Well, to quote the GSUS welcome packet, it's "a decentralized strike network of committed people who want to bring back our sense of community and build a world for humans, not corporations."

Okay, so, what does that mean?

Let's go back a bit. What is a general strike, exactly?

According to the Museum of Protest, it's "a mass work stoppage in which a substantial proportion of workers across multiple industries collectively cease work." This article is an excellent explainer of the use of general strikes as a tool to speak truth to power, and get 'power' to give workers fair wages and better working conditions.

A general strike not only a massive strike, but a strike coordinated across industries - across multiple businesses and types of businesses. A general strike is not only a single union, or a few related unions, working together to apply economic pressure to one or two of the ol' economic overlords; it is workers banding together across industry lines (which are drawn by business owners in the first place) to leverage their collective economic and political strength.

Okay! But that still doesn't quite cover the definition of the GSUS. That describes a general labor strike - and the GSUS is not only that: General Strike US is calling for a general social strike.

Wait, what is that?

Waging Nonviolence goes over the history of general strikes not only in the US, but worldwide, in Jeremy Brecher's article "What would a general strike in the US actually look like?" Brecher notes that recently, the term "general strike" has been stretched out as an umbrella term to cover not only general labor strikes (which, full props to labor strikes!) but also other forms of collective direct action. He lists the Occupy movement as an example, wherein thousands of people staged sit-ins in dozens of cities across the country on May Day 2012.

(Yes, some of those protests went south. Yes, ACAB. I strongly advise anyone planning to protest in person to research protest safety. Know your rights. Hold the line. And mask up.)

Speaking of May Day protests? May Day 2025 was yesterday.

Occupy (incl. Wall Street) protesters numbered in the thousands. Literally just yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people turned out here in the US. Union organizers specifically aimed to push back against the Trump "administration’s sweeping assault on labor protections, diversity initiatives and federal employees."

There were unions organizing in LA, CDC employees speaking up in Chicago, and lawyers protesting in New York City. People spoke up to call out for immigrant rights, for queer rights, for people to not have their right to live taken away.

People turned out to protest not only the orange ding-dong; we are calling for an end to everything he and his bootlickers and string-pullers want to create. MAGA's "great" America? We want no part of it.

Hundreds of thousands of people. Dozens of protests. Streets filled with the voices of the many who are sick of being ground down so the richest few can get even richer.

This is what US citizens have already pulled off. And May Day does not end at US borders! This is an international holiday. This was worldwide. We had people in Europe, in Asia, all over the world gathering to speak truth to power. To scream it.

There are so many people working to resist the Trump regime and its neverending stream of human rights violations, to fight fascism all over the world, in all of its forms.

As well: this is not a new phenomenon. Labor organization in the US has quite the history. In a recent Substack post by Robert Reich, he and a friend discuss specific instances of the history of the general strike as protest. We have proof that this works. Concerted, nonviolent protest works.

The power and necessity of labor unions cannot be understated. If you are in a union, then power to you. If you are involved in organizing a labor union, that's amazing. However: not every person is also a worker.

If you've just been laid off, you can join. If you cannot find work because the US economy is a mess on fire, you can join. If you are disabled and cannot work a paying job, you can join. GSUS is for humans, not corporations.

A general social strike is for everybody.

People who are disabled, retired, or not working can absolutely join the movement. You can participate by boycotting, spreading the word, contributing to mutual aid efforts, designing posters and flyers, moderating online communities, and more.

General Strike US outlines in its welcome packet why we are resisting; the causes we are working to achieve. We are calling for climate action and universal healthcare. (The dream.) We are calling for social reform to end racism, to end queerphobia, to end institutional ableism - to make a country that works for its people, and not the broligarchs currently illegally occupying the White House.

Yes, I said it. Trump has committed treasonous acts. He is a traitor. The same can be said for a whole pack of the White House's current inhabitants - except for the head DOGE, seeing as he's legally a civilian and not actually a part of the US government in any way de jure.

Traitors should not be in the White House. They are there illegally. I am saying it with my whole chest.

Nothing is fine right now. The world (I am looking out my window and the climate is shooting ever deeper into crisis) and, also, specifically the country where I currently live (I am reading the news and having a grand old time) are in deep, deep, deep trouble. I am not okay with this. I want to help.

I'm also chronically ill, chronically unemployed, and living on SSI. I don't drive (yet). I'm too agoraphobic to get to a grocery store some days, never mind a mass protest. I want to help! But trying to push past my limits too hard, too fast, gets me nowhere but burned out. I can't help anyone else if I can't help myself.

So I am taking remote actions. I am using my skills in writing. I am sitting here and typing this article. I'm doing research, and fact-checking as much as possible before I claim anything. I'm making calls to my representatives more days than I'm not. (Thank you, 5Calls and Chop Wood Carry Water.) I'm sending emails, writing texts, and sharing the news as I discover it to my social media pages. And, yes, I am (sigh) signing petitions.

And I am part of the General Strike US. I signed the digital strike card. (My local chapter in SoCal is also working on physical strike cards, for those who do not feel comfortable signing digitally because internet privacy is an oxymoron.) I joined the national Discord server, where I was pointed to my local state server, where I was able to join meetings and find my voice in organizing

I haven't worked in years. I haven't done any nonfiction writing in even longer. I signed myself up to write for the GSUS Substack page literally yesterday morning, and I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing!

And I am part of the organization working towards a general social strike - a mass political, economic, and social protest against the absolute mess of christofascism eating this country's (frankly, already flagging) ability and willingness to keep its citizens alive for literally any purpose beyond Doing Work and Making More Workers.

And I am a part of this. Anyone can be. If you are willing to join, then there will be a way to use your skills (whatever those may be) to work towards liberation for all people, using every resource available - and quite a few that aren't available yet, because we have yet to finish making them!

At this opening stage, GSUS is a bit of an awkward caterpillar of an organization. Or, rather, given its nature as a decentralized collection of smaller GSUSes who are working in contact with one another (but not depended on any one leader or leaders to keep our movement going) GSUS is a whole bunch of caterpillars, scrabbling around and slowly getting bigger. We're nowhere near the 3.5% of the total US population we need for our ultimate goal: a nationwide general social strike.

However, we are working towards that goal every day. We recently cracked 350,000 strike cards signed - 350,000 people working towards a better world. We are building a coalition with other grassroots organizations such as Indivisible, and we have unions joining in to work with us.

If you think that the work we're doing sounds worthwhile, I invite you to check out the GSUS Linktree for more resources and information. And if you want to help us work towards a United States that isn't such an awful, corrupt, capitalist empire in the process of imploding:

We really could use your help.