It seems that after a period of routing from the domination of capital and the prevailing counter-revolutionary forces, the course of global capitalism and the increased consolidation of the international bourgeoisies – as well as their bloody confrontations – are continuing to push the proletariat into a renewed combative urgency. All around the globe, workers are calling for and wielding the mighty general strike. From Argentina, Greece, Belgium, Morocco and beyond, the international proletariat is beginning to remember how to move its muscles in response to capital’s increasing pressure.

Throughout the history of the proletariat’s struggle, general strikes in which workers organized through various unions collectively withhold their labor-power in order to overwhelm the bourgeois repressive apparatus and force concessions by paralyzing the reproductive cycle of capital in a number of industries appear like great battles within the tapestry of capitalist epoch that now hang in empty halls of the militant American Labor movement.

One notable general strike for the 8 hour workday (still just a wish for the number of American workers who must work two or more jobs or extended overtime to pay living expenses and feed their families) is of course the famous 1886 Chicago strike that brought out hundreds of thousands of striking workers together in song and solidarity, only to be remembered for its bloody end as the Haymarket Affair. This event cemented the first of May as what is known as “International Workers’ Day.” Born out of a bloody struggle for a reduction in the working day, it has served as a unifying point for workers around the world to reflect on their class history and celebrate the hard earned and necessary gains of the working class as well as look forward towards the demands yet won.

That is why as we approach this May Day, 139 years after the Haymarket Affair, we must recognize that conditions for the international proletariat are still indeed poor, that the global workers’ movement is still incredibly weak, and that at this very moment proletarians are being slaughtered in the violent tremors that are mere previews for the great imperialist wars to come.

The overproduction crises of imperialist capitalism can only worsen and worsen, resolving to continuously consolidate into fascistic and social-democratic ends that are but desperate measures for the bourgeoisies to defend their home markets and their dwindling rates of profit, subordinating the laboring masses through either open tyranny of the bourgeois state or obscured through the treacherous veil of “democracy.”

With the slow recovery of the class union movement, workers in the US are still largely organized through the regime unions, who are completely subordinate to the interests of capital, if organized at all(national union density sitting under 10%), and because of this, American workers are extremely limited in exercising broad actions across various industries for their common demands and defending themselves against the bourgeoisie.

This deficiency in class coordination is especially apparent with the recent boycotts and “economic blackouts”, which leverage no force against the bourgeoisie, do not forward any collective demands of the class, and therefore cannot “win” anything in particular. It will not be “selective consumerism” that will free the proletariat from capitalism but the abolition of commodity production in general!

In order for workers to defend themselves from the ever increasing exploitation of the bourgeoisie, the coordination of general strikes can exert pressure where it hurts the capitalists the most: their profits.

An Idle Sword in the Stone

America has not seen a true general strike since the 50,000 worker Oakland General Strike of 1946, largely due to the creation of the infamous Taft-Hartley Act enacted by the consolidated American bourgeoisie coming out of the second great imperialist war in a necessary effort to quell class tensions during the wave of strikes of 1945-1946. Having codified the “appropriate” means to workers’ struggle within the limits of their legal apparatus with the creation of the NLRB earlier in the 30s, the bourgeoisie realized that solidarity strikes and wildcat strikes were far too disruptive for labor peace and decidedly revoked the “privilege” at their leisure.

A far cry from the general strikes of yesterday, American workers today are now fighting to remove ridiculous anti-worker “No-strike Clauses” from their contracts that continue to reduce the struggle for the rank-and-file to mere business arrangements between the boss-linked, business union leadership and the company exploiters. Being that all profit is the expropriated surplus-value of the exploited worker, withholding labor-power via a strike is the proletariat’s only actual coercive force they can leverage against the capitalists, most other actions surmounting to the equivalent of faith in the benevolence of the capitalists through unfavorable legal means.

The strikes of today are now relegated to conditional responses to Unfair Labor Practices(per NLRB rules) or in the periods between the old sacred contract and the new sacred contract for often little real gains, with many picket lines being hollow “protests” that aim to appeal to bourgeois political representatives or the heartstrings of the bosses, rather than militant strikes that really disrupt production and the circulation of capital in meaningful ways.

These strikes are still very noble and useful in their own basic way, as workers are still able to win small concessions like Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) and at the very least damper the rapid diminishing of wages compared to the vast majority of unorganized workers who suffer as lone individuals in their shared class plight. The hard lessons from the repression of the bourgeois politicians, as well as the collaboration and outright sabotage from the misleaders of the regime unions, are fundamental courses in the long curriculum within the “schools of class struggle”, but even these basic legal defensive strikes that abide by the bourgeoisie’s rules are in the process of being dismantled.

In July of 2023, the US Supreme Court made a decisive rule in the case of Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, that unions can be held liable for “intentionally causing economic harm to employers.” Against the mighty boss who holds their entire livelihood in their hands, the proletariat, who must sell their labor-power like piecemeal slavery well beyond the necessary means for their reproduction to line the pockets of the slave master, mustn’t dare turn the tables and in turn hurt the robber baron!

We see the continual attempts of fascistic incorporation of the trade unions into the larger body of the bourgeois state, increasingly making the necessary economic defense organizations for the workers into appendages of the bourgeois political parties, suggesting to workers that “your power to improve your conditions is found with the ballot!” for the very same parties that the oppressive boss also votes for.

If workers are to have any hope in achieving better conditions, it can only be backed by the genuine use of economic coercion, not by the endorsements of this bourgeois politician over that one, only through withholding that precious labor-power that all of bourgeois enterprise rests dearly upon.

Who Can Wield It?

Following the “stand-up” strikes in 2028, Shawn Fain and the United Auto Workers (UAW) are calling for all American unions to align their contracts to expire simultaneously on May 1st 2028, International Workers’ Day, alongside the expiration of the UAW contracts of the Big Three carmakers that came out of these strikes. The exact nature of how this supposed “general strike” is being organized, who is organizing it, what are the demands, are all largely a mystery. So far some unions have passed supportive resolutions towards this call such as the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU); however, the opportunist UAW leadership has refused to commit any serious resources or union staff to making it a reality.

The seemingly renewed combativity of the union leaders in working towards the return of the general strike comes at a time when the bourgeoisie, under Trump’s leadership, has begun sweeping attacks on unionized workers; including removing “bargaining rights” from federal workers, including the thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers organized through the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), with the stroke of a pen, claiming that they pose a “threat to national security.”

The AFGE leadership has responded that they will hold mass “protests” across the country to demand a stop to the “biggest attack on the labor movement in history”, emphasizing again the erroneous need for “democracy” to save the working class from “undemocratic” attacks. Having already long revealed itself as a pitfall for the working class, democracy, as a nebulous field of inter-class cooperation, is always and tirelessly at work undermining the conquest of the proletariat. A portion of the bourgeoisie are in fact ardent supporters of both unions and “union democracy” if it means that the worker can negotiate insignificant economic demands without forming a revolutionary class political consciousness.

There are no legal means to defend these workers, what they need is the collective action and support of a class union to gain what was so easily taken from them and also to push for more.

In 2018, when teachers in West Virginia organized through the American Federation of Teachers(AFT) and National Education Association(NEA) were met with pathetic wage increases by way of the traditional “legal” method, they defied the state law and their union bureaucrats and held a historic strike, despite official leaderships condemnations, that amounted to improvements of their conditions. The strike itself was a momentous achievement, demonstrating that rank-and-file workers can indeed organize mass strikes despite being against innumerable “legal” odds in the modern era.

In a recent article by the Richmond Virginia Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (VCORE) titled “When Federal education funding stops, so does our labor”, the call for a general strike of educators was made: “now more than ever, we need the leaders of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) to jointly call for a general strike of K12 public education workers, whether unionized or not.”

Only a mass, all-industry strike can effectively forward the demands of the teachers and the militant section of teachers understand this. This is true for the broader range of interests for the working class wishing to achieve specific demands that are unique to the class as a whole such as wages, hours, and conditions. Without class unionism, workers are not only divided by craft, industry, and geographical region, they also hold little power against their common oppressors, fighting every uphill battle against the bourgeoisie as a mere fraction against a powerful whole.

Especially important is the elevation of the national worker struggle to the realm of international solidarity of all workers, rejecting the defense of “one’s own national economy” over another’s; However, the so-called “most progressive” of the business unions, like the United Auto Workers under the leadership of Shawn Fain, openly supports Trump’s protectionist tariffs as “good for American labor.” Going on to defend not only the tragedy that was the mass slaughter of proletariats in the second imperialist World War which he openly celebrates the history of UAW role in building the “anti-fascist” bombers for, but also the exploitation of labor-power from the workers at home used to fuel the war economy, suggesting that a tragedy such as an imperialist world war is actually an economic boon for the American proletariat:

“People forget about the arsenal of democracy and how excess capacity in this country was used to support the war effort and delivered a victory in World War II for America.” (Shawn Fain on CNN. April 3. 2025)

Similarly, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who have asked the bourgeoisie to enact tariffs on Mexican beer imports to protect American beer industries, also ask “would you trust China with aircraft repairs? United Airlines does”, harkening back to the IBT’s long history of conservative and McCarthyist nationalism, playing into the “anti-communist” tropes of the American bourgeoisie against their Chinese imperialist rivals and pitting exploited workers of one nation against exploited workers of another.

There is absolutely nothing for the proletariat to gain by defending the interest of their national bourgeoisie. In 1976, our party wrote:

“A class-based trade union policy must defend neither that nor the other aspect of the bourgeois economy because its aim is the emancipation of the working class, the abolition of the wage-labour system. What then should be the direction of a truly proletarian trade union? It is quickly said: the workers must not take on any sacrifice, and if their refusal to do so will be the ruin of the capitalist economy, then ruin it is.” (La via del sindacato di classe. Il Partito Communista, n. 25 1976)

The trade union leaders, being incapable of wielding internationalism as a principle above the defense of their national economy, are also incapable of wielding the “general strike” in any meaningful direction beyond collaborative bourgeois reforms and are infinitely absent of any “revolutionary” potential.

However, as a step towards uniting industries into collectively organized action through what is still the main organizational bodies in the US, the trade unions, the militant minority of class unionists in all bodies of struggle, who need to form their own international coordinations outside of the regime union leadership, is further aided in their efforts. These formations must struggle to steer the general strike continuously in the direction of winning common demands for the international class and away from the collaborative abysses of the business-union boss-linked leadership.

Who Is Worthy?

Although the general strike as a tactical maneuver has established itself as a powerful weapon in the class arsenal, it has also given rise to the error that the general strike itself is to be considered such a “revolutionary action” that it can allow unions to stand-in for the class political party.

The “Syndicalists” or “workerists” organizations, forgoing the class party, instead defend the “intuition of the workers” who, by using direct action to advance their practical demands through their union activity, hold the only necessary step towards class liberation, assuming the individual consciousness of the independent workers will carry on the upheaval of class society frictionless against the prevailing forces of counter-revolution. To them, only the great “general strike to end all general strikes” is needed to break the chokehold of the bourgeoisie and the flower of socialism will begin to bloom within the shell of the old society. Our party replies:

“With the general strike alone, with the tactic of folded arms, the working class cannot achieve victory over the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must take on the armed uprising. Whoever understands that will also have to grasp that an organized political party is necessary and that formless workers’ unions are not sufficient.

The revolutionary syndicalists often talk about the great role of the determined revolutionary minority. Well, a truly determined minority of the working class, a minority that is Communist, that wishes to act, that has a programme and wishes to organize the struggle of the masses, is precisely the Communist Party.”(Theses on the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution. 1920)

The important tasks that are required to decisively apprehend the critical moments of capitalism in its death throes, cannot be improvised from a group of like-minded “radicals” within the union struggle, but can only be grasped from the collective organism of the class party engaged in practical and theoretical application of the scientific communist programme.

The historical syndicalist tendency in the American labor movement generally finds its home in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which in its earliest origins, operated primarily as a class organization determined to organize workers by the (novel at the time) concept of “industrial unionism” as opposed to what they saw as the divisive separation of craft unionism used by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). In their famous constitutional preamble they outline the diverging interests of the working class from the employing class and call for far more radical goals than the AFL, such as the “abolition of the wage-system” and the end of capitalism.

As a reflexive reaction against the shameless collaboration between the AFL and the American capitalists, coupled with the revisionism of the reformist socialist parties of the Second International, the IWW pushed heavily in favor of “union democracy” instead of regime-union bureaucracy and strictly shed any political aspirations in order to pursue a strategy of winning practical demands for the working class while maintaining a political plurality of membership.

The IWW became renowned for its ability to organize massive strikes in a range of industries; not by using guerilla war tactics like that of the mine workers in the later Coal Wars, but on the fundamental level of withholding labor en masse to disrupt the circuit of capital. The call for the “general strike” became a rallying point for the IWW, as shown by the 1911 pamphlet of the same name by notable wobbly and socialist Bill Haywood, which outlines the effectiveness of the general strike as “an effective weapon of the working class”. The IWW developed malleable tactics for deploying concise, effective strikes, knowing that the financial burden and eventual repression of the bourgeoisie would break any indefinite “siege”, and that success relies not necessarily on the length of the strike but on its precision to win demands.

While the modern IWW does not formally identify as an exclusively “syndicalist” organization, the struggle to either “give” or “abolish” the political character of the union seems to continuously doom it from two sides.

On one hand, it’s plagued by the rot of leftist inter-class opportunism that constantly seeks to utilize the class organizational structure to advocate for popular mass-activism (and as we know: “all activist psalms end in electoral glory”) or on the other hand, by following strict syndicalist hostility to the necessary political struggle, the union begins to treat itself as a “revolutionary” political placeholder, becoming not only at odds with the class Party as a counter-revolutionary organization, but sacrifices the basic function of economic defense for workers in order to uphold a singular tendential strain within the IWW tradition over effective, centralized organizing to achieve its alleged radical ends.

Today, having been essentially replaced by the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the IWW still lives on with a quiet national presence and now organizes mostly small shops, fast food restaurants, and into decentralized local “branches” of labor activists that do not operate on any serious industrial level. The union, because of its more “radical” origins, naturally draws in the more combative and militant minded workers at periods where the necessity of well organized class defense becomes obvious, showing slight inflations or deflations in membership that correspond with the regular intervals of crises in the capitalist economy, which has always been a historical phenomenon of the organization. Ultimately, the weaknesses of the union eventually force some local branches that struggle to have significant influence on the mass of workers to de-charter due to lack of membership, when surely there is no lack of workers that need to organize.

It must be said that the organization of small shops to be able to mobilize a strike, as seen with the recent Urban Ore workers strike in the city of Berkeley, CA., still offer some level of organization to the various sectors of workers who otherwise would have few paths to organize themselves against the petty-bourgeois small business owners, bringing more workers into the broader organized class struggle and the IWWs promotion of general strikes towards class solidarity ends and their overall criticism of the “legal” path of bargaining through the NLRB still exist within the scattered vernacular of the modern IWW propaganda and offer at least a rhetorical alternative to the conservative AFL-CIO unions who still worship the NLRB as sacred doctrine, but the distance between words and action is immeasurable. Some IWW unions have even started including “No-strike Clauses” in their contracts, a tragedy that surely turns the old wobblies in their graves – showing that even the supposed “radical” unions are susceptible to basic economism without the direction of the communist programme.

As long as the syndicalist mentality prevails instead of the leadership of the class Party, as long as the tradition of “decentralization” among the IWW locals remains instead of a strong centralized class union that connects them with the militant trade unionists, the “One Big Union” will remain a minority of radical dreamers incapable of being a serious class force and is incapable of leading the working class to victory over the bourgeoisie, despite all its noble efforts.

Only the Class Union and the Communist Party

As we workers approach International Workers’ Day, we celebrate not our wage-slavery, but prepare for our future. As much as May Day has become a historic symbol of the proletarian struggle, it is more importantly a continuous call for action, a continuous reminder that we workers have yet to wrestle ourselves from the chains of capital.

As long as there is capitalist domination, as long as there is a proletariat, communism remains not just a possibility, but a necessity for the end to the imperialist wars, the emancipation of the working class, and continuance of the species.

The prevailing conditions in the course of global capitalism, the horrors of imperialist wars and the growing economic demands weighing on the working class will bring decisive quantitative changes in the class struggle, but we maintain that there is no “mechanical process” that automatically connects the workers with their purely economic impulses to the necessary level of political struggle, or that the revolution can be “improvised on the barricades.” Without adopting the communist programme, workers can only develop to a level of trade union consciousness which severely limits the field of class struggle to the bourgeois rules of order and only works to strengthen the bourgeois ideology among them.

The tasks at hand for building towards the general strike are still immense, and despite the calls from the opportunist business union leaders for the “return of the general strike” to be disposed of for their bourgeois reforms, the American proletariat must continuously work to wield such an action effectively for their immediate economic demands, but also organize towards the permanent end for the need of such demands, which requires an eventual violent struggle against the bourgeoisie guided by the leadership of the class party.

Workers! – Only the class union can effectively wield the general strike to fight for the international proletariat; by generalizing our struggle amongst the working people of all countries, by continuing uniting the majority of workers organized through the conservative trade unions with the minority of workers in the small “radical” unions into centralized, coordinated efforts, around definite economic demands that are fought with coordinated mass actions.

This is how the divisions of craft, industry, and nation can be overcome nd the true general strike can become a reality – a true general strike that shakes off the parasitic collaborationists and opportunists, annihilates the national interests of the respective national bourgeoisies.

Only the Communist Party is the worthy champion of the proletariat, has studied the internal laws and contradictions of capitalism and its inevitable catastrophes, and is the only organization that can raise the hard limit of the trade-union struggle to the level of class political struggle and usher in the era of proletarian dictatorship.