What is the Shutdown 315 Movement?
Edit: Because of the number of negative and discouraging comments that are counterproductive to the message of this post, I have decided to remove select comments that discourage organization. I apologize in advance if your comment is removed inadvertently.
I removed 32 comments.
Removed by mod
I doubt any of the conservatives will be participating.
It’s not impossible. If you focused solely on economic concerns.
Listen to what? What are the demands?
Yeah, I mean look at what happened to Occupy Wall Street. You need clear concise demands, and shit that actually possible. And a general strike without major collaboration between unions and shite? Has there been any communication about this at all?
They have nothing to do with the image but Workers Strike Back is having a conference to organize into a body that can make demands and negotiate in a general strike situation. They’re getting major Union leaders to attend (Amazon, UAW, etc) so the resulting org should actually have sway. But the conference is open to anyone and they’re welcoming anyone to join them. Info here: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/events/feb-2025-organizing-conference
Removed by mod
I’m not jazzed about that part either. I’m trying to support this simply for the potential it has for general strike. Nothing else.
Thank you for sharing. Know that at least one person has signed up for the livestream thanks to this :)
Here are the demands from the site as of when I accessed it:
-
Protection and permanent guarantee of civil rights for all
-
Total government reform
-
Publicly funded health care
-
Adequate and accessible disability support and services
-
A permanent solution to Homelessness, hunger and the housing crisis
-
Respect and support for tribal Sovereignty and involvement with indigenous leadership for environmental action
-
Enhanced enforcement of constitutional rights
-
More power to american voters
Personally, I believe these are not specific enough. If I may be so bold, I’ll rewrite them:
-
Improved laws at the municipal, state, and federal levels to include LGBTQ persons as protected classes under anti-discrimination law, including explicit punishments for owners and minimum damages award amounts
-
Replacing district-based voting with proportional representation for representatives at state and federal levels, first-past-the-post voting with either ranked choice voting or approval voting at municipal and state levels, and your state joining or better advertising if already joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
-
Single-payer healthcare at the federal level, including coverage of preventative treatment and protection for pre-existing conditions
-
Clarified laws around enforcement of disability support, including failure modes to prevent dropping compliance and punishments scaling to the wealth of the offender, at the state level for physical locations and services and at the federal level for online services
-
Funding and development of government housing and support for the unhoused, including mental health services, training for entering the workforce, training in financial hygiene, and addiction treatment, be it chemical (e.g. drugs) or behavioral (e.g. gambling)
-
Clarified and improved enforcement of laws at the federal level for ensuring the sovereignty and support of indigenous peoples, including environmental protections in line with their beliefs, punishments for private entities including corporations that violate their sovereignty, and failsafes to prevent intentional lack of enforcement by government entities
-
Incorporating government ethical norms into the US Constitution, closing loopholes that enable abuse of power, strengthening ethics review committees’ power to remove individuals using government power unethical, creating federal and state level departmental entities enshrined in law to ensure constitutionally granted rights
-
Explicitly excluding corporations and similar non-individual entities from contributing campaign funds to political candidates, outlawing lobbying, drastically increasing public political campaign funding based on a metric that scales with the economy, further limiting private funding for political campaign funding based on a metric that scales with the economy, defining independent entities for auditing and pursuing legal action against tampering with voting mechanisms including voters registration methods, ballot submission methods, and voter tampering methods - all via constitutional amendment
People can fix my grammar/typos. Yes, I know more specific demands are more difficult to acquire alignment on from broader audiences, but I think these would be palatable up most Americans.
However, I am realizing that my points above are too verbose for quick consumption. Via web media, maybe they could be hidden as expandable sections beneath the original bullet points
-
My friend, maybe edit the original post to include this? A lot of us remember how much support and visibility Occupy Wallstreet got and how ineffective it was due to lack of direction.
It’s only my intuition, but I think it may be easier to get people onboard by listing demands/goals, even if they’re only tentative.
With these kinds of things, we’re asking people to do a lot of work. The lower we can make the initial barriers to entry, the more likely people are to consume enough info that they become more willing to put in effort. This means prioritizing headline information well, making graphics appealing, etc
All this said, I haven’t organized this kind of stuff. I defer to those with demonstrable success in these things
Keep fighting the good fight <3
Thanks, I’ll do that.
Might be better off signing up here. They’re trying to get commitments for a general strike.
They document working on narrowing their demands more specifically once they hit certain goals.
I signed up and asked about 20 people to sign it. ✊🏻
I’ll Post It.
That looks like a lot more practical approach.
I like the fact that they have a trigger-point based on historical effectiveness. No offense to absolutely anyone that is willing to protest or resist in any way, but this organization is focused on a results-based strike, not merely “sending a message”.
Removed by mod
We protested Wednesday, and people complained that it wasn’t a weekend. I’m beginning to think some people don’t think there’s ever a good time to protest.
Removed by mod
If this isn’t going viral on mainstream social media, I fear there won’t be much use to posting it here.
It’s more use posting it here than not posting it here. People here can see it and share on traditional social media.
However the question is if there are any labor organizations officially participating in this. If not, this seems a bit weird. And what are the actual demands? Change to what? These are the bigger problems than the location of the post.
I suppose that’s fair, there are just a lot of people here who are here because they quit traditional social media.
On Reddit.
Removed by mod
It’s on blue sky, there’s a discord. It may not happen, but that’s not the point. It helps us to organize, which is the point. It’s time to be part of the solution, and not the problem.
Please understand that I was not highlighting the size of this movement just to be cruel or a downer.
A critical mass of participation is necessary for something on this scale to work. If this gets buy-in from only a few tens of thousands of people, they are just going to be harming themselves by participating on 3/15, rather than effecting any real change. It’s not feasible to set a date eight weeks out without first having specific demands in mind or some kind of broader organization.
I have to echo other commenters who are boosting https://generalstrikeus.com/ (which you have thankfully also reposted to this community.) For this kind of mass social action unity is really important, and it makes sense to back a movement that already has greater support instead of fracturing the landscape by starting a new one. You can think of it like the spoiler effect in US politics.
Every movement has to have a beginning. AFAIK, this movement started this week. I am not affiliated with the movement and have no input in its organization. If you have constructive criticism, contact the organizers on discord or blueSky.
One critical comment is acceptable, but repeated negative and discouraging comments from multiple users can kill a movement in its infancy. I didn’t enjoy removing the comments, and hope everyone can understand and no one takes it personally.
As President Musk’s regime unfolds, and resistance groups activate; I couldn’t in good conscience do everything I can to help them succeed.
AFAIK, this movement started this week.
The first sentence in their Substack post you linked:
The Shutdown315 Movement started as a small group of individuals on a Signal group chat on the eve of January 18th, 2025
It kind of seems like you reshared this image uncritically, without actually looking into the movement. To be clear, I absolutely support this kind of mass action, but for the reasons I outlined in my earlier post, I think it’s very dangerous for something like this to be fracturing support. I would hope that, if you are also in support of this kind of mass action (even if you are not affiliated with this specific movement), you would be tuned in enough to have run into the larger ones first, and it would have precluded you from sharing this here.
Regardless, thank you for hearing me out. I appreciate that you’ve shared GSUS here. It has more than 250x the support at present and as far as I can tell is the frontrunner in the effort. (Their SEO is good enough that they’re the second result on Google and the first result on Bing at the time of posting.)
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
“You can’t pick a weekday, the poors can’t risk missing a day off from their second job!”
Low-wage workers work on weekdays too. And they will often get fired for missing work for any reason, not just protesting.
Everyone bickering in this thread needs to just repost this image somewhere and shut up. That’s how these things spread, via small communities. The only reason I saw it was this post, the only reason someone else might learn about it is my post. Unless you already have a better idea, and are organizing and trying to promote it, the least you can do is try and spread the word. The only way we win is together, so either bring a better solution to the table or get in line and help us fight.
Thank you.
A 10 day general strike would get their attention but I doubt US voters have the stomach for it.
Source: am US voter
Big reason they keep us so poor and vulnerable.
People quarantined for longer in the not so distant past. You have a month to get ready and don’t have to do shit when it’s time. Seems like a no brainer, even for those who don’t want to come out and protest.
I don’t disagree at all. I don’t live in the US but the ones I keep in touch with that do tell me their peers seem apathetic and unengaged. Which says a lot about how we got here.
People would have to be willing to pool their resources for that.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Maybe you should join the organization and let them know.
Shout out to
Take charge then.
Every journey begins with the first step, put your shoes on.
Removed by mod
So, no one can protest for better living conditions, because you can’t? Sorry about your situation, but that is exactly why we are organizing. If you are not able to participate, that’s fine. You may be resigned to defeatism, but please don’t discourage others from wanting to improve the conditions in which we all live. If you have a better plan to resist, I’m sure others would like to hear it.
Removed by mod
Every time someone encourages action there’s always someone to step in and say “it won’t work.”
You sound like you have a lot of great ideas, you should try to link up with people and join in and try to help organize! A lot of it can be done whenever you have a bit of time, everyone is valuable and capable of contributing in someway.
People are freaking out right now, I bet there are social circles/groups in your town that are very concerned and would be open to setting up secure communications with like-minded people. It really is as easy as going to the local coffee shop or gay bar and leaving/reading a flyer, get involved.
Removed by mod
Then contact your Democratic representatives and get the ball rolling.
As if Democrats actually do anything to stop Trump
Then try the DSA.
I mean, it’s a Saturday. I’ll already be doing nothing.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
You can always contact the organizers and constructively offer help, I’m sure they would welcome it.
Then contact them and help them organize.
Removed by mod
The substack link for Shutdown 315 is at the bottom of the post.
Removed by mod
Yeah. If you believe in it make a better graphic for them if you can. Or anyone reading this. I don’t have the skills personally but. They could use it lmao
Loved you in that movie
I like how so many of your comments have exactly two down votes. Even when they’re just objectively funny and have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Are we starting to get downvote bots or are there just two real humans who really don’t like you? A question for the ages…
It’s been that way for a while. Thanks for the encouragement, I needed it after reading so many negative comments today.
You just delete anything you don’t like anyways just like that president muskrat and the orange fucker. Nothing progressive about that. I’m sure you’ll delete this too and prove my point.
No. I’m gonna leave it. So everyone can see how petty and jaundiced you are. Go ahead and delete it, and prove my point.
Sweet, sounds great! 👍👍👍
Also known as a general strike. All the best for you!
March 15th is a Saturday. Most things are already closed on Saturday.
“Most things.”
Really just 9-5 offices, schools, and places they support. And that’s a benefit because the corporate folks will be able to join as well. People will be able to bring the kids. College students won’t miss class.
Basically you’re taking away the “oh I have to work” excuse from folks who want to get involved. And if folks like that start to join, this thing is going to get big.
Bring the kids to what? Be involved in what? I think the point is to stay home and not travel or spend money or work.
White collar places are. This is asking mostly blue collar workers to make a sacrifice.
So? Gotta start somewhere. Blue collar are the guys that are gonna take the first hits, after all.
Removed by mod
And then nothing ever changed
The end
Removed by mod
sounds like you sleep all the time I doubt you’ll keep your job like this anyway
Look at the 50 protests in 50 states that just happened. A couple thousand people showed up out of hundreds of millions. And that’s much less of a sacrifice than risking your livelihood.
Wow look they’re all still in power and ripping shit apart.
Almost like they don’t fucking care if people stand around wirh signs.
Maybe we should try another strongly worded letter.
Oh i know, lets do a big petition in bold font!
Removed by mod
I’m saying Americans are too lazy and domesticated to do what’s necessary when peaceful protests inevitably fail
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
How would you organize?
Poorly because I have a family to take care of, and bills to pay.
