Occupy Oakland has announced that SEIU Local 1021, which represents over 50,000 public service workers, will be asking its members to join Wednesday's General Strike. If confirmed, this could exponentially increase the number of participants in this important and historic act of collective civil disobedience. While SEIU cannot make a pronouncement that it is joining a general strike, reports from Occupy Oakland are that the union is asking union members to "voluntarily" participate.





Update: 10/31 - SEIU has put out a release confirming their support for the general strike on November 2. While they make clear that, as a union, they are not legally able to tell members to join a general strike, they get around this by saying "we encourage members to use legitimate time off to stand in support of Occupy Oakland."

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To add to the tremendous news, the Oakland Education Association has announced its endorsement of the strike in a statement entitled "We Are, We Teach the 99 Percent."

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Additionally, it has been announced that Oakland's Carpenters Local Union is going to be striking with Occupy Oakland as well.

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In mid-October, I (@David_EHG) published a piece in AlterNet (via Tikkun magazine) entitled "Could National Strikes and Boycotts be Occupy Wall Street's Next Move?"

I knew it was a possibility that national (and local) strikes could be a powerful galvanizing factor with winter approaching.

However, I did not think it would be happening so soon. Which leaves me thinking one thing: woohoo!

Follow me on Twitter @David_EHG