FT-CI

The awakening of a colossus?

Strike in Oakland: unity between young people and workers

12/11/2011

By Barbara Funes

Occupy Oakland called a general strike as a means of protest for November 3. The strike was carried out, and it had partial observance among dockworkers, nurses, and teachers. According to the bourgeois press, of the 325 unionized stevedores, without an official strike call from the union, 40 stopped work; around 300 teachers (15% of the total) complied with the measure; hundreds of municipal workers also participated. Some businesses closed, in solidarity with the action. Even a movie theater declared solidarity with the strike on its billboard. Oakland, the fifth-largest industrial port in the United States, ceased operating, because of the general strike. Solidarity actions were carried out in New York, Houston, Boston, Los Angeles and many other US cities. War veterans joined the protests, because they are not getting jobs.

The daily paper El País reported that "among those present were parents with their children, unemployed people, representatives of the university students (who owe a lot of money, in order to pay for their studies, but have difficulties finding a job that will allow them to pay off their loans), admirers of the Black Panthers (an African-American movement that was founded in Oakland), doctors with posters in favor of a healthcare system for everyone, young people with masks of the Anonymous cyber-activists, or with stickers supporting Bradley Manning (the soldier who remains in prison for leaking secret documents to Wikileaks). The occupiers, like the Spanish, are getting free food from the businesses of the area." [1]

In 1946, in this very city, the last general strike in Oakland took place, until this year. It was part of the 1945-1946 strike wave, at the end of the Second World War. Streetcar and bus drivers refused to cross the police cordons, set up to escort strike-breaking trucks across the picket line of 425 striking employees, most of them women, at the Hastings and Kahn’s department stores in the center of Oakland: that’s how the strike broke out. The following day, the truck drivers, furious, marched downtown and gathered in front of the store, in Latham Square. On December 3, 142 unions from the Alameda County American Federation of Labor declared a "work holiday," and about 100,000 workers marched out of their jobs. Their distinctive mark was having gone beyond the traditional unions, with a profound class solidarity. In 1947, a federal law declared unions’ striking in solidarity with other workers, illegal. [2]

After sixty-five years, the workers and people of Oakland have retaken the best part of their historic tradition. Called together by the Occupy Oakland movement, workers from different unions took up the strike as their own; although the city was not completely shut down, the activities in the port were indeed suspended for some six hours. About 10,000 demonstrators demanded punishment for those responsible for the economic crisis that is affecting the United States, protested against repression and against economic and social inequality in the US, and demanded that taxes be collected from the rich. On the streets, there was unity between workers and groups from the US lower middle class, immigrants and African-Americans. Even though it was not a citywide mass general strike, it shows a leap in the radical nature of the Occupy Wall Street movement: from rallies, camps and demonstrations, it has passed to the call for a general strike. Young people, together with workers, blocked the port to stop the flow of capital. The losses to businessmen are calculated in the tens of millions of dollars. That is the enormous power of the working class: stopping the circulation and production of goods.

The November 3 strike, even with limits, highlights the importance of unity with the workers and takes up again the idea of the general strike as a method of struggle of the working class. It sets out the potential of workers in struggle to confront attacks from the capitalists, in view of the crisis. To those who are claiming the spontaneous, horizontal and non-class character of the movement of the indignant ones, Oakland’s action shows a new perspective. What began as a defensive action against the eviction of Occupy Oakland, has strengthened the movement with the inclusion of groups of workers. Is this enough? No, but it constitutes an advance. The first steps of unity between young people and the workers, in the heart of imperialism, are breathing in new energy, to move forward in the struggle against capitalism. Only the working class, leading the groups of the people, can set forth an alternative solution to the capitalist collapse. Facing the crisis and the first responses of the vanguard, it is more necessary than ever to move forward in the struggle to build an international revolutionary party. A fresh wind is blowing from the north towards the world, towards the working-class and youth vanguard, that is confronting the agents of capital in Greece, in the Spanish state, in the Maghreb, in Chile and in Colombia.

1 Carmen Pérez Lanzac, “Thousands of indignant people block the US port of Oakland,” November 3, 2011.
2 Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day, Immanuel Ness, “1945-1946 Strike wave”, in The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History.

November 8, 2011

Related articles

No hay comentarios a esta nota

Newspaper

  • PTS (Argentina)

  • Actualidad Nacional

    MTS (México)

  • EDITORIAL

    LTS (Venezuela)

  • DOSSIER : Leur démocratie et la nôtre

    CCR NPA (Francia)

  • ContraCorriente Nro42 Suplemento Especial

    Clase contra Clase (Estado Español)

  • Movimento Operário

    MRT (Brasil)

  • LOR-CI (Bolivia) Bolivia Liga Obrera Revolucionaria - Cuarta Internacional Palabra Obrera Abril-Mayo Año 2014 

Ante la entrega de nuestros sindicatos al gobierno

1° de Mayo

Reagrupar y defender la independencia política de los trabajadores Abril-Mayo de 2014 Por derecha y por izquierda

La proimperialista Ley Minera del MAS en la picota

    LOR-CI (Bolivia)

  • PTR (Chile) chile Partido de Trabajadores Revolucionarios Clase contra Clase 

En las recientes elecciones presidenciales, Bachelet alcanzó el 47% de los votos, y Matthei el 25%: deberán pasar a segunda vuelta. La participación electoral fue de solo el 50%. La votación de Bachelet, representa apenas el 22% del total de votantes. 

¿Pero se podrá avanzar en las reformas (cosméticas) anunciadas en su programa? Y en caso de poder hacerlo, ¿serán tales como se esperan en “la calle”? Editorial El Gobierno, el Parlamento y la calle

    PTR (Chile)

  • RIO (Alemania) RIO (Alemania) Revolutionäre Internationalistische Organisation Klasse gegen Klasse 

Nieder mit der EU des Kapitals!

Die Europäische Union präsentiert sich als Vereinigung Europas. Doch diese imperialistische Allianz hilft dem deutschen Kapital, andere Teile Europas und der Welt zu unterwerfen. MarxistInnen kämpfen für die Vereinigten Sozialistischen Staaten von Europa! 

Widerstand im Spanischen Staat 

Am 15. Mai 2011 begannen Jugendliche im Spanischen Staat, öffentliche Plätze zu besetzen. Drei Jahre später, am 22. März 2014, demonstrierten Hunderttausende in Madrid. Was hat sich in diesen drei Jahren verändert? Editorial Nieder mit der EU des Kapitals!

    RIO (Alemania)

  • Liga de la Revolución Socialista (LRS - Costa Rica) Costa Rica LRS En Clave Revolucionaria Noviembre Año 2013 N° 25 

Los cuatro años de gobierno de Laura Chinchilla han estado marcados por la retórica “nacionalista” en relación a Nicaragua: en la primera parte de su mandato prácticamente todo su “plan de gobierno” se centró en la “defensa” de la llamada Isla Calero, para posteriormente, en la etapa final de su administración, centrar su discurso en la “defensa” del conjunto de la provincia de Guanacaste que reclama el gobierno de Daniel Ortega como propia. Solo los abundantes escándalos de corrupción, relacionados con la Autopista San José-Caldera, los casos de ministros que no pagaban impuestos, así como el robo a mansalva durante los trabajos de construcción de la Trocha Fronteriza 1856 le pusieron límite a la retórica del equipo de gobierno, que claramente apostó a rivalizar con el vecino país del norte para encubrir sus negocios al amparo del Estado. martes, 19 de noviembre de 2013 Chovinismo y militarismo en Costa Rica bajo el paraguas del conflicto fronterizo con Nicaragua

    Liga de la Revolución Socialista (LRS - Costa Rica)

  • Grupo de la FT-CI (Uruguay) Uruguay Grupo de la FT-CI Estrategia Revolucionaria 

El año que termina estuvo signado por la mayor conflictividad laboral en más de 15 años. Si bien finalmente la mayoría de los grupos en la negociación salarial parecen llegar a un acuerdo (aún falta cerrar metalúrgicos y otros menos importantes), los mismos son un buen final para el gobierno, ya que, gracias a sus maniobras (y las de la burocracia sindical) pudieron encausar la discusión dentro de los marcos del tope salarial estipulado por el Poder Ejecutivo, utilizando la movilización controlada en los marcos salariales como factor de presión ante las patronales más duras que pujaban por el “0%” de aumento. Entre la lucha de clases, la represión, y las discusiones de los de arriba Construyamos una alternativa revolucionaria para los trabajadores y la juventud

    Grupo de la FT-CI (Uruguay)