Excerpts follow:
Organizers seeking to spark far-reaching work stoppages in the United States can invoke a powerful fact: It has happened before.
Today, activists of many varieties are claiming the strike as a tool to fight seemingly intractable problems. Those talking about this form of mass protest are not limited to the labor movement, which has been inspired by recent waves of teachers’ strikes. They also include immigrant rights advocates who are calling for broad-based disruption, as well as climate change activists planning a Global Climate Strike in September.
The idea of a strike that extends beyond a single workplace or group of employees to encompass a critical mass of society has long held a hallowed place in the radical imagination. Rarely, though, is it spoken of as a realistic tactic in America. Yet those experimenting with this possibility today can invoke a compelling fact: It has happened before. [...]
Yet the Seattle general strike was, nonetheless, “an enormous display of power,” Frank told me. “It didn’t just show union power to the employers, but it showed that working people could run the city themselves.” By withdrawing from business as usual, “labor was able to say, ‘Look what we can do,’” she added. “And we carry that inside of us to this day.”Notably workers, Arizona teachers, in 2018 demonstrated the effectiveness (POWER) of a unified labor action. For years even decisive court decisions were unable to get the GOP-ruled state legislature to make significant improvements to funding for the most important tax-funded expenditure - public education.
When educator angst reached critical mass, they acted as one. From the NYTimes (April 26, 2018),
PHOENIX — Thousands of teachers in Arizona and Colorado walked out of their classrooms on Thursday to demand more funding for public schools, the latest surge of a teacher protest movement that has already swept through three states and is spreading quickly to others.
Hundreds of public schools were shut down in Arizona because of the walkouts, which turned the streets of Downtown Phoenix into seas of crimson as educators and their supporters marched to the State Capitol wearing red T-shirts and chanting “Red for Ed,” as the movement is known here.
From CNN (May 1, 2018),
The Arizona Education Association tweeted that 50,000 people participated in a rally in Phoenix on Monday. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten joined the rally in Phoenix on Monday.
"We have to come together to solve the funding issue -- @dougducey needs to talk to teachers and work with Republicans and Democrats to come up with real solutions," she tweeted.
"To ask us just to trust is hard because when you look at history, it's hard to trust," said third-grade teacher Gwen Cordiak. "To ask us to go back to the classroom, when most people haven't even seen the bill... we've been talking to lawmakers that haven't seen bill yet... we're not going on blind faith."The bottom line here is that teachers in Arizona and other states recognized -- despite the foot dragging, stonewalling and excuse making -- they had power when they stood (and marched) together.
Greta Thunberg matter-of-factly speaks in clear, succinct language. In one year, she has ignited a global movement. Nevertheless, reactionary entrenched interests have taken to using tired tactics to intimidate and silence her and the millions around the globe who celebrate her message. Let me remind you that The Obstacle is The Way.
As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity.
Holiday, Ryan. The Obstacle Is the Way (pp. 3-4). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
From Common Dreams,
She disdains celebrity. She makes no claim to heroism. She rebuffs efforts to idolize her. She isn't calculating or preoccupied with fame or ego. There is no artifice about her. She speaks plainly, without affectation or embroidery.
In words and deeds, Thunberg is the embodiment of philosopher Howard Zinn's admonition: "We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power that can transform the world."DREAM BIG, FIGHT HARD
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