“General Strikes” versus Other, Real, Actions

There’s a lot of talk going on around the left right now about a “general strike” to be held on Friday, or whenever another faction says it should be. This is pretty absurd. For there to be a general strike, you have to, you know, have the support of actual workers. Right now, this is just people who want to shut shit down seeing an opportunity to shut shit down without doing the work to make it happen. So expect on Friday to see a hippie on a bicycle riding through downtown while shouting “GENERAL STRIKE!” to bewildered workers.

On the other hand, there is all sorts of rooms for massive actions that actually engage the affected communities. The revival of “Day Without an Immigrant” protests that we saw in Milwaukee this week is very heartening. And I could see it spreading very quickly based in immigrant communities.

According to Washingtonian magazine, a number of local restaurants and other businesses have begun bracing for a national strike on February 16, in which immigrants—particularly those from Latinx communities—have been urged to stay home from work. The grassroots protest has seemingly been organized by word of mouth and across Latinx social media channels.

“One of our delivery men who’s Latino told our kitchen about it, and then it started spreading from there,” Rose Previte, owner of DC’s Compass Rose restaurant, told Washingtonian. “In the kitchen, all but the chef and one line cook are immigrants and asked if they could participate. “My staff was like, ‘We feel this is something we have to do.’ They felt really strongly about it. I was like, ‘Okay, absolutely.’”

While it’s unclear at the moment just how widespread the strike may be both within DC and elsewhere, a video posted to the popular Reforma Migratoria immigration activist page on Facebook calls for participants everywhere to refrain not only from working during the strike, but also shopping, buying gasoline, and sending their children to school.

This is something more along the lines of what such a “general strike” would look like if it happens. I doubt that Thursday you will see much in the way of a mass action in DC or anywhere else. But notice the huge difference here. This is immigrants doing this themselves with a particular aim in mind, spreading the idea through their own communities, and doing the hard work of giving the idea credence. If you are going to see such an event, this is how it happens. The workers are the leaders and the radicals are the followers, basically. The other way around, not really. Lenin was wrong about the vanguard, except in terms of violently seizing power and creating a dictatorship. In a democratic system, the impetus needs to come from below.