How Do I Organize a General Strike During a Crisis? from The STRIKE AGAINST GENOCIDE Manifesto by J.S. Khoom
From the Masses: It is of the upmost importance that any political organizing for a strike come from and be led by the masses, the working class. Too often when movements are created they are led by petite bourgeois (“middle class”) professional activists or politicians. This distorts movements towards supporting the careers of advocates for piecemeal reforms instead of building permanent people power and changing the balance of forces in our society. From our experience as working class organizers we’ve seen again and again what happens to movements when they are dominated by specific electoral campaigns or non-profit organizations: they lose energy and slowly dissipate, having made minimal impact on the lives of everyday people. The focus should not be on the personalities and egos of individual careerists and social climbers but on the real needs and wants of the people. When leadership is in the hands of the masses demands which actually serve our needs can be put forth and advanced.
Serving the People Through Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: Social distancing provides a series of challenges for traditional organizing. Not being able to meet people in person is a severe limitation however there’s ways around this. Any successful organizing effort begins with relationship building. You must get to know your neighbors, your coworkers and the larger community. Based on the experiences of the Portland Rent Strike movement and the COVID-19 Portland Oregon Area Community Support mutual aid group, which Strike Against Genocide developed from, we believe any strike organizing must begin with the creation of mutual aid groups. Mutual aid disaster relief groups can be organized online and is a great way to build relationships with the community. People need groceries, medications and other medical aid, housing, services, etc that are difficult for individuals alone to coordinate under quarantine. There’s a desperate amount of need within the community that can only be addressed by the community. Mutual aid should be the basis for all other political work. Mutual aid groups can raise the political consciousness of the masses toward mass radical action. By directly meeting the needs of the people a network of support also develops that allows for future sustained collective action. Demands and tactics previously considered impossible are already reshaping the world for the better.
Organizing Sector Strikes Toward a General Strike: When what became the Portland Rent Strike began as a mutual aid group online we weren’t just coordinating and distributing resources. From the very beginning the group was a vehicle for a rent freeze and forgiveness demand. Due to the inadequate policies passed by state and city governments workers in Portland began agitating - first publishing a petition that nearly has 40,000 signatures and then escalating towards the citywide rent strike. Now in the first month of the rent strike we’ve seen the demand become international as well as a wave of wildcat strikes by workers. Renters, service and gig workers, medical workers, and more organized their own independent strikes one after another. This requires educating your fellow renters and co-workers on their rights, creating demands, posters and letter templates for renters to landlords, and distributing information on how to withhold labor and rent during quarantine. Connecting all this work to mutual aid organizations provides a hub of support for renters, strikers and the homeless to continue the struggle for extended periods of time. Once a number of strikes from across different industries and sectors are off the ground they can be linked together, bringing the renters movement into the workers movement, into the prison and detention center hunger strike movement, into anti-debt movements and vice versa. That is the basis for a general strike. A general strike will be most successful when as much of the economy is halted or slowed down as possible for as long as possible. This is only possible through broad coalitions acting in solidarity.
Build Dual Power, Communize: As capitalism and the state further retreats from people’s lives and the need for mutual aid increases there will be need for higher levels of coordination, organization and targets. The state has abandoned the people and in order to ensure our mutual survival new institutions which serve our interests and not the interests of capital must be created. If that sounds daunting or impossible remind yourself that this process is already underway. Movements are liberating homes for the homeless, building eviction defense networks, providing community self-defense and organizing their own communities in large absence of business and government. There will be a need for committees, councils and people’s assemblies in order to coordinate an ever expanding set of needs. By empowering the community to direct itself through parallel institutions we can ensure a long term survival plan as the crisis worsens and weakens the state’s ability to function. It also builds the power of the masses to make stronger demands and sustain an extended struggle.
International Solidarity: The impacts of COVID-19 are not local or national but international. Because of our fascist American government the necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of the majority of the world’s people are not being taken. The U.S. military is seizing medical supplies and food from nations it is unofficially at war with and maintaining harsh sanctions which will significantly contribute to the global death count. Because the impact of COVID-19 is not national or local that means so too must our organizing not be limited to national or local boundaries. Strike movements and mutual aid groups are appearing across the globe. They must be linked together and with various movements working against sanctions. The revolution is already underway but it will only succeed in changing the course of human history if we are organized and working together. It is important to build international relationships and agitate for supplies to be distributed to every country in need. If we are survive this pandemic at all it will only be through international coordination and cooperation.
