US general strike??

The United States may see its first widespread general strike

So who is actually organising it?

there's more chance of me meeting getting laid witin the week as there is of a general strike in the US.

Can you guess what one depresses this libertarian communist the most?

The United States may see its first widespread general strike in decades as hundreds of thousands across the U.S. are organizing a strike on May 1st. Another round of massive demos for immigrants is scheduled for many cities. School walkouts are being organized. A general strike is being organized among dockworkers and truckers around the country.

Infoshop News has learned that major retailers such as Wal-Mart are scrambling to move goods around in an effort to minimize disruption caused by the strike.

Leave it to SEIU to throw a wet blanket on the fires of revolution. The vanguard of the so-called "Change To Win" faction is openly declaring its opposition to massive self-managed, directly democratic, direct action oriented organizing that is being carried out by the vast immigrant community in the United States. Consider the following quote:

KPBS SAN DIEGO (2006-04-18) Many advocates for illegal immigrants are urging people not to participate in the worker and student boycott planned for May 1. KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson has details.

The Service Employees International Union represents about 12-thousand workers in San Diego County. Many are undocumented. And one of the union's goals is to support members' efforts to gain legal status.

On May first, thousands of people across the country are expected to skip work and school to demand just that for the 12-million illegal immigrants already in the country.

However, SEIU's San Diego spokesman, Matt O'Connor, says there's a better way.

O'Connor: "Really what's going to get the attention of those who don't realize undocumented workers contribute an enormous amount to the welfare of our community is certainly would come election day if we could register those who are eligible to vote and get them to the polls."

O'Connor says it's not as sexy as a walkout, but political participation has more significant impact in the long run. He's encouraging people to participate in an evening rally.

Los Angeles' Cardinal, who was a vocal leader of last month's marches, has also said he does not support the May boycott. Amy Isackson, KPBS News.

This either proves that SEIU is dutifly serving its capitalist masters or they haven't a clue what is needed to fight the forces of capital. Electoral politics have thus far been a culdesac for progressive change.

O'Connor is cynically trying to coopt the immigrant solidarity movement and channel it into SEIU's primary function as auxiliary to the corporatist Democratic Party machine.

In all liklihood, most of the participants in the May Day demonstrations who're eligible to vote will vote Democrat anyway, so why quell far more revolutionary tactics, unless your goal is to sabotage activity that is actually revolutionary, i.e. direct action?

If you cannot fathom the answer, you haven't yet grasped that business unions function as agents of the capitalist class (whether willingly or unwillingly).

There is no substitute for direct action at the point of production, direct democracy, and revolutionary workers' self management. The IWW supports these goals. SEIU obviously doesn't. Their counterrevolutionary actions are frustrating, but not at all unexpected. SEIU is fighting change and opposing those who wish to win.

I'm not under any illusions that on May Day we'll see the American economy frozen, but I think that if nothing else the event will serve to scare those in power.

A general strike is a strike action by an entire labour force in a city, region or country.

The term "general strike" is sometimes also applied to large-scale strikes of all of the workers in a particular industry, such as the Textile workers strike (1934). Those "general" strikes, however massive they might be, only involve workers who are pursuing their own immediate demands. The classic general strike, by contrast, also involves workers who have no direct stake in the outcome of the strike; as an example, in the San Francisco General Strike of 1934, both organized and non-union workers struck for four days in protest of the police and employers' tactics that had killed two picketers and in support of the longshoremen's and seamen's demands.