A day without workers

What if the working class were suddenly to—disappear?

Stock traders love to think that their cleverness is what makes the markets go up and their clients earn dividends. But what would happen to General Motors stock if the workers in their auto and truck plants were to suddenly—disappear?

Wholesalers and retailers pride themselves on their almost clairvoyant sensitivity to consumers’ whims. Isn’t that where their profits come from? They think so. But what if, one early morning, when the dew still sparkled on those few blades of grass that somehow find their way up through the paved parking lots, there was no one to open the doors of the megastores, no one to unload the trucks and wheel away the bulky cartons, no one to sort the goods and trundle them to their assigned shelves? What would happen to the profits then?

As long as workers come in and do their jobs, they can be almost invisible to the bosses. Any number of grand economic theories can be invented to deify those with money and what seems to be power while demeaning those who do all the work.

But—

A delightful, quirky comedy a few years ago called “A Day Without a Mexican” captured the spirit that was bubbling even then among immigrants, who now are flexing their muscle and reminding the grand overlords of capitalism of the astounding limitations of this greedy system.

Without Mexicans (or Caribbean bus drivers, Filipina nurses, Vietnamese shrimpers, Korean greengrocers and so on) life would grind to a halt in much of this country. In the film, no explanation was given. The Mexicans just disappeared. The employers who had taken them for granted were helpless, hapless, discombobulated, ready for a breakdown—until they just as mysteriously reappeared.

What a great metaphor for a general strike. It seemed like fantasy then. Today it is taken much more seriously.

This is written a few days before the May 1 Great Boycott and Strike. No one knows what will happen. But some day it will happen. Some day workers all over this country—immigrants and native born, service workers and factory workers, from the deep South to the frozen North, from private industries and offices to every type of public agency—will walk off the job in a concerted action. And all the illusions about the great stability and power of capitalist rule will be shattered.

It will only be the beginning, of course. It will be the first great lesson. Power concedes nothing without a demand. But the demands will be forming in the people’s minds. They will force their way, be whispered, then shouted, then emblazoned on a million banners.

When the workers disappear, even if for a day, it will have started. When they come back, with their demands formulated and a vision of what the future could be like, the world will have changed irrevocably.