117 general strike
"The general strike is widespread stoppage of labor by workers in an attempt to bring the economic life of a given area to a more or less complete standstill in order to achieve certain desired objectives.111 The method may be used on a local, regional, national, or international level. Wilfred Harris Crook defined the general strike as “the strike of a majority of the workers in the more important industries of any one locality or region.” 112 When confined to a city it may be called a localized general strike,"...
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High scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Estonian healthcare workers strike for higher wages and reduced workloads, 2012
Estonia, a small country in northern Europe had a population of about 1.325 million people in 2012. When Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, healthcare workers began leaving Estonia for other countries with better pay and working conditions, s...
Belgians prevent King Leopold III from resuming the throne, 1950
During World War II, Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany from1940 to 1944. King Leopold III of Belgium remained in Brussels as the civil government fled to Paris despite the insistence by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot and Foreign Affairs Minister Pa...
El Salvadorans bring down a dictator, 1944
In 1938, El Salvadoran president General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez proposed changing the country’s constitution so that he could continue holding his position beyond the end of his second term. When Martínez came to power in the early 1930s as a...
Guatemalans overthrow a dictator, 1944
Beginning in 1931 Jorge Ubico ruled Guatemala with an iron fist with the help of the vicious secret police. He admired Hitler’s tactics. By the summer of 1944, a similarly brutal dictator, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, was overthrown in the face of...
Ukrainians overthrow dictatorship (Orange Revolution), 2004
The October 31, 2004, presidential elections in Ukraine pitted popular opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The incumbent president, Leonid Kuchma, had personally chosen Yanukovych as his successor, but the...
French youth and unions' general strike defeat new employment law, 2006
January of 2006 in France was tense time. Economic growth in 2005 had been unexpectedly poor and national unemployment was at nearly 10%, totaling more than 2.5 million people. Youth unemployment was particularly problematic, with the under-26 popula...
Madagascar general strike in support of Marc Ravolomanana, 2002
Madagascar was officially proclaimed a colony of France in 1896, and gained independence in June 1960. For the first couple decades following independence, one-party rule and political turmoil, including violent and nonviolent struggle, characterized...
Chileans overthrow dictator Carlos Ibañez del Campo, 1931
In February 1931, in the face of an economic crisis, the Chilean Congress granted President Carlos Ibáñez Del Campo authority to enact any necessary measures to keep Chile from further depression. As the value of exports dropped and unemployment rose...
Kansas miners strike and women march for industrial freedom, 1921-22
In the early twentieth century, Kansas was the third largest coal producing state in the United States, with more than 8,000 unionized miners concentrated in the two southwestern counties of Crawford and Cherokee. In January 1920, the Kansas legislat...
Filipinos campaign to overthrow dictator (People Power), 1983-1986
Ferdinand Marcos was elected president of the Philippines in 1965. Marcos was reelected in 1969 and when barred to run for a third term, he declared martial law and gave himself near absolute power. Marcos assumed full control of the military, dissol...
Low scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
German Public Workers Strike to Maintain Benefits 1996
In April of 1996, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl intended to implement an Austerity Plan which would limit benefits for Public Works employees and increase the hours in their work week without increasing pay. This plan would reduce Germany’s spending ...
Gazans March for the Right to Return to Their Homes, 2018-2019
From 30 March 2018 to 26 December 2019, Gazans protested at the Israeli border every Friday for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land that they had been displaced from since 1948. This series of demonstrations is known n...
Austrian communist workers general strike for better wages, 1950
Following the conclusion of World War Two, Austria was separated from Germany and zones were created, each of which was controlled by one of the four allies (United States, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union). Austria had a crippled economy because...
Swedish Workers Stage General Strike Against Wage Cuts 1909
The Swedish General Strike of 1909 occurred near the beginning of a decades-long conflict between the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) and the Swedish Employers Association (SAF). It came after the successful two-day general strike in 1902 for ...
British workers general strike to support mine workers, 1926
The general strike of 1926 in Britain was one of the largest strikes Britain has ever experienced and, simultaneously, perhaps the least successful. Previous strikes in the wake of World War I (such as 1919, 1920, and 1921) were precursors to the str...
Luxembourgers general strike against Nazi occupation, 1942
In the 1940s, Nazi Germany under the government of Adolf Hitler was advancing its conquest of Europe during the Second World War. By May 1940, Luxembourg, a small neutral country bordering Germany, was placed under military occupation by forces of th...
Belgians protest austerity measures, 2011-2012
On 2 December 2011, tens of thousands of Belgian citizens took to the streets in the capital, Brussels, to protest the austerity measures taken by the then-incoming government. The new socialist prime minister was going to be sworn in the week after ...
Dominicans strike for national economic reform, 2003-2004
During the economic crisis in the Dominican Republic in 2003-2004, Dominicans protested due the peso dropping by half its value. In response to the depreciation, the government entered into a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. In ad...
East German workers strike to protect wages, 1953
On 15 June 1953, in East Berlin, construction workers on the Stalinallee Avenue began to voice their issues with the SED’s (Socialist Unity Party) new regulations. The SED trade union officials, following mass worker emigration from East Germany, inc...
Palestinians wage nonviolent campaign during First Intifada, 1987-1988
EDITOR'S NOTE: Regarding the First Intifada as "nonviolent" is controversial because of the violence that accompanied the campaign. Aden Tedla's narrative does not try to hide the violent dimension. Three considerations lead us to include the case in...