for context: Shawn Fain has been pushing for this since at least the beginning of 2024. so by the time the date happens, he will have been organizing this for over four years–that is the kind of lead time you need for this to not just be toothless posturing (and there’s a decent chance it still won’t be nearly as sweeping as you might expect of a general strike due to low US union density).

you can’t just organize a general strike on the fly, and this is an actual one with actual backing from unions that’s been organized since well before our current issues. and currently it’s a struggle to even get many unions to align their contracts in a way that would be conducive to the date (since that’s not a thing you can just do, you have to negotiate that), so it’s not even a guarantee that the over three years of lead time given is sufficient.