.
“The U.S. system is more harsh than in some other countries. Workers can easily be fired, and there’s no safety net. The risks of striking are very high,” said Stephanie Luce, professor of Labor Studies at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. A general strike is not “off the table, but it’s a developing muscle. It will take a little bit of work,” she said.
America has had some notable general strikes in its history, demonstrating both the potential for unified action and the deadly response by authorities. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started in Martinsburg, W.V., and spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Buffalo, Windham said. People rallied in support in San Francisco and throughout the South. “People weren’t used to working for wages. They came from farms, and were not used to corporations,” she said. “When strikes happened, entire communities got involved.” But they got beaten back, literally: The railroad company and elected officials sent in militias to quell the labor uprising, resulting in an estimated 1,000 arrests and 100 deaths.