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Today marks the 107th anniversary of the 1919 Seattle General Strike, a five-day work stoppage protesting low wages and rampant union-busting by wealthy corporation owners. Sound familiar?
The strike began in the union shipyards and spread to the entire city. Shipbuilders were furious when shipyard owners, rich off World War I profits, offered a pay increase only to “skilled” workers in an attempt to divide their union. A citywide poll found a strike was very popular. It was on. Of Seattle’s 315,000 residents, 65,000 (20 percent) hit the streets. During the work stoppage, Seattleites took care of the city and one another, collecting garbage and opening food halls. But it was nothing like business as usual. Shops closed. Streetcars stopped.
A participant recalled, “Nothing moved but the tide.”
Seattle’s mayor, the coward Ole Hanson, quickly deputized thousands of bootlickers into the police force and called in federal troops from Camp Lewis to try to crush the strike. Strikers laughed off days of empty threats from Hanson, but were unsure what to do next. Slowly, they lost faith and began to break off. By February 11, the strike was over, and somewhat inexplicably, Hanson was labeled a hero by national press. He resigned shortly after to focus on grifting, writing a book on the dangers of organized labor, embarking on a nationwide speaking tour, and even making a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Then he moved to California and lost all his money in the Great Depression. Whoops!
The strike was popular. It was big and sustained. So why did it fizzle out? The strikers had no clear demands.
The recent nationwide general strikes are different. Last month, protestors clearly demanded ICE out of our communities, justice for Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the defunding of ICE, and for companies to refuse ICE entry into their workplaces.
Those demands remain unmet.
As Faye Guenther, president of UFCW 3000, said on KUOW’s recent segment on the current general strikes: “There can be no more ‘business as usual’ when the federal government turns on its own people.”
It’s time.
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Conor Kelley
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