Labor unions, democratic organizations and community groups are organizing an economic blackout this year to commemorate May Day, International Workers Day, inspired by the economic blackout in Minnesota during the massive ICE operation in the state.
May Day Strong events are being planned across the US, with organizers calling for “no school, no work, no shopping”, in protest of government policies they say put billionaires’ needs above those of workers.
“May Day has to become bigger in this moment,” said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and Illinois Federation of Teachers. The unions have backed the economic blackout planned for May Day. “This is about building a more popular united front.”
For real a one day black our literally means nothing. More than half of those people will just buy 2x as much tomorrow, or planned around not buying anything for the one day (read:spent more before or after) which makes the weeks bottom line look no different than it did last week. Quit participating in consumerism as a whole if you want to make a difference! Or strake out for more than a week so it actually hits their pockets. Promise everybody nobody supports a one day strike more than the private corpos knowing you’ll be back for more tomorrow after getting the anger out of your system.
Sometimes getting people to take the first step helps them get moving in the right direction.
A day of action where people can see many others doing it will cause many people to think about this more.
This is a good idea even if its individual effect will be small, it will help light the fire.
I hope your right! Not saying doing nothing is the answer, just foolish to think a single day strike is going to hurt the big corps pockets. But if it gets people to do more, then that’s what really matters.
Exactly one day doesn’t do anything to cause pain but it does send a message and could change culture if it continues and builds more momentum.
The single day isn’t what they need to fear, the culture change is.
An even better option is to boycott one company or corporation … just one until you either run them to the ground or eliminate them completely. Keep shopping like you always do, just get everyone to avoid a particular company or corporation.
I’m up here in Canada and during the gas price wars that started in the late 1990s, everyone ranted and raged when the price of gas jumped by half a cent. In those early days, everyone rallied and wanted to do something about it all. One successful campaign was in organizing people to just boycott one of the companies. For instance, just get everyone to avoid Shell for a month, or avoid PetroCan for a month, or avoid Esso for a month. It may or may not have had an effect but one of the things that came out of it was an even bigger media campaign to shut down movements like this. There was a big corporate backlash and you could see trolls and fake accounts appearing everywhere to shut down this movement … it did shut it down but the takeaway for me was that it meant that it had a strong effect on corporations.
When they spend money on corporate propaganda, you have their attention and have started making them dig in their own pockets. Need more organizations like this!