Why a national general strike may be the next step in protesting this government shutdown
Salon, Jan. 14, 2019
The social cohesion for a general strike supporting federal workers is part of America’s past, how about now?
It is hard to understate the utter disdain and contempt being shown by President Donald Trump toward the 800,000 federal workers whose lives he has upended with the government shutdown.
That 400,000 of them have to continue to work without pay, because they are deemed essential, reduces them to a form of serfdom which really amounts to a massive abuse of human rights.
The government sets the bar as an employer. Every time it violates laws like the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires workers be paid the minimum wage and overtime, it sets a precedent that puts all workers at peril.
With the explosion of the “gig” economy, the raid by owners on their employees’ pensions, and a national workforce that became increasingly part-time without benefits, Americans were beaten into submission to believe they were even lucky to have any job.
And make no mistake about it, the vulture capitalist’s attack-dogs exploited this growing American worker anxiety to try and humiliate and denigrate public workers — including teachers — in their states who, because they had union representation, still had benefits at all.
This attack on organized labor is part of America. President Reagan’s 1981 mass firing of 11,000 air traffic controllers who belonged to the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization set labor back several decades.
Reagan’s breaking the PATCO strike set the stage for a second robber barons’ gilded age when capital would dictate the terms and conditions of employment and workers were reduced to waiting by their phone on pins and needles praying the sunrise would bring the chance they might work that day.
American workers have been seduced and then subjugated by mass consumer capitalism that replaced good wages and benefits with consumer debt. From cradle to grave they have been harnessed into a “debt” mule train. Think what a great social control mechanism the $1.5 trillion dollar college debt yoke is on our young people!
How can you dare challenge the established order, no matter how abusive and oppressive, when at your so-called “emancipation” you are shackled to a debt load you won’t be able to pay back ever?
We live in a culture where we usually keep our economic anxieties and tribulations to ourselves, no matter how bad they get, which only empowers those systems that profit off our isolation and exploitation.
It is our debased state as debt slaves, with tens of millions of us struggling week to week to make ends meet.
If this Trump shutdown had happened, say in France, where there is some residual social cohesion, there would have already been a national general strike in support of these workers.
For decades Americans had that muscle of collective action and their children and grandchildren benefited.
From the end of slavery and child labor to the very concept of the weekend itself, these advances in our circumstance were the fruits of bitter, often violent struggle.
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Перед нами - коварный и опасный мошенник, расист, лжец и фашист Дональд Трамп, порочный Конгресс, нацистские ФБР - ЦРУ, кровавые милитаристы США и НАТО >>> а также и лживые, вредоносные американские СМ»И».
Киевские власти — фашистские агенты американского империализма...
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Правительство США жестоко нарушало мои права человека при проведении кампании террора, которая заставила меня покинуть свою родину и получить политическое убежище в СССР. См. книгу «Безмолвный террор — История политических гонений на семью в США» - "Silent Terror: One family's history of political persecution in the United States» - arnoldlockshin.wordpress.com
Правительство США еще нарушает мои права, в течении 14 лет отказывается от выплаты причитающейся мне пенсии по старости. Властители США воруют пенсию!!
ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - вслед за позорным, предавшим страну предшественником КГБ, мерзко выполняет приказы секретного, кровавого хозяина (boss) - американского ЦРУ (CIA). Среди таких «задач» - мне запретить выступать в СМИ и не пропускать большинства отправленных мне комментариев. А это далеко не всё...
Арнольд Локшин, политэмигрант из США
BANNED – ЗАПРЕЩЕНО!!
ЦРУ - ФСБ забанили все мои посты, комментарии в Вконтакте, в Макспарке, в Medium.com... и удаляют ещё много других моих постов!
… а также блокируют мой доступ к таким сайтам, как «Портал Госуслуги Москва»!