this slayed me because it's such an excellent example of Carrol's point about history, actions, social movements, mobilization, etc.
"Although it is often spun in Oakland legend that the general strike was a successful action, it really wasn’t. A majority of workers wanted to continue striking and CIO unions considered joining in support, but the strike fell apart because of a single corrupt labor leader. Dave Beck, the head of the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa’s mentor, forced a compromise when he pulled his powerful union off the lines and endorsed a moderate settlement that accomplished almost nothing and quite literally did not address the department store workers concerns at all. While the still agitated workers managed to elect several labor representatives to the city council, the entire apparatus of the city used the general strike to attack all labor. The police, the city government, and the Oakland Tribune combined to resist not only the unionization of the department stores, but all labor in Oakland.
While Oakland remained a strong union city after this, the strikes of 1946 around the nation and especially the Oakland General Strike led to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Taft-Hartley was an open attack on the labor movement, limiting labor’s ability to strike, banning sympathy strikes (which could make it legally difficult for today’s unions to support Occupy Oakland’s general strike), and allow individual states to pass so-called “right to work” laws, meaning that just because there is a union at your workplace doesn’t mean you have to join it.
Soon after, the McCarthy era began and radical unionism of any kind became suspicious, with the CIO kicking the communist organizers and entire communist-led unions out of the federation, turning its back on its radical history.
If there is one lesson to take from these general strikes, it’s that they are extremely threatening to those in power. If successful, they show that the 1% have lost the control they so ardently seek. They will react with ferocity against the organizers, laying bare structural and legal inequalities in this nation. Neither strike was successful, but we remember them as moments of incredible worker solidarity when it seemed massive changes were about to happen. They need to be seen as part of the larger struggles of working people to achieve basic rights, decent wages, and safe living conditions in this country."
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)