Voters Support a General Strike
By Ethan Winter and Gustavo Sanchez
The past month has witnessed an explosion of labor agitation. Instacart workers went on strike; Whole Foods employees engaged in a massive “sickout;” carpenters in Massachusetts stayed off the job; Amazon workers––even in the face of concerted pressure from their employer––have fought back against unsafe work conditions, winning some gains. Workers are beginning to flex their collective muscles.
Throughout this crisis, Amazon––a company helmed by the wealthiest man in the world––has been one of the worst offenders, firing several workers who criticized the company's handling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Now, as Daniel Medina describes in the Intercept, “an unprecedented coalition of workers from some of America’s largest companies will strike on Friday. Workers from Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, and FedEx are slated to walk out on work, citing what they say is their employers’ record profits at the expense of workers’ health and safety during the coronavirus pandemic.”
In two surveys, one from the month of April and another fielded at the end of March, Data for Progress sought to measure support among voters for workers who organize for improved health protections and for a general strike.
In the April survey, we probed attitudes as to whether or not workers could be retaliated against for organizing around safer working conditions. Specifically, we asked voters:
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: "Employers should not be able to fire workers protesting or striking for health protections during the COVID-19 pandemic."
We found that by an overwhelming 76-percentage-point margin (82 percent support, 6 percent oppose) voters agree that workers should not be fired in retaliation for protesting or striking for health protections during the coronavirus pandemic. Agreement with this statement was generally consistent across a series of demographics and partisanship. What this result makes plain is that there’s widespread support for workers who agitate for health protections during this emergency.
Next, we turn our attention to attitudes around a general strike. For background, “a strike,” Hannah Gold explains in the Cut, “is a work stoppage tactic used to pressure management to fulfill certain demands. Its power is as a collective action.” Strikes tend to be focused at one employer or even centered upon one worksite. A general strike, meanwhile, “encompasses workers in as many industries as possible and might disrupt the market more completely.” In contrast to a typical strike, during a general strike workers across industries and work sites collectively apply pressure on the government, rather than focusing on their individual employers.
Union leader Sarah Nelson, Hamilton Nolan notes, “catapulted [the general strike] into public consciousness as a legitimate possibility early last year” as a tactic to end the government shutdown in early 2019.
In a survey conducted at the end of March, Data for Progress asked voters two questions to gauge attitudes about a possible general strike. First, we asked voters the following:
Sometimes, when workers in a country need government to take immediate action they organize a general strike, when workers across non-essential industries do not work until government has taken action. This excludes medical personnel, firefighters and other workers who cannot strike without endangering the lives of others. If the US government and politicians in both parties fail to act in response to the current coronavirus pandemic by ensuring paid sick leave, expanded unemployment insurance, free healthcare for anyone who gets sick, and prioritize resources towards frontline workers who must work during the pandemic, would you support a general strike in the US?
We found substantial levels of support for a general strike among voters. By a 15 percentage point margin, voters said they would support a theoretical general strike (47 percent support, 33 percent oppose). Voters under 45, that is, those voters hardest hit by the economic downturn, are the most supportive, backing a general strike by a 43-percentage-point margin (63 percent support, 20 percent oppose). Black voters are also quite supportive of a general strike, backing the idea by a 38-percentage-point margin (57 percent support, 19 percent oppose). Looking at responses broken out by partisanship, Democrats support the idea by a 32-percentage-point margin (58 percent support, 26 percent oppose) while Republicans oppose it but only narrowly (43 percent support, 45 percent oppose).
Next, we asked voters if they would participate in a general strike, and if so, for how long.Specifically, voters were asked:
If there was a general strike in the US in the next two months in response to government inaction, would you be willing to go on strike yourself along with other workers in various sectors of the economy as long as it did not put more lives in danger?
1 - Yes, up to 6 months if needed
2 - Yes, up to one month if needed
3 - Yes, up to two weeks if needed
4 - No, I would not go on strike
5 - I cannot strike without endangering myself or others
What we found is that 46 percent of voters who could strike reported that they would be willing to walk off the job for some length of time––consistent with the 47 percent of voters who said they would support a general strike. 38 percent of voters, meanwhile, said they wouldn’t strike while the remaining (18 percent) reported that they cannot strike without endangering themselves or others.
Republicans across the country, including the President himself, have made it clear in the past week that they plan to reopen the economy, absent sufficient testing or much in the way of a plan to deal with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. So fearful are they that even a temporary expansion of the social safety net may loosen, ever so slightly, the bonds between workers, their jobs, and means of subsistence, Republicans are willing to expose millions of Americans to considerable risk.
What steps the federal government has taken to respond to the public health and economic emergencies have been woefully inadequate. Yet, workers have the power to change this. Through their collective action, embodied in a general strike, they can demand their government enact sweeping measures that are incredibly popular such as emergency Medicare for All, monthly cash payments, and suspension of rent and mortgage payments. A general strike would be a dramatic step, one hitherto thought implausible in an American context that’s seen organized labor slowly wither, and, nonetheless, it’s an idea that enjoys substantial support within the electorate.
In a recently published piece in the New York Times, the opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argued that while the strikes to date have been mostly contained:
The militancy born of immediate self-protection and self-interest can grow into calls for deeper, broader transformation. And if the United States continues to stumble its way into yet another generation-defining economic catastrophe, we may find that even more of its working class comes to understand itself as an agent of change — and action.
Welded together through shared exploitation workers are again beginning to identify as workers.
The American ruling class is sleeping on a volcano. The longer the basic principles of a social contract are denied, with material gain confined to the narrow limits of one class, pressure from below will build––until it explodes.
Authorship and Methodology
Ethan Winter (@EthanBWinter) is an analyst for Data for Progress.
Gustavo Sanchez (@lgsanchezconde) is a Senior Data Engineer with Data for Progress.
On April 15, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1181 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, urbanicity, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ± 2.8 percent
On March 31, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 2165 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education,, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English only. The margin of error is ± 2.1 percent.