Wel­come to Inter­views for Resis­tance. We’re now into the sec­ond year of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, and the last year has been filled with ups and downs, impor­tant vic­to­ries, suc­cess­ful hold­ing cam­paigns, and painful defeats. We’ve learned a lot, but there is always more to learn, more to be done. In this now-week­ly series, we talk with orga­niz­ers, agi­ta­tors, and edu­ca­tors, not only about how to resist, but how to build a bet­ter world.

Cinzia Arruz­za: I am Cinzia Arruz­za. I am one of the nation­al orga­niz­ers of the Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Strike.

Tithi Bhat­tacharya: This is Tithi Bhat­tacharya. I teach at Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty. I was one of the nation­al orga­niz­ers for the Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Strike last year and I am doing the same this year.

Sarah Jaffe: Let’s start off talk­ing a lit­tle bit about this year’s strike. What is being planned and why did you decide to do it again this year?

TB: I think every­body knows the con­text of last year’s strike, which start­ed with an extra­or­di­nary lev­el of inter­na­tion­al coor­di­na­tion between fem­i­nists glob­al­ly. This year, those con­texts remain and, in the case of the Unit­ed States, have been enhanced in a way with Trump’s elec­tion. It was a nat­ur­al con­clu­sion that it would be repeat­ed this year both inter­na­tion­al­ly, as well as in the Unit­ed States.

CA: On Novem­ber 25th, there was also an inter­na­tion­al day against gen­der vio­lence. Not in the Unit­ed States, unfor­tu­nate­ly, but around the world we had some very mas­sive demon­stra­tions. The suc­cess of this day of mobi­liza­tion also gave the impulse to think that it was pos­si­ble to orga­nize anoth­er strike this year.

SJ: Let’s talk about the his­to­ry of women’s strikes, because this is some­thing that has been around for sev­er­al decades in the women’s move­ment, but is com­ing back right now

CA: Women’s strikes are not entire­ly a nov­el­ty. The prece­dent of the women’s strike was in the 1970s, the Women’s Strike in Ice­land for equal wages. Two years ago, the Pol­ish fem­i­nist move­ment decid­ed to retrieve this form of strug­gle and to orga­nize a women’s strike in Poland against the country’s abor­tion ban. The same hap­pened in 2016 in Argenti­na with waves of the women’s strikes and mobi­liza­tions against gen­der violence.

Start­ing from there, and espe­cial­ly giv­en the enor­mous suc­cess of these mobi­liza­tions and strikes in Argenti­na and Poland, there was the idea of try­ing to orga­nize an Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Strike on March 8th. Women’s strikes are a very pow­er­ful way of mobi­liz­ing for the fem­i­nist move­ment because they make appar­ent not just the vic­tim­iza­tion of women, but also the pow­er that women have in so far as they are work­ers who work both in the for­mal labor mar­ket, but also in the social repro­duc­tive sphere, at home, and so on. This labor is very often not rec­og­nized or val­ued as it should be.

TB: Even last year when this was declared, there was some push­back over the word ​“strike” because the under­stand­ing of the word ​“strike” as it has come to be accept­ed is work stop­page at the point of pro­duc­tion. That is a very impor­tant and pow­er­ful def­i­n­i­tion of ​“strike.” How­ev­er, the word ​“strike” has sev­er­al oth­er his­tor­i­cal appli­ca­tions, some of which Cinzia just went through.

I think one of the things that we found it very easy to talk about in the con­text of last year, as well as this year, is the dif­fer­ence between a work­place strike and a polit­i­cal strike. I think the Women’s Strike was a very impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the lega­cy of a polit­i­cal strike because in the con­text of the neolib­er­al decline of union den­si­ty glob­al­ly, because of the active attack on unions since the 1970s by the glob­al rul­ing elite, I think work­ing-class peo­ple have sig­nif­i­cant­ly lost the most pow­er­ful weapon to strike with­in the work­place, which is unions.

I think, in that con­text, a polit­i­cal strike is very impor­tant because what hap­pened on March 8th last year, just in the Unit­ed States, was called a strike. We were very ded­i­cat­ed to main­tain­ing that iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of that word, but what hap­pened as a result was that there was intense polit­i­cal dis­cus­sion about the rela­tion­ship between work­place and non-work­place kinds of mobilization.

We strong­ly believe that in a peri­od where there is a loss of pow­er to take action in the work­place, the polit­i­cal strike is a use­ful way to restart that con­ver­sa­tion and per­haps flow back that pow­er into work­place mobilization.

SJ: We have seen the revival of inter­est in the idea of the polit­i­cal strike, espe­cial­ly in the Unit­ed States since Trump was elect­ed. It is inter­est­ing in this moment that we are see­ing a revival of the idea of the polit­i­cal strike even as unions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this coun­try, but glob­al­ly, as well, are struggling.

CA: In a sense, this marks the fact that work­ers are deprived of one of the most cru­cial means of strug­gle and protest that is usu­al­ly rec­og­nized in oth­er lib­er­al democ­ra­cies. I am not even speak­ing about insur­rec­tionary forms or strug­gle. Polit­i­cal strikes do take place in a num­ber of coun­tries. They are legal, they are rec­og­nized, and they are a very pow­er­ful tool when­ev­er the gov­ern­ment seems to be impos­si­ble to chal­lenge or to influ­ence in anoth­er way.

I do hope that the appeal polit­i­cal strikes are hav­ing in this moment can actu­al­ly re-open polit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion and a polit­i­cal cam­paign to reform labor laws and to real­ly rethink in a very deep way what labor rights should look like in the Unit­ed States. Because the Unit­ed States has the most anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic labor laws among lib­er­al democ­ra­cies. It is real­ly a very excep­tion­al situation.

TB: In terms of the polit­i­cal strike there are two things that are real­ly impor­tant. One of the impor­tant things to remem­ber, when ques­tions of women’s labor is para­mount, is the rea­son peo­ple strike is because of the poor con­di­tions of their life. It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly that they strike because of their job. It is because their job is a means to live their life and when con­di­tions of life are dete­ri­o­rat­ing, that is when peo­ple con­sid­er doing some­thing about it in their workplace.

This rela­tion­ship between life and work is often for­got­ten by union bureau­cra­cies. Union bureau­cra­cies like to treat the union as anoth­er kind of a salaried lit­tle space where job strug­gles are nego­ti­at­ed as sim­ply con­tract nego­ti­a­tions. But, for work­ing class peo­ple, it is not about the con­tract nego­ti­a­tion — it is about their lives and lived conditions.

A polit­i­cal strike gives a wider, deep­er con­text to the mean­ing of strug­gle and the gains to be had from strug­gle and sol­i­dar­i­ty. I think, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this con­text, polit­i­cal strikes play that vital role of remind­ing peo­ple between lived con­di­tions of work­ers and work con­di­tions and how they are both con­nect­ed and actu­al­ly nec­es­sary to be connected.

SJ: This strike is com­ing in the midst of the #MeToo move­ment. Talk about this con­text where there is this renewed con­ver­sa­tion about sex­u­al harass­ment and sex­u­al vio­lence and how that is play­ing into this year’s strike and organizing.

CA: I think that we should also see a con­nec­tion between the wave of fem­i­nist mobi­liza­tions around the world in the past year and a half and then the explo­sion of the #MeToo campaign.

The #MeToo moment has been a very impor­tant moment in the Unit­ed States and also inter­na­tion­al­ly because it has made appar­ent what a lot of women already knew, which is that sex­u­al harass­ment and vio­lence are part of the every­day life of the major­i­ty of women, either in the work­place or at home or in the streets. Clear­ly, gen­der vio­lence does require a col­lec­tive response. So, from this view­point, the Women’s Strike is not so much an alter­na­tive to #MeToo. It is rather one con­tri­bu­tion or one attempt to try to give a col­lec­tive response to the iso­la­tion that vic­tim­iza­tion produces.

The idea is that the step for­ward after #MeToo, after denounc­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly all the harass­ment and vio­lence that we have suf­fered through­out our life, there must be, also, the moment of col­lec­tive orga­niz­ing and col­lec­tive response. Oth­er­wise, the struc­tur­al con­di­tions that enable this gen­der vio­lence to con­tin­ue are not chal­lenged. One of the risks of the cur­rent atten­tion on the issues of gen­der vio­lence is that we will get rid of a few obnox­ious harassers, some famous and some less famous, and this is all good, of course. I wel­come this moment of cathar­sis, in a sense. But this is not going to solve any problem.

The real prob­lem is not indi­vid­ual nasty men. The real prob­lems are the struc­tur­al con­di­tions that cre­ate the con­di­tions and the impuni­ty for gen­der vio­lence and sex­u­al vio­lence. We have learned in the past months to what extent women are harassed and abused as women in the work­place, but this clear­ly has to do with the hier­ar­chi­cal nature of labor rela­tions with­in the work­place, with the lack of pow­er that the work­ers have.

Also, from this view­point, the lack of union­iza­tion, the lack of labor rights in the Unit­ed States clear­ly cre­ate fur­ther con­di­tions for gen­der vio­lence because women are going to be con­stant­ly afraid to speak up against their views of a col­league or of an employ­er, pre­cise­ly because they don’t feel they have any kind of pro­tec­tion. They don’t feel that they have any kind of orga­niz­ing, col­lec­tive infra­struc­ture that can actu­al­ly pro­tect their interests.

TB: I am just going to add actu­al­ly three very spe­cif­ic things to the #MeToo moment that I think March 8th is con­cerned with. This is the begin­ning of why we addressed #MeToo in our orga­niz­ing. The first is: When last do you remem­ber see­ing dis­cus­sions of work con­di­tions in The New York Times repeat­ed­ly? That is what #MeToo has done. We have nev­er seen so many arti­cles in major media out­lets about work­ing con­di­tions of women. Yes, it has been most­ly about sex­u­al vio­lence, but it has actu­al­ly exposed how dic­ta­to­r­i­al and bru­tal the work­place is for most women, but also for most peo­ple. This is a tremen­dous dis­cus­sion. I have not seen dis­cus­sions of work­ing con­di­tions to this extent. This is a very wel­come devel­op­ment that for the first time in many years we are see­ing ques­tions being raised about what it means to be a work­er in this country.

The sec­ond is a real­iza­tion that was lim­it­ed first to social­ists and rad­i­cals in this coun­try, but has now begun to become com­mon sense. That is that we all know that since the ear­ly part of the 20th cen­tu­ry, there has been an undoubt­ed­ly marked increase in women’s rights and women’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pub­lic sphere and the sphere of work. We have, in a way, through strug­gles, improved our lives as women.

But, on a par­al­lel track, I think what has hap­pened is the rights of work­ers have declined pre­cip­i­tous­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of neolib­er­al­ism. Now we have a con­tra­dic­to­ry sit­u­a­tion where our rights as women have improved over the years, in a cer­tain sense, but the rights of work­ers as a whole have declined. Which means, that in work­place sit­u­a­tions women, par­tic­u­lar­ly, are vulnerable.

The solu­tion that cap­i­tal­ism has offered us is ​“Because you can improve as a woman, then it is every woman for her­self.” The solu­tion offered to bad con­di­tions of life and work for women has been, of course, Lean In. That you can improve and you can become a CEO. That is the sec­ond kind of development.

The third, which I think is very sig­nif­i­cant for our pur­pos­es, is the fact: How do we then fight back? We all know domes­tic vio­lence exists to a hor­rif­ic extent both in the Unit­ed States and glob­al­ly, but the advan­tage of a work­place dis­cus­sion in this sit­u­a­tion is that there are wit­ness­es and there are peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced the same thing because they are your co-work­ers under the same dis­gust­ing rapist boss. There is a col­lec­tive con­fi­dence because you have been through this col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence and this is why, I think, the voice of the #MeToo cam­paign is ampli­fied because it comes from a col­lec­tive place of resistance.

SJ: Tell us about the orga­niz­ing for this year’s strike. What is planned where so far and about the inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty work going on, as well?

TB: Inter­na­tion­al­ly, I have been on a few phone calls with the inter­na­tion­al orga­niz­ing and it is actu­al­ly going real­ly well in var­i­ous parts of the world, notably Italy, Spain, Poland, Argenti­na, and var­i­ous oth­er places in Latin Amer­i­ca. In the UK, where I was last month, the core orga­niz­ing cen­ter is called The Women’s Strike Assem­bly and they are doing fab­u­lous work in link­ing up March 8th with the ongo­ing dis­cus­sions and orga­niz­ing for uni­ver­si­ty-wide strike of fac­ul­ty that is com­ing up. They are mak­ing con­tacts with fac­ul­ty mem­bers across the UK to coor­di­nate strike action and the orga­niz­ers in the UK are tire­less in going to var­i­ous strike meet­ings, etc.

In the Unit­ed States the plan is that across the coun­try, on March 8th we will stop work for one hour as women in order to show the boss­es and their back­ers in the White House that because we pro­duce the wealth in soci­ety, we can also stop pro­duc­ing that wealth and stop soci­ety from run­ning. It is a sym­bol­ic reminder of our pow­er as women and work­ers. We are work­ing with var­i­ous unions to make that happen.

CA: We have reac­ti­vat­ed a form of nation­al plan­ning com­mit­tee that is basi­cal­ly a net­work of var­i­ous activists across the coun­try who are vol­un­teer­ing their time and their work for this strike. We had, in New York, a pub­lic launch of the Women’s Strike with a won­der­ful pan­el that was fea­tur­ing some real­ly incred­i­ble speakers.

In this sense, this event, for exam­ple, gave a sense of the kind of ener­gy, but also the kind of women that the women’s strike is try­ing to orga­nize, espe­cial­ly work­ing-class women, minor­i­ty women who are not just par­tic­i­pat­ing in the strike, but also wag­ing a lot of strug­gles and fights in the work­place, against ICE, and so on and some­times actu­al­ly win­ning some­thing and show­ing in this way that col­lec­tive action actu­al­ly does get the goods sometimes.

We think we will have demon­stra­tions and march­es and walk­outs in most of the biggest cities in the States. Orga­niz­ers are already work­ing on the strike in LA, in the Bay Area, in Port­land, in Philly. We are also receiv­ing a lot of con­tacts, emails, mes­sages from peo­ple who are inter­est­ed, who read, for exam­ple, the arti­cle we pub­lished in The Guardian call­ing for a strike in the Unit­ed States this year and who are inter­est­ed in get­ting on board.

This is an entire­ly vol­un­tary effort that is real­ly based on grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions. It is self-fund­ed. Peo­ple are vol­un­teer­ing their time and their work, but in a sense, this is also the beau­ty of it, in the sense that around the orga­ni­za­tion of the strike, we are some­how con­sol­i­dat­ing an area of ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist fem­i­nism that is offer­ing an alter­na­tive to the kind of cor­po­rate and Lean In fem­i­nism that has been dom­i­nat­ing in past years. I think there is the polit­i­cal space and desire for this, at least judg­ing from the response that a lot of fem­i­nist activists around the coun­try are giv­ing to the idea of orga­niz­ing on the strike and the enthu­si­asm that they are putting into this project.

Of course, those who want to get on board can con­tact us through the web­site or the Face­book page and orga­nize a strike in their city.

Inter­views for Resis­tance is a project of Sarah Jaffe, with assis­tance from Lau­ra Feuille­bois and sup­port from the Nation Insti­tute. It is also avail­able as a pod­cast on iTunes. Not to be reprint­ed with­out permission.