As strikes loom or actually break out, as workers unionize and organize, we must remember: standing with strikers is more than a moral responsibility — it is a matter of survival. The working class is under attack! We work harder than we ever have, make more products than we ever have, and our wages buy less and less. The cost of housing, of medicine, of food, of energy keeps rising. Every worker across North America and Europe feels the squeeze. Retirement is a fading dream, life expectancy is falling, homeownership is now an unattainable luxury, medical treatment is financial suicide. In their skyrises, away from the misery on the street, corporate officers rake in record profits. We are being robbed blind.
In the midst of all this, we workers have very few options to defend ourselves. Historically, the most effective tool has been to simply refuse to make our bosses rich at our own expense. We’ve put down our tools, walked away from the factories, and left the mines. Strikes are nothing new. Work stoppages, lockouts, slowdowns, boycotts, and every other flavor of depriving the bosses of profits have historically been the bedrock of workers’ rights. Why do these efforts work? Because we are stronger together than they are. Alone, we’re weak: subject to harassment, firing, eviction, jail. But the bosses can’t jail us all, and without us they can’t run the machines that make them rich. If we want to get results, we have to make sure that when we strike, no one breaks the line. Strikes are as effective as they are unified.
There’s a reason the bosses paid their cronies in the government to make solidarity strikes illegal. There is nothing they can do in the face of united opposition. When one workplace puts down its tools, the bosses groan. When all the workplaces of a single company refuse to work, the bosses tremble. And when all workers in all sectors of the economy proclaim as one “No more!” the bosses scream in mortal terror.
The second a single strike begins, the bosses start to sweat. They know they cannot survive without a constant stream of profit — without our labor to provide them goods and services to sell, and without our consumption to realize those profits. They employ all manner of tactics to put an end to our united front. They hire scabs. They abuse the legal system. They call the cops. They cancel healthcare. They sic their hired guns on us, beat us, shoot at us, even drop bombs on us. But as of late, their strikebreaking weapon of choice has been the media. At the mere whisper of a strike, they get to work crafting a narrative designed to drive resentment. “See these selfish workers? How they refuse to compromise? How their actions deprive you — the poor consumer — of the goods and services you so desperately deserve?”
It’s all nonsense. It’s the bosses who deprive us. Their avarice drives them to extract as much profit as possible from every drop of sweat off the workers’ brow. They squeeze the working class on both ends: production and consumption. As workers, we face low pay, harsh work conditions, and scant time off. As consumers, we face soaring prices, shoddier products, and manufactured scarcity. These twin struggles are one and the same: capitalist greed at our expense. Try as they might to separate labor disputes from the bulk of “the working class” who need the services our fellow workers provide, it is a fool’s errand. We are all the working class. We are rail workers, teachers, baristas, researchers, nurses, harvesters, artists, hospitality workers, steelworkers, caregivers, builders, writers, and more. We deserve dignity, respect, health, stability, and all the wealth we are due.
It is not just our duty to stand with striking workers. It is our right. Solidarity is the ethos of the working class: to stand together, regardless of the identity of your fellows, so long as you are all people who work. Solidarity is the basic tool by which we wring concessions from the bosses. Every successful strike strengthens us all. We shoulder whatever pain may come from this, we blame the bosses, and we make each other whole. This is what it means to be working class. This is solidarity.
