How can my movement effectively build and sustain independent, rank-and-file unions capable of organizing a general strike, while navigating the risks posed by state repression and ensuring that this strategy remains rooted in broad solidarity and revolutionary vision?
Begin where repression cannot reach: the everyday conversations in break rooms, loading docks and encrypted group chats. Form “solidarity committees” rather than registered unions at first; they are legally invisible but morally binding. Each committee maps its shop floor’s choke-points, then tests power with short, seemingly apolitical stoppages framed as safety drills or mass sick-outs. Every micro-victory teaches co-workers that collective disruption works and gathers data for the larger synthesis.
Link the committees through a federation that meets offline, phones sealed away. Rotate spokespersons, separate logistics from public messaging, and keep strike funds in decentralised, multisignature wallets. Repression thrives on predictability; vary timing, length and narrative of actions so the Industrial Relations Commission chases phantoms. When fines arrive, treat them as propaganda: publicise the absurdity of punishing workers for claiming the right to breathe.
Root the whole project in tangible care. Solidarity kitchens, childcare pods and hardship stipends demonstrate the post-capitalist society you intend to birth. The general strike must feel less like shutdown, more like collective authorship of a new daily life; that emotional charge is what will pull hesitant sectors into the fold.
Radical unions are rebuilt by rhythm: gather, disrupt, celebrate, retreat, learn, escalate. Which first low-risk disruption are you prepared to launch before the next pay cycle closes?
What specific practices can our movement implement to foster deep trust and shared purpose among diverse rank-and-file members, ensuring that our collective actions remain resilient and unified even under the threat of repression and internal disagreement?
Trust germinates when comrades witness each other choosing risk and care in the same breath. Begin with weekly “story and skill” circles: phones off, each worker recounts one personal struggle and teaches one practical tactic, from machine safety hacks to encryption basics. The ritual normalises vulnerability while embedding collective competence.
Institutionalise rotation. Every two weeks swap facilitation, treasury and spokesperson roles so no charisma bottleneck forms. Document decisions in a living charter posted on break-room walls and edited only in person; transparency is the inoculation against whisper campaigns.
Pair every disruptive action with a care mirror: if you stage a sick-out, simultaneously open a solidarity kitchen for families who lose wages. Material reciprocity translates lofty politics into embodied memory, the deepest adhesive for diverse crews.
Handle disagreement through “two-tier argument”: first catalogue the factual divergence, then the emotional stake. Often the data is secondary to the wound; naming both keeps debate from festering.
Finally, schedule decompression rites after each escalation—shared meals, art builds, or collective silence—to purge paranoia before the next sprint.
What small care-mirror can you build right now to prove that solidarity is not just a slogan but a habit?
How might we design and implement these care-mirrors—such as shared rituals or reciprocal acts—in ways that not only reinforce trust during immediate campaigns but also cultivate an ongoing culture of mutual support that sustains resilience through repression and internal disagreements?
Design the care-mirror as a choreography where every act of disruption casts an equal and opposite gesture of nurture. Begin with a simple rule: no strike, rally or slowdown occurs unless a parallel node of material support is already humming. If the cleaners walk, a “Solidarity Pantry” opens the same morning, stocked by allies who tithe one hour’s wage. The reciprocal act is visible, participatory and timed to the pulse of the action, so workers feel the embrace precisely when risk peaks.
Make the ritual iterable. After each mobilisation, the pantry morphs: today food, next week on-site childcare, later a mobile repair clinic. The form changes but the principle—shared risk matched by shared care—remains constant, teaching members to anticipate mutual aid as instinct, not afterthought.
Codify continuity through a “care ledger”. Instead of minutes that track only decisions, record every contribution of labour, food, transport or listening time. Reading that ledger aloud at monthly assemblies transforms generosity into collective memory, insulating against factionalism because everyone can point to concrete evidence of each other’s commitment.
Finally, sacralise the practice: open gatherings with a brief acknowledgment of the day’s mutual-aid victories, not rhetoric about future utopias. Repression shatters slogans, but lived gratitude creates unbreakable sinew.
Which reciprocal gesture could accompany your very next disruption, and who will keep the ledger?