I've seen a lot of comments revolve around the use of (or threat of) force to break up strikes by the police or whomever, and I've always wondered if there was a benefit to the workers physically gathering in protest that outweighs the threat of violence against them?
I know that picketing and protesting sends a message to the employer and other companies, I'm not suggesting there aren't any benefits, but doesn't the power we hold come from stopping the means of production?
In a completely hypothetical example, say we managed to secure solidarity across the working class to all strike at once… what if, instead of gathering to protest, everyone just stayed home? There wouldn't be riot police showing up to mass protests to arrest and beat the hell out of people to strongarm/scare everyone back to work, so what real consequences are there that don't already exist with a typical strike?
Let's say they fire everyone. That would be a pretty significant blow to their wallet – how long are they going to be able to hold out before you you start seeing companies clamoring over each other to provide the best workplace possible to start hiring everyone. Companies wouldn't be competing to get products to market or whatever, they'd be competing to survive at that point, and we saw this on a much smaller scale just from the “Great Resignation”.
Obviously, I'm not thinking of anything new or original here, so I'm really curious what aspect of this I'm missing or totally overlooking.