Hypothetical:

The ALF-CIO and some other big unions have called for a general strike in the US. It is a general protest at the state of society but has a few concrete goals. A federally mandated $15 minimum wage, a new higher tax bracket on earnings over $1,000,000 and much better scrutiny plus legal changes for tech giants and other huge corporations using tax loopholes to pay tiny %'s of their profits in tax.

You have no idea how successful and widespread it will be but you have heard some normies talking about it so it has clearly penetrated the national consciousness to some extent.

Tough concept to model with only 10 poll options but tick up to the point that you wouldn't join any more and whether those times would risk your job.

I year plus my job would be at risk, but the year would be dependent on the wider participation rates, I wouldn't be planning on being the last person standing

It's a great idea but we need a fund to support the people going on strike. You can't just expect people to go on strike for a year without any kind of support or income--people have families to feed and even single workers don't want to be homeless. So my answer is it depends on how robust the general strike is and whether or not I feel confident enough about the preparations undertaken that I could safely join in.

Pole is a thinly veiled "how much savings do you have/would be willing to spend" question imo. I could do a few months before it started to really hurt.

Needs an option for those currently in union jobs where you participate for as long as your union does As written I voted wouldn’t participate because it’s illegal in my current position to strike. If my union did it anyway though such that I wasn’t likely to immediately lose my job (and I have young kids to support) then I’d participate.

I lived through a general strike in Spain a few years back. Absolutely nothing came of it.

Strikes work when there is a clear objective and the strike itself is somehow clearly linked to obtaining that objective. They tend to backfire otherwise.

Small business owner here. I don't think I'd close my business. I would pay my employees at least partial salary for some period of time.

I think a very well-organized one-day strike would be a good way to shake the tree.

But what tree are you shaking? And what do you expect to come from it? First lesson in organizing is to have concrete realizable goals, otherwise the blowback weakens you even more.

A general strike as being proposed here would accomplish nothing and most likely just build resentment only hurting the cause. I voted I wouldn't join at all my job wouldn't be at risk

Cross-industry organizing is illegal anyway under the Taft-Hartley act. Soon pretty much all labor organizing will be illegal under the far-right stolen Supreme Court. If we aren't prepared to break these labor laws we might as well not even bother, there will be no progress as long as we stay within the parameters of allowed U.S. labor law.

The teacher's strike in West Virginia is a good recent example of an illegal but incredibly effective strike. Notice that even when the union leaders wanted to give in, the teachers voted on Facebook to reject the offer and continue holding out for something better. We need to evolve to adapt to the new environment--legal and orderly labor disputes are going to be a thing of the past under the new Supreme Court.

We do need a concrete list of demands, that's absolutely true. And a willingness to negotiate if we get a chance to. But the main goal of a strike is not typically to build popular support but to cause financial harm to the enemy. The wages lost are significant for the workers, but under the golden rule of capitalism, the profits lost by the capitalist class will always be much, much greater. Then it's just a matter of outlasting the cash reserves of the oppressors.

Yeah I'd revise my original answer, if I was on strike in a unionised workplace I'd strike for as long as the union and members of the local branch supported it. But a general strike is unlikely to ever go on beyond a couple of weeks.

I don't feel I could join in given my occupation, but I certainly wouldn't think poorly of anyone who did. I'd strongly consider donating what I was making (or some part of it) to a striker support fund, if one was available.

MM MD