April 18, 2025
“We need to get ready for a General Strike.”
—Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFL-CIO), April 16, 2025, Missoula, Montana.
Notes on a General Strike (aka Political Strike, Social Strike)
In 2019, during Trump’s first administration, Sara Nelson led organizing for a potential General Strike to end the Republican shutdown of the government that many credit with doing just that. Perhaps this inspired the UAW's call for a General Strike May 1, 2028. They are having their contracts with the Big Three auto companies expire then, and they urge other unions to do the same. The NEA and many more progressive unions are discussing this. But that is in three years.
Since Trump’s second election there have been many more calls for a General Strike, such as this one by labor activist-journalist Hamilton Nolan. But what is it? A working definition of a General Strike would be when most workers in a particular place, not always unionized or led by their unions, strike with such political demands as:
* Limiting work to 10 or 9 or 8 hours a day, as dozens of General Strikes over hundreds of years in dozens of countries did, or…
* To end martial law in just six hours as in Korea last year which has led to the impeachment and arrest of their corrupt President, or…
* The April 9th 24 hour General Strike in Greece last week for the restoration of union bargaining rights and against the government’s austerity measures.
Such strikes, when effective, go beyond just withholding labor by workers and become “social” in that they gather significant public support in mass demonstrations and other ways. When they involve national issues, including democratic revolutions or defending democracy, they have to include major social institutions in the General Strike movement, including local governments, educational institutions, professional associations, religious organizations, law firms, and so on if they are to succeed. Clearly, what happens within the police and military is crucial.
This is why General Strikes are often called Political Strikes, or even Social Strikes, as Jeremy Brecher does in his recent article advocating just that now against Trump’s actions. Even Neo-Liberals such as David Brooks are calling for a National Civic Uprising to stop the Trump dictatorship from being established.
The General Strike approach that first spread widely during this second Trump term is the 3.5% pledge. It is based on social movement research by George Lakey and others, such as Eric Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, that all it takes for a revolution to succeed is support of 3.5% of the population. Various groups are trying to get to that point in pledges and then that would trigger the General Strike. The best of these networks, generalstrikeus.com, has collected over 331,548 strike cards, aiming at the magic number of 11 million. Besides this support, they have indeed gathered an impressive amount of support from a wide range of groups but not any big organizations. When they reach 6 million strike pledges, they will convene “leaders and experts of existing fights for racial, economic, gender and environmental justice” to formulate the strike demands. Several other sites (hard to say if they are really networks of activists) have joined in this organizing, such as mobilize.us (People Power United) and Strike for our Rights.
The 3.5% number is not magical. Yes, most successful popular uprisings have put around that percentage or more into the streets (not just staying home and not working) but not all. Some revolutions have been made with less (especially if major elements of society are supportive, such as the military or judiciary). Many uprisings with way more than 3.5% have failed, such as the Syrian Spring, which turned into a long and brutal Civil War. In Egypt at least 3 waves of their revolution went way past the 3.5% mark but because of the new systems of government they won in the first Revolution (top 2 runoff election for President) and other issues, all they ended up with in the end (after another Revolution) was an authoritarian regime led by the head of the old secret police.
Anyway, it seems unlikely that the necessary numbers will sign up for this vaguely abstract 3.5% General Strike. It has never happened before. General/Political/Social strikes so far have come out of actual conditions, catalyzing injustices, and for specific goals.
Organizing for a General Strike would be easiest if it was triggered by something the vast majority of union members, and Americans, agree is a fundamental assault on our freedoms, including to organize. It would be a strike to preserve the rule of law, to save democracy, to prevent a rightwing coup against the Constitution. The clearest tipping points seem to be Trump defying the Supreme Court or the 2026 elections being cancelled. One could also make an argument for Trump implementing the Insurrection Act, which could come as soon as April 20th, and sending troops into the streets and building collection/holding camps. Consider the arguments of this article: On resisting the Insurrection Act. A strike at this point might inspire the Supreme Court to do the right thing and enforce the Constitution.
The beauty of organizing around a public trigger is that it might prevent the worst from happening. Knowing there are X million people and unions and schools and local governments saying they will join a General Strike if the Trump Regime defies the Supreme Court would certainly influence not only the court, but the U.S. military which will have to choose between their oaths to the Constitution and the orders of their Commander-in-Chief. The good news is that the military will go with the Supreme Court, they swear their oath to the Constitution. But the bad news is if the Supreme Court rubber stamps Trump's most extreme actions, we are in a much darker and dangerous place.
If Trump outlaws all unions by fiat, or defies the Supreme Court over the Insurrection Act, it seems a union could declare this a de facto unfair labor practice as the rule of law has been upended, and the demand to management would be to reject the actions of Trump & co. and NOT cooperate in the coup. In Cali, this would start with management agreeing that California’s Labor Board would supplant the NLRB (gutted now by Trump already and no longer functional).
Noncooperation with the coup is already a demand in petitions, online, and in the streets, especially in higher education. At UCSC, on April 27, over 100 union activists from a dozen unions met to workshop what we will insist our local administration, the UC as a whole and the State government, and the Federal government and judiciary do, starting with resisting Coup 2025. Many of the participants agreed, or even raised on their own, that in the end it seemed a General Strike would be necessary.
The more we get groups, especially unions, to use their democratic processes to support a General Strike to be triggered when Democracy is clearly at risk, the better are our chances of preserving the Constitution and the rule of law in the U.S., flawed as it is.
Chris Hables Gray, UC-AFT
Continuing Lecturer, Crown College, UCSC
***
The times being what they are, it is no surprise that many people in the United States are now asking what people in other countries have done in similar crisis. There is a list of key successful General Strikes below.
Recent General Strikes For Democracy
This is only a partial list of recent strikes/mass protests that were successful in defending or restoring democracy, if not always for long. Even where unions were very strong (Belgium, France, Uruguay, Tunisia) strikes were only one part of the regime change. Students and other key parts of civil society also mobilized.
In countries where the unions were weak or clearly instruments of the state (Iran, Czechoslovakia) the labor strikes were organized from the grassroots.
* 1950 Belgium. Prevented the return of King Leopold III to power, keeping the WWII government-in exile-in control.
* France, May ’68. A social strike started by students and teachers at universities, it spread to the labor unions and over 10 million workers walked off the job. It remains the largest General Strike in French history, and they have a lot.
* 1978 Iranian Revolution. Strikes by oil workers and a businesses strike by “the bazaar” were crucial parts of the overthrow of the Shah. What replaced him was not necessarily better it turns out, but that just highlights the reality that overthrowing the old regime is only the first (and probably easiest) part of implementing democratic governance.
* Poland 1980 to 1989. Solidarity was a grass roots union that grew to 10 million members and eventually became a comprehensive social movement that overthrew the Communist dictatorship with protests and strikes and the threat of a General Strike.
* 1984 Uruguayan General Strikes (rolling 24 hour general strikes) forced the dictatorship to call elections. In 1973 a General Strike to stop the Coup failed.
* Czechoslovakia 1989. Civil society (led by the Civic Forum network) managed to “disrupt the political order and establish itself as the legitimate voice of the nation in negotiations with the state”
* Tunisia 2010-11. 28 days of protest, including strikes by most lawyers and teachers and many others among the 1 million unionized workers led to the overthrow of dictatorship.
* Egypt 2011. Massive strikes across the nation were an integral part of the successful overthrow of the dictatorship. They became general in Cairo and other cities until the military and much of the rest of the elite abandoned Mubarak. In the ensuing elections the three main pro-democracy revolutionary candidates got over 50% of the vote, but the runoff was between the Moslem Brotherhood candidate (who won, only to be overthrown with an even larger mobilization once he tried to impose fundamentalism on Egypt) and the head of the secret police, who ended up in power and reigns over an increasingly corrupt and incompetent dictatorship to this day.
* 2019 Puerto Rico. Mass protests building to a General Strike forced the resignation of the corrupt sitting governor. There is an excellent analysis of this successful mobilization in the NV database Swarthmore maintains.
* Korea 2024. In many ways, a great example for the U.S. However, the impeachment and other systems of Korean democracy are clearly more fit for purpose than what we have.
“We need to get ready for a General Strike.”
—Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFL-CIO), April 16, 2025, Missoula, Montana.
Notes on a General Strike (aka Political Strike, Social Strike)
In 2019, during Trump’s first administration, Sara Nelson led organizing for a potential General Strike to end the Republican shutdown of the government that many credit with doing just that. Perhaps this inspired the UAW's call for a General Strike May 1, 2028. They are having their contracts with the Big Three auto companies expire then, and they urge other unions to do the same. The NEA and many more progressive unions are discussing this. But that is in three years.
Since Trump’s second election there have been many more calls for a General Strike, such as this one by labor activist-journalist Hamilton Nolan. But what is it? A working definition of a General Strike would be when most workers in a particular place, not always unionized or led by their unions, strike with such political demands as:
* Limiting work to 10 or 9 or 8 hours a day, as dozens of General Strikes over hundreds of years in dozens of countries did, or…
* To end martial law in just six hours as in Korea last year which has led to the impeachment and arrest of their corrupt President, or…
* The April 9th 24 hour General Strike in Greece last week for the restoration of union bargaining rights and against the government’s austerity measures.
Such strikes, when effective, go beyond just withholding labor by workers and become “social” in that they gather significant public support in mass demonstrations and other ways. When they involve national issues, including democratic revolutions or defending democracy, they have to include major social institutions in the General Strike movement, including local governments, educational institutions, professional associations, religious organizations, law firms, and so on if they are to succeed. Clearly, what happens within the police and military is crucial.
This is why General Strikes are often called Political Strikes, or even Social Strikes, as Jeremy Brecher does in his recent article advocating just that now against Trump’s actions. Even Neo-Liberals such as David Brooks are calling for a National Civic Uprising to stop the Trump dictatorship from being established.
The General Strike approach that first spread widely during this second Trump term is the 3.5% pledge. It is based on social movement research by George Lakey and others, such as Eric Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, that all it takes for a revolution to succeed is support of 3.5% of the population. Various groups are trying to get to that point in pledges and then that would trigger the General Strike. The best of these networks, generalstrikeus.com, has collected over 331,548 strike cards, aiming at the magic number of 11 million. Besides this support, they have indeed gathered an impressive amount of support from a wide range of groups but not any big organizations. When they reach 6 million strike pledges, they will convene “leaders and experts of existing fights for racial, economic, gender and environmental justice” to formulate the strike demands. Several other sites (hard to say if they are really networks of activists) have joined in this organizing, such as mobilize.us (People Power United) and Strike for our Rights.
The 3.5% number is not magical. Yes, most successful popular uprisings have put around that percentage or more into the streets (not just staying home and not working) but not all. Some revolutions have been made with less (especially if major elements of society are supportive, such as the military or judiciary). Many uprisings with way more than 3.5% have failed, such as the Syrian Spring, which turned into a long and brutal Civil War. In Egypt at least 3 waves of their revolution went way past the 3.5% mark but because of the new systems of government they won in the first Revolution (top 2 runoff election for President) and other issues, all they ended up with in the end (after another Revolution) was an authoritarian regime led by the head of the old secret police.
Anyway, it seems unlikely that the necessary numbers will sign up for this vaguely abstract 3.5% General Strike. It has never happened before. General/Political/Social strikes so far have come out of actual conditions, catalyzing injustices, and for specific goals.
Organizing for a General Strike would be easiest if it was triggered by something the vast majority of union members, and Americans, agree is a fundamental assault on our freedoms, including to organize. It would be a strike to preserve the rule of law, to save democracy, to prevent a rightwing coup against the Constitution. The clearest tipping points seem to be Trump defying the Supreme Court or the 2026 elections being cancelled. One could also make an argument for Trump implementing the Insurrection Act, which could come as soon as April 20th, and sending troops into the streets and building collection/holding camps. Consider the arguments of this article: On resisting the Insurrection Act. A strike at this point might inspire the Supreme Court to do the right thing and enforce the Constitution.
The beauty of organizing around a public trigger is that it might prevent the worst from happening. Knowing there are X million people and unions and schools and local governments saying they will join a General Strike if the Trump Regime defies the Supreme Court would certainly influence not only the court, but the U.S. military which will have to choose between their oaths to the Constitution and the orders of their Commander-in-Chief. The good news is that the military will go with the Supreme Court, they swear their oath to the Constitution. But the bad news is if the Supreme Court rubber stamps Trump's most extreme actions, we are in a much darker and dangerous place.
If Trump outlaws all unions by fiat, or defies the Supreme Court over the Insurrection Act, it seems a union could declare this a de facto unfair labor practice as the rule of law has been upended, and the demand to management would be to reject the actions of Trump & co. and NOT cooperate in the coup. In Cali, this would start with management agreeing that California’s Labor Board would supplant the NLRB (gutted now by Trump already and no longer functional).
Noncooperation with the coup is already a demand in petitions, online, and in the streets, especially in higher education. At UCSC, on April 27, over 100 union activists from a dozen unions met to workshop what we will insist our local administration, the UC as a whole and the State government, and the Federal government and judiciary do, starting with resisting Coup 2025. Many of the participants agreed, or even raised on their own, that in the end it seemed a General Strike would be necessary.
The more we get groups, especially unions, to use their democratic processes to support a General Strike to be triggered when Democracy is clearly at risk, the better are our chances of preserving the Constitution and the rule of law in the U.S., flawed as it is.
Chris Hables Gray, UC-AFT
Continuing Lecturer, Crown College, UCSC
***
The times being what they are, it is no surprise that many people in the United States are now asking what people in other countries have done in similar crisis. There is a list of key successful General Strikes below.
Recent General Strikes For Democracy
This is only a partial list of recent strikes/mass protests that were successful in defending or restoring democracy, if not always for long. Even where unions were very strong (Belgium, France, Uruguay, Tunisia) strikes were only one part of the regime change. Students and other key parts of civil society also mobilized.
In countries where the unions were weak or clearly instruments of the state (Iran, Czechoslovakia) the labor strikes were organized from the grassroots.
* 1950 Belgium. Prevented the return of King Leopold III to power, keeping the WWII government-in exile-in control.
* France, May ’68. A social strike started by students and teachers at universities, it spread to the labor unions and over 10 million workers walked off the job. It remains the largest General Strike in French history, and they have a lot.
* 1978 Iranian Revolution. Strikes by oil workers and a businesses strike by “the bazaar” were crucial parts of the overthrow of the Shah. What replaced him was not necessarily better it turns out, but that just highlights the reality that overthrowing the old regime is only the first (and probably easiest) part of implementing democratic governance.
* Poland 1980 to 1989. Solidarity was a grass roots union that grew to 10 million members and eventually became a comprehensive social movement that overthrew the Communist dictatorship with protests and strikes and the threat of a General Strike.
* 1984 Uruguayan General Strikes (rolling 24 hour general strikes) forced the dictatorship to call elections. In 1973 a General Strike to stop the Coup failed.
* Czechoslovakia 1989. Civil society (led by the Civic Forum network) managed to “disrupt the political order and establish itself as the legitimate voice of the nation in negotiations with the state”
* Tunisia 2010-11. 28 days of protest, including strikes by most lawyers and teachers and many others among the 1 million unionized workers led to the overthrow of dictatorship.
* Egypt 2011. Massive strikes across the nation were an integral part of the successful overthrow of the dictatorship. They became general in Cairo and other cities until the military and much of the rest of the elite abandoned Mubarak. In the ensuing elections the three main pro-democracy revolutionary candidates got over 50% of the vote, but the runoff was between the Moslem Brotherhood candidate (who won, only to be overthrown with an even larger mobilization once he tried to impose fundamentalism on Egypt) and the head of the secret police, who ended up in power and reigns over an increasingly corrupt and incompetent dictatorship to this day.
* 2019 Puerto Rico. Mass protests building to a General Strike forced the resignation of the corrupt sitting governor. There is an excellent analysis of this successful mobilization in the NV database Swarthmore maintains.
* Korea 2024. In many ways, a great example for the U.S. However, the impeachment and other systems of Korean democracy are clearly more fit for purpose than what we have.