Strike
Readiness
is Election Defense
The Fight In Front Of Us
If you feel like you're doing everything right, and your voice still doesn't count... you're not imagining it.
Authoritarians around the world know they're losing.
So they're breaking rules and keeping us from voting instead.
They've already come for the freedom of people to plan families.
They're already tearing families apart, killing people and caging kids.
They want to control our futures — to seize and hold power.
The people we want to organize with don't wait for permission.
They don't wait to be asked twice.
They have moral and civic clarity.
We're looking for friends, neighbors, coworkers, and unlikely allies — ready to turn "someone should do something" into "we already are."
Ready to vote. Ready to organize. Ready to strike.
We'll stand with you and help you build it — resources, trainings, backup, and a real plan.
So if you're ready to jump in — you might have just found your Block.
The Strategy
Hands Off Our
Vote or Else
Every authoritarian regime depends on one resource it
can't manufacture — our cooperation.
Part 1
Vote as an Act of Resistance
In a time that voting rights are being attacked — If enough people vote, there’s no contesting, delaying, and denying. We want every voter to vote and every vote cast to be counted.
Elections broadcast the will of the people.
PART 2
ENFORCE the Results
Join the organized, visible muscle to make sure the will of the people prevails in this election — so that anyone thinking about sabotaging our vote knows exactly what they're up against.
Both parts support our core theory: people who share clarity, train and organize together, trust each other, and know how to move together fast are strike ready.
You can’t get strike ready the week of a crisis. You build it now, with us, before November.
Become a member
Will You Pledge To Get Strike Ready?
Sign up to join Strike Ready Corps! We'll share trainings, steps, and information on how to get Strike Ready. We’ll help you stand up or join a Strike Ready Block. And we’ll share rapid response alerts to mobilize against threats to our communities such as immigration raids, healthcare cuts, tech oligarchs, and more. Together we will use our collective power to fight for the world we deserve.
Curious what Blocks are? Learn more below.
The Central Tactic
BUILDING
Our BLOCKS
Everything in our plan runs through one thing:
Blocks
Blocks are the pods/chapters of Strike Ready Corps. Blocks are specific to a local area and made of people committed to building strike readiness in their workplace, neighborhood, community group, or school.
Starting a Block is a commitment to organizing others into participating in preparatory actions for a social strike or mass noncooperation to take on authoritarianism.
Each Block is the foundation from which you organize your “kindling” – your network, plan, and resources prepared in advance – in order to be ready when the political “weather” is right for a strike
Each block is not alone. Combined, all of our blocks across the country form the coordinated foundation of people committed and ready to strike.
Why Blocks
The Big Idea
For us to have a meaningful impact we need to coordinate our efforts.
#1 HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Historically, it’s elections and Strikes that have stopped Authoritarians
#2 POLITICAL ASSESSMENT
Right now, The biggest gap IN OUR collective power is the ability to strike
#3 Social Strikes
Striking isn't just walking off the job–When unlikely allies coordinate they have toppled dictators
#4 A SCALABLE APPROACH
BLOCKS PROVIDE A SIMPLE FORMAT FOR ALL OF US TO build strike ready communities AND COORDINATE OUR POWER
#5 SUPPORT AND COORDINATION
REGISTER YOUR BLOCK TO GET TRAINING, SUPPORT, AND COORDINATION WITH others COMMUNITIES NATIONWIDE
HOW To Start A BLOCk
If it’s clear to you that more needs to be done, join us! Start a block and get strike ready.
Step 1
Gather your crew
Start with 3 or more people that share your interest in participating in a national strike if the elections are subverted. With at least one person committed to being a point of contact with Strike Ready.
Are you part of an organization interested in getting Strike Ready? Reach out to us.
Step 2
Register your Block
Fill out the Getting Started form and we’ll follow up with next steps.
Step 3
Get trained & Active
Every Block gets access to a welcome training and a facilitator training, so your crew knows how to plan, act, and bring others in.
After your first training we’ll send a swag box, provide additional support, and link into nationwide coordination with other Blocks.
Step 4
PLUG IN on local ORganizing
The best way to prepare for and build capacity to strike is to join campaigns already in motion — election work, mutual aid, rapid response, and more — so your crew is building power now, not just waiting for a crisis.
Step 5
Stay ready
Blocks check in regularly, grow their membership, and run periodic actions to keep their strike muscle sharp. When it's time to move — you already know how.
Strike Ready BEACON PROGRAM
Do you lead an organization that wants to be ready to act iN THE CASE OF ELECTION SABOTAGE?
Or do you know of one? We work with organizations to get their members strike ready. Sign up here to learn more about that process and talk with one of our organizers.
midterm elections Are Coming Up
Timeline:
Today
Leading up TO the election
Get trained in strike readiness
Integrate with local organizing efforts
Expand and train your Block
Day of
Participate in the national demand to make election day a civic holiday.
Vote and take the day off to support voting, watch polls, etc.
Post Election
Stay ready to take action - all the way through January when newly elected officials are sworn in - if there are attempts to sabotage the election results.
Stay Connected
Not ready to join a block yet?
Join our email list to receive action alerts, invites to upcoming workshops and trainings, and more info on building strike readiness.
Upcoming Trainings
Community
Strike Readiness
Community Strike Readiness is a 90-minute workshop offering practical training for community members who want to be ready when collective action escalates.
Action Planning
for Election Defense
A two-part workshop on how people have used non-violent direct actions to oust authoritarians and prevent election interference in the past, and what learnings we can apply to current organizing contexts.
The Importance of Strikes
Why This Works
Throughout history, when people join together across our differences, we’ve won union contracts, civil rights protections, and the end of authoritarian regimes by making the cost of ignoring us too high.
Dictators depend on people believing resistance is pointless, but from Hungary to Guatemala to South Korea, ordinary people acting together to take away our cooperation have toppled regimes that looked untouchable.
Photo credit: Lorie Shaull (source and licensing)
We’re already doing it
IN the UNITED STATES.
On January 23rd, one in four Minnesotans took part in a coordinated, statewide economic pause — over 1,000 businesses closed, tens of thousands in the streets and at key locations like the airport, all non-violent, all synchronized — in response to ICE actions in their communities.
That's proof of concept in our own backyard.
people have never trained for coordinated action like this — it takes real relationships and real reps, not just a group chat starting the week it all goes down. That gap is exactly what Strike Ready Corps exists to close.
In this political climate, we need to be strike ready for the foreseeable future.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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We all have immense power: we can grind the economy to a halt. And we can use that power to demand a world that works for us, not one that is set up just to serve corporate greed and a corrupt regime.
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Social strike is a broad term that encompasses a wide range of activities that use the withdrawal of cooperation and mass disruption to affect governments and social structures. In many countries, where democratic institutions have been so weakened or eliminated that they are unable to disempower tyranny, such methods have been used effectively.
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Strikes work. Again and again, we have seen people rise up against authoritarian regimes, standing shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors - and winning. Repression depends on lies, division, and silence. When we stand together, we can demand the world we need.
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Yes – We have a program just for you!
Strike Ready Students is for BIPOC students (18-30 y/o) who want to build their organizing skills, join a mentorship pod, and take action on their campus or in their community. You'll also have access to Grassroots Democracy trainings and optional in-person gatherings throughout the year. No experience needed!
Learn more and join here → -
No. We do not represent workers in collective bargaining, and joining our trainings or taking action with us doesn't make us your representative. If you're looking to organize around workplace conditions, we'll point you to our friends at the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC).
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You are not alone! We are building a movement to get strike ready because most people in the US cannot just skip work for a week. AND we know that in order to reach the scale of participation that we need to create change, working people will need to participate in large numbers. To get there, Strike Ready has tools to train and support people to find the way that they can best participate. Whether it is doing mutual aid work to support others near you striking, or organizing your community to be able to take action in a moment of crisis, or building power in your workplace to take action with coworkers, we can give tools to find the way forward that makes sense for you. Some folks are organizing strike funds, and others are getting their workplace unified around the need to take action so they aren't in it alone and therefore face less risk. Our purpose is to bridge the gap between what is true and what needs to be true to make it possible for the numbers of people we need to participate to be able to. Sign up to come to a training to learn more!
Photo credit: Lorie Shaull (source and licensing)
