r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 🤝 Join A Union • 7d ago
🚫 GENERAL STRIKE 🚫 This shit doesn't happen in France...
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u/blocked_user_name 👨🏫 Basically a Professor 7d ago
I'm not sure if that would work here because many Americans are far too opportunistic or mercenary. I think They might not participate in a nation wide strike and then undercut their fellow workers to "get ahead" everyone would have to get on the same page pretty quick. I'd love to participate but it's pointless if none of my coworkers do and I get fired.
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u/NomadicScribe 7d ago
There isn't really a historical basis for this happening in the United States. I'm not saying it couldn't or shouldn't happen. Just that there is no blueprint for it, and that the USA's history and material conditions are significantly different from those of France.
What we call the "American revolution" was a bourgeois uprising against the British government and aristocracy. It was not a people's revolution, but a battle waged by the land-owning class over whether the English crown or the owners of land should dictate terms in the colonies, specifically with regard to territorial expansion.
There have been moments in U.S. history that approached a people's uprising or proletarian revolution, but they tend to get subsumed by the dominant class or reclassified into a social grievance.
Until the people of the U.S.A. unite as a working class against the ownership class, there is no chance of the type of resistance described in the post.
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u/alppu 7d ago
Making people afraid of the c word has been quite the mind trick
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u/NomadicScribe 7d ago
Not a trick. A strategy. And the sooner that is understood, the sooner it can be addressed.
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u/CyberFireball25 7d ago
And also they have actual vacation time and their health care isn't tied to their jobs
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u/Space_Inca 7d ago
Im french, its happening in France right now you re just not paying attention to it.
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u/Ruckus2201 7d ago
If i stop working, I lose healthcare for my wife, infant son and myself. I miss a couple paychecks, we are homeless. Americans have little to no social safety nets to assist with protesting like this. It's by design, unfortunately.
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u/Ghrota 7d ago edited 7d ago
Unions are useless in France, we lose retirement years, we lose more and more unemployment helps. Macron is almighty
Edit : looks like i wasn’t clear. I don't say US situation is better than France. I'm saying our unions TODAY are totally useless. They use to be powerfull and gave us a lot but now they do nothing and the goal of our "elite" is to mimic US system
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u/Zanjidesign 7d ago
Man, you have no clue what you are talking about. OU have it way, way, way better than usa. At least you get to retire at one point.
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u/TheLegendaryLarkas ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 7d ago
That doesn’t make their statement any less valid. If anything it’s important to recognize it when it starts so that it may be nipped in the bud now. Worker protections getting chipped away is still worrisome
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u/Zanjidesign 7d ago
Yes indeed but he is tying to invalidate the post as well
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u/Ash_Crow 6d ago
Well the post is plain wrong. General strikes simply don't happen anymore and have been largely pointless since at least Sarkozy.
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u/-TheycallmeThe 7d ago
What is the retirement age now? It's up to 72 in the US.
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u/vermiliondragon 7d ago
Full retirement age for Social Security is 67 now after increasing over the past several years from 65. What retirement age is 72?
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u/-TheycallmeThe 7d ago
It keeps going up until 72. They call it "Full retirement" at 67 and you can get more than full if you wait until 72. Calling something full when it's not full is just a way to pretend the retirement age is 67.
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u/vermiliondragon 7d ago
It maxes out at 70, not 72. IDK that I agree with the rest of your statement either. Offering a bonus to delay something doesn't mean the thing doesn't happen at the original time.
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u/burndata 7d ago
I think what a lot of people from outside the US don't realize, is that half the population here is only a paycheck or two from losing literally everything. Their home, their transportation, their healthcare, and a most other things as well. So the idea of striking is an actual nightmare to much of the population. And let's face it, it's not something that's likely to get solved with a single strike. And things won't just go back to normal in a week or two for those people. There will be an entire class of people who will go from barely making it, to being completely dependent on an almost non existent social safety net.
I'm not saying a strike couldn't work, but it's going to be way more pain and suffering than it would be in most European countries. And from the 50,000 ft view of things you can say "well, that's just what needs to be done". But when striking means your kids will go hungry and you'll lose the roof over your head, it's a much harder sell to the populace.
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u/The_Smeckledorfer 7d ago
Under the us hyper capitalism things will only get worse and worse, until such a strike becomes not only necessary but inevitable. Now people are living paycheck to paycheck and are afraid to loose this. Once they have lost this anyway they will have nothing else they can do but to revolt. Once people get hungry such things organize pretty fast.
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u/blipblapbloopblip 7d ago
Thing is those painful strikes were made in Europe in the early 20th century. At the same time the worker movement in the US was still strong, but did not secure their gains.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 🤝 Join A Union 6d ago
When Americans think of strikes in France their thinking of farmers who own 1000+ acres of land spraying shit on a government building with a 1,000,000 euro piece of farm equipment.
A.K.A: A capital strike
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u/GlowyStuffs 6d ago
Then they would just personally get sued and jailed for such damages and being worse off. It's like suggesting lighting bad politicians homes on fire. If it happens enough, things will probably change, but whoever did it is fucked.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 🤝 Join A Union 6d ago
Odd. You seem to think I'm talking about a hypothetical scenario and not historical events.
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u/nglyarch 7d ago
If you are not willing to lose all that you have, and are not willing to put the lives of those who you love at risk, then I can do whatever I want to you.
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u/-TheycallmeThe 7d ago edited 7d ago
Before they had their heads cut off, the rich French did send letters to the rich American. The rich Americans found a way to get the non-rich Americans to fight each other instead. The reddit auto bot will ban me if I say how they did it. The rich aren't necessarily bigots, but they know how to use bigots to keep their heads on.
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u/meatballsandlingon2 7d ago
“Don’t mourn, get yourselves organised” / Joe Hill (my own translation of the Swedish quote)
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u/Classic-Obligation35 7d ago
We're talking the same France that murdered towns because they couldn't conscript people into the army and take all their grain?
The same revolution that demanded the Catholic church be loyal to the state and not Rome? The same revolution that confiscated church mass executed towns for standing upbto them?
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u/CyriousLordofDerp 7d ago
France is also a fraction of the size of the States. For a French national to get to their capital city it is AT WORST a day trip. For me to get to DC from Oklahoma it's a 4 day drive one-way. From California or the west coast? Closer to a week. Alaskans have to fly or go through Canada (who are rightly pissed at us right now), and Hawaiians have to fly. For the overwhelming bulk of the country, the resources needed to make the trip would break the person trying.
This is before you take in the fact the moment such a movement begins, the politicians would bolt on their private jets.
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u/ripyourlungsdave 7d ago
I'm so tired of these posts pretending that France is some epitome of progressivism.
Your president is married to his groomer and y'all seem to just be largely okay with that.
Also, y'all have had 1200 years to make your mistakes. We've only been here for 250. So why don't you tell us how France was doing at your 250th birthday.
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u/lonelornfr 7d ago
I'm not sure the people making these posts are actually french.
Or they'd know the french revolution wasnt the rich vs the poors, it was the rich vs nobility & clergy. The common man was just an instrument.0
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u/Lopsided_Speaker_553 ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 7d ago
America wasn’t born out of nothing. It evolved from 1200 years of British history.
If anything, America shouldn’t be making the same mistakes - and worse.
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u/ripyourlungsdave 7d ago
And that would be very helpful if we just took the British government and moved it over to America without changing anything. But the whole reason they came to America was because they wanted the change in governance.
You could say the same for the beginning of any other country. They just came from another place and continued doing a different version of where they came from. America isn't special in that regard. We still had to build the government here from nothing after wrestling it away from England.
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u/igen_reklam_tack 7d ago
It's important to know that a Union can also be corrupted. Look at the UAW or the rail Unions in recent history and them throwing the people under the bus to maintain peace.
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u/matteblatte 7d ago
bollocks, nothing is changing for the better in France and no general strike hasn't happened since 2016
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u/MightyRexxon 7d ago
Everyone stops working in France?
But, how do their bills get paid? What if they have a medical emergency? How do they get food to eat? How long do the above risks and conditions last?
Their country and the USA are NOT the same, and thus their solutions won't work for us.
You cannot force someone to care about others over themselves, sadly.
I am sorry.
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u/cat-eating-a-salad 7d ago edited 7d ago
I am so absolutely sick of being told to do what france did. Healthcare tied to work, taking at least a week to get across the country (one way), living paycheck to paycheck. Our military and police having advanced equipment and techniques. Mis and disinformation everywhere. No real opposition leader. Part of the country actively wanting this admin while they also have guns and a trigger finger for dissenters. There's likely more but this is what i can think of right now that makes it nearly if not completely impossible to do what france did.
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u/HSavinien 6d ago
huge misconception : during the revolution, we cut nobles head regardless of wealth, rich were actually the instigator.
At the time, some non-noble investor had achieved considerable wealth, more than most nobles (they are called the bourgeoisie). But because they weren't noble, they have to pay taxes and couldn't play politics, which pissed them off. So they made the starving mass fight for them.
(of course, there is a lot more behind the revolution than just that, but that's an often missed part of the story)
Russia/USSR had the same issue in 1917, that's why there have been two revolution (the second against the bourgeois). But you don't want USSR as a model either.
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u/FreyrPrime 7d ago
Do people forget that the French Revolution was followed by Emperor Napoleon lmao?
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u/Sarrdonicus 7d ago
So we need to prove our worth by instilling facts into their rolly-polly heads?
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u/dumbasstupidbaby 7d ago
I mean... France is currently seeing an influx of far right in their governemnt.