workers of the world, unite!

From The Guardian:

America's strike wave is a rare – and beautiful – sight to behold

Individually, workers are at the mercy of employers' whims. But when they combined their voices and the withholding of their labour power, employers find themselves at their mercy. Workers are stronger together, and strikes are a means by which workers can win their demands, whether it's higher pay, better working conditions, improved benefits, etc.

And strikes can also be a means of further radicalizing workers and make them see not only their strength in solidarity, but their worth and the worth of their labour power, emboldening them to throw off the shackles of capital and reclaim the ownership of that labour power and its fruits. Demands could (and should) go beyond things like pay scales and include things like mechanisms of meaningful worker control, ownership, and decision-making. That's one of the reasons employers and the state expend so much time and effort trying to bust unions and crush strikes—their interference with the realization of profit (the lifeblood of capital) and their potential for worker empowerment.

As Luis Feliz Leon wrote earlier this year, "The language of a strike wave is the language of radical optimism in the face of untenable conditions." And the more support these striking workers have, from us and from the people we elect, and the more radical their leadership, the bigger their victories will be and the more they'll inspire others to do likewise. Small scale strikes, like those at individual workplaces, can win better wages and working conditions as many of these strike victories illustrate. But large scale strikes, such as general strikes, can win us even more, like a better socioeconomic system. Our solidarity is our greatest strength, and our labour power is our greatest weapon to effect change.