College, high school, and middle school students from all across the country walked out on January 30, protesting against Trump’s deportation machine. The call was put out by student organizations at the University of Minnesota, fired up by the inspiring power of the Minneapolis general strike of January 23. These were the largest, most explosive student protests since the Gaza solidarity encampments, with hundreds of thousands walking out. The students are back and we’re ready to fight! However, we can’t do it alone.
Student walkouts can stop the operation of our schools and universities, but we need the workers on our side to stop the billionaires’ profits. It’s the working class that is best positioned to fully shut down their production and win bold demands, like immediate citizenship rights for all undocumented immigrants and abolishing ICE to fund free public college. A coalition of labor leaders and community organizations are now calling for a nationwide day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May 1. This is the escalation we need: students demand a general strike!
Students & Workers Link Up Throughout History
Students have fought for and won major victories in the past, but we’ve won the most where we’ve linked up with the organized working class. Faced with terrible conditions at their schools, Spanish students in the 1980s demanded improvements, as well as better access to universities for working-class kids. Sensing anger bubbling under the surface, Marxist students, who were members of our then-sister organization in the Spanish state, formed the School Students Union (Sindicato de Estudiantes—SE) to coordinate national student strikes. Their demands were summed up with the rallying slogan: “The workers’ children to the university!”
SE called for a national student strike on December 4, 1986, and then got to work building for it. Hundreds of thousands of students came out. The Marxist leadership knew they had to escalate to bring in the workers’ ability to shut down production in order to win. They appealed to union federations, like the UGT, to join their walkouts, but their bureaucratic leadership avoided taking action. Undeterred, they continued to organize student strikes with a clear orientation to workers. Students walked out of schools and sent contingents to nearby factories to collect donations and appeal to workers to join them.
Although UGT leaders failed to lead, rank-and-file miners from Asturias and many other workers joined students in shutting down all the schools and many workplaces nationwide during the week of February 9-13. Following this stunning example of solidarity, SE won major reforms: increased funding, nearly 70,000 new school spots, and free university education for working-class students. Students won big because they linked up with workers to shut down business as usual.
Students For A General Strike!
Students must do all we can to push for the largest and deepest general strike on May 1. A strongly built general strike can deal a major blow to Trump, win massive gains, and build the movement’s confidence in their real power. Many workers at colleges and high schools are unionized, so students are well-positioned to unite with these workers to shut down campuses. For example, at the University of Washington, Socialist Alternative members proposed a sickout to the grad student union’s membership meeting after a teaching assistant and DACA recipient was unjustly fired. The union, UAW 4121, endorsed both of our walkouts on 1/23 and 1/30 and turned out in force!
Students everywhere should organize alongside teachers and campus workers to build support for a nationwide general strike on May 1 and demand their unions make real preparations for it. Concretely, how can we build the pressure in the leadup to May Day? We can organize teach-ins on how general strikes have occurred historically, where we invite students and campus workers. We can organize massive student contingents to the 3/28 No Kings Day protests holding large banners declaring “Students for a General Strike!” We can coordinate walkouts in the month leading up to May Day to demand a general strike. And then on May 1, we will all walk out in solidarity with workers going on strike.