Can U.S. labor organize a general strike?

UAW on Strike: Photo via AFP

[Update 11/18/2023].  Big 3 autoworkers vote to approve contract with historic raises.

[Update 11/14/2023].  Evidently some auto workers aren’t willing to wait until 2028.  I’ve added some addition material at the end.]

The United Auto Workers has called on organized labor to prepare for a general strike on May 1, 2028.

That’s the date that the new auto industry contracts expire.  If other major unions could set their contracts to expire the same date, U.S. organized labor would be in a uniquely powerful position.

Wage-earners have been losing ground for decades.  The national government ignores their concerns, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.  Things are unlikely to change, whether Joe Biden, Donald Trump or someone else wins next year’s elections.

So the only path to change is through some sort of direct action.  Hamilton Nolan, a labor writer, says that a general strike could be the way to do it.

The general feeling of a labor power resurgence since the pandemic has been fueled by a procession of high profile wins: The Starbucks and Amazon union drives, the massive organizing on college campuses, the friendly Biden administration and its uniquely pro-union NLRB, the historically high favorability of unions in public opinion polls, the periodic mini-strike waves at a variety of fed-up workplaces. This year, we have seen a trio of actions—the Teamsters backing down UPS with a credible strike threat, and the successful WGA and UAW strikes—that show what can be won with the power of strikes at a larger scale.

All of this is encouraging. All of this is evidence of a real shift in public sentiment. All of this, however, does not add up to a robust and lasting change in the balance of power between capital and labor. Right now, what we have are a bunch of discrete occurrences, a bunch of data points that amount to proof of potential.

There are two things that will determine whether or not this promising moment leads to a true, historic revival of the labor movement. The first is easily measurable: union density. Barely 1 in 10 American workers is a union member today. Despite all of the wins just mentioned, that number has not risen in the wake of the pandemic. The primary thing that unions need to do today is to organize more union members. Without this, organized labor is a walled and shrinking garden, rather than a legitimately expansive force for society-wide change.

The second thing is related to the first, but it offers a broader menu for action: We must see some tangible coordination of action across the U.S. labor movement. It is great when one union wins a contract, or organizes an important new company, but those isolated events will not be enough to take on the combined power of trillion-dollar multinational corporations and their political allies. Not even when they involve tens or hundreds of thousands of workers.

Joe Hill’s legacy for Occupy Wall Street

Peggy Noonan, who was a speechwriter for President Reagan, cited Joe Hill, the radical labor organizer, in a Wall Street Journal article criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Joe Hill

The Tea Party was a middle-class uprising that was only too happy to funnel its energy into the democratic process.  They took their central concerns—spending, taxes and regulation—and followed the prescription of Joe Hill:  Don’t mourn, organize.  They did.  They entered politics and helped win elections.  They did the Republicans a big favor by not going third-party but working within the GOP—at least for now.

Occupy Wall Street is completely different.  They mean to gain power and sway by going outside the political system.  They are a critique of the political system. They went to the streets and stayed there.

They are not funneling their energy into the democratic process because there is no market for what they are selling: Capitalism should be overturned, I am angry that my college loan bills are so big, the government is bad, and the answer is more government.  You can’t win elections in America with that kind of message.  So they will stay in the streets, where they can have an impact by stopping traffic, inconveniencing people going to and coming from work, and appearing to be an amorphous force that must be bowed to.

The difference between the occupiers and the Tea Party is the difference between acting out and taking part.

Joe Hill was an organizer for the International Workers of the World, an anarchist trade union founded in 1904 whose vision was to organize all the workers of the world into one big union, call a general strike and replace the capitalist system with a worker-run democracy.  They rejected participation in politics, and did not seek wage contracts, but rather sought to wrest control of business enterprises from employers and give it to the workers.

Joe Hill was convicted of murder of a Utah storekeeper in 1915 in what his admirers think was a frame-up.  His last words reportedly were: “Don’t mourn for me.  Organize.”

The IWW vision has a lot in common with that of Occupy Wall Street, and nothing in common with that of Peggy Noonan or the Tea Party.  Occupy Wall Street organizers, through their General Assemblies, seek to create a model of a society without bosses, a participatory democracy in which people organize themselves.  And Occupy Oakland is attempting a general strike.

The IWW’s produced many of the great labor songs, like “Solidarity Forever.”  Joe Hill was one of its great songwriters.  He wrote “There’ll Be Pie in the Sky Bye and Bye (It’s a Lie),” “Casey Jones (the Union Scab),” “The Rebel Girl” and “There is Power in a Union.”

While awaiting execution, he wrote this will, which was made into a song.

My will is easy to decide

For I have nothing to divide

My kin don’t need to weep and moan

Moss does not cling to a rolling stone

My body? oh, if I could choose

I would to ashes it reduce

And let the merry breezes blow

My dust to where some flowers grow

Perhaps some fading flower then

Would soon rise up and grow green again

This is my last and final will

Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill

Joe Hill’s memory has inspired generations of radicals, progressives and labor union members.  There is a great song, “I Thought I saw Joe Hill Last Night.”  Nobody ever wrote a song, “I thought I saw George Meany last night.”

But, as much as I admire Joe Hill and other heroic IWW leaders, their vision of an anarchist utopia was a pipe dream.  Their vision of One Big Union, the General Strike and the overthrow of capitalism may have inspired them, but it didn’t happen and isn’t going to happen.  Occupy Oakland conducted what its leaders called a general strike, but the only result was damage to the properties of small businesses whose owners are part of the 99 percent.