Lucky Strikes

A successful general strike focuses on practicality, not ideology

by Doug Collins, the Free Press

he idea of a general strike--when all but the most essential workers stop working--seems scary for most Americans. This is partly just due to lack of exposure. In my lifetime, there has never been a general strike on US soil until earlier this summer in Puerto Rico.

Americans were not always so strike-shy. General strikes occurred in numerous US cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Seattle had a high-profile general strike in 1919. Even New Orleans, now not known for its labor activism, had a racially integrated general strike in 1892. San Francisco generally struck as late as 1934. (A good source of information on US general strikes are the various books by labor historian Philip Foner.)

General strikes are hardly out of the ordinary nowadays--but only in other countries. A recent threatened general strike in Korea brought the government to the negotiating table to address downsizing in major companies there. "It's enough to make you want to buy Korean!" says local labor historian Ross Rieder, who points out that labor activism and solidarity in Korea are currently far better developed than in the US, even with frequent jailings of Korean labor leaders.

In fact, general strikes could be a great bargaining tool for promoting overarching labor issues that don't simply apply to individual workplaces. For issues like downsizing, cutting the workweek, privatization (such as in Puerto Rico), overuse of temp workers, and a general lack of job security and health care for many workers, bargaining with each separate company is not going to do the trick.

Voter initiatives for cut-and-dry issues like raising the minimum wage can certainly be an effective alternative to general strikes, but just cross your fingers that such initiatives don't get overturned by legal challenges.

As the Rodney King and Mumia Abu-Jamal demonstrations have shown, mass actions can help turn around a legal system that has gone astray, so Americans shouldn't lose the age-old human ability to create mass actions on labor issues.

General Strike, or Roman Holiday?

In a broad sense, general strikes have existed since ancient times. Massive slave rebellions have occurred throughout history, often not against the institution of slavery itself, but simply for fairer treatment, time off, holidays, and fringe benefits--maybe even tickets to the chariot races. (After all, slavery or serfdom was the most common form of work in non-cash premodern economies, and usually involved standards of humane treatment by the master or lord.)

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, in response to dislocation and impoverishment resulting from the industrial revolution, the general strike became a tool for a new type of organization, the labor union. Particulary in southern European countries, the labor philosophy of syndicalism took root, which advocated general strikes as a means for workers to eventually attain direct control over industries without using armed struggle or political action. This same philosophy was also influential in the US until roughly 1920, and was a major factor in the Seattle general strike of 1919.

Some aspects of syndicalism remain in southern Europe. The Spanish word sindicato means "labor union" (whereas the American English word "syndicate" has become associated with organized crime). General strikes also remain a tradition in southern Europe. While I was staying in Cordoba, Spain one summer in the mid-1980s, a one-day general strike occurred. I was expecting a confrontation, but it turned out to be a day-long siesta in a hot summer, with a bit of union tabling and public education going on.

It was an unofficial, self-appointed holiday.

The Disconnected American

Americans in contrast have largely lost the desire for shared time-off on holidays and weekends, or for discussing labor. International Labor Day (May 1) is celebrated in most countries as a no-work holiday, a sort of yearly one-day general strike that has become officially recognized outside the US. The holiday indeed had its origins in a large strike which shut down Chicago on May 1, 1886 in support of the eight-hour work day, but the anniversary has never been officially celebrated in the US. The official US Labor Day in September is just another "bank holiday" which now seems to be enjoyed mostly by white collars. Service-sector workers generally labor on our Labor Day.

One factor that makes it hard nowadays for Americans to imagine mass action like a general strike is car-dependence and the resulting suburban sprawl, which discourage close-knit urban community. About the only mass movement that Americans typically take part in nowadays is rush-hour traffic.

Another factor is the very common use of evening, night, and weekend work in the US, which tends to separate families and friends, making it less likely that we'll even have time to discuss labor or other political issues with friends and family.

A final factor that may discourage Americans from a general strike is fear of repeating past failures, or fear of enciting a crackdown. One such example is the Seattle general strike.

The Seattle General Strike-Out

On February 6, 1919, the Seattle Central Labor Council, in association with some IWW and Japanese-American locals, declared a general strike which lasted for five days. The strike was notable for its peacefulness and order. Crime actually declined. Roughly 100,000 workers walked out, but many stayed busy as volunteer food and milk distributors and peace keepers. The strike was a moral victory but a practical failure.

The strike began as an attempt to secure wage increases for 35,000 shipyard workers, but because of the fervent syndicalist ideologies of the day, many strikers wanted no less than immediate worker control of all industry. Since the strike was peaceful and orderly, it seemed to prove the notion that worker control could be possible. Ironically, this peacefulness thus made establishment politicians and bosses more wary, since they had no legitimate excuse to crack down.

The mayor of the city, Ole Hanson was staunchly opposed to the strike, and called in the military and deputized UW students to quell the non-disturbance. But what actually ended the strike were orders from international union officers, many of whom believed their Seattle underlings were too radical.

A statement by the mayor after the strike, cited in Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States illustrates the intensely divided ideologies of the time:

"The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact....The intent, openly and covertly announced, was for the overthrow of the industrial system; here first, then everywhere....The general strike, as practiced in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet."

After the strike, raids on socialist offices and printing plants occurred, as well as the arrest of 39 IWW activists. According to labor historian Ross Rieder, "About the only success of the Seattle general strike was that it proved that workers could run the city just as well as the bosses."

If practical success is what we're after, rather than just moral victory, the Seattle general strike teaches Americans a few lessons: if we ever have another general strike in the future, we should focus on practical, bargainable objectives rather than vague, long-term goals of worker control. We should also ensure by political activism that our elected leaders will be by-and-large in support of the effort.

Since large numbers of rank-and-file syndicalist workers in 1919 avoided political engagement for ideological reasons, the chasm between labor and Seattle's political leadership was perhaps too great, and the Seattle general strike was not effective.

In the 1990s we have the opposite problem. Too many labor leaders are happy simply collecting union dues and schmoozing with politicians, to the extent that labor has largely lost its ability to carry out grass-roots organizing and forge mass movements. Future labor activists should be willing both to work legislatively and to organize mass movements like general strikes.