Occupy Oakland Protestors Call General Strike

A week after law enforcement officers forced Occupy Wall Street demonstrators to leave their encampment in Oakland and used tear gas on protestors, supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement have once again filled Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland and are calling for a general strike throughout the city on November 2.

During the day-long strike, protestors intend to march from downtown Oakland to the Port of Oakland, the fifth-busiest in the nation, and shut it down. They also plan to demonstrate at banks and corporations that refuse to close for the day.

Several unions have expressed support for the Occupy Oakland strike but have not formally called for work stoppages.

Former Marine Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a skull fracture when he was hit in the head by a police projectile during the early morning hours of October 25, 2011 when law enforcement officers cleared protestors from Frank Ogawa Plaza.

In July 1934, after police shot and killed a striking longshoreman and a volunteer cook in a union soup kitchen, longshoremen and their union supporters called for a general strike in San Francisco to support striking longshoremen.

On the morning of July 14, San Francisco was quiet. No street cars clanged down Market Street. No jitneys lined up to drive people to work. Restaurants were closed. No gas was delivered into the city.

The 1934 General Strike shut down San Francisco for four days; virtually every union heeded the call.

Though the General Strike could be sustained only for four days, the longshoremen stayed out for eighty days. They won signed contracts guaranteeing a 30-hour work week, a 6-hour work day, and a union hiring hall.