As people prepare to strike for May Day, we recommend this text comparing the last two general strikes that took place in Oakland, California (in 1946 and 2011) in order to distill lessons about how to organize a general strike today:

http://crimethinc.com/twoGeneralStrikes

The conclusion summarizes what it takes to organize a general strike in an era of informal and precarious labor, emphasizing the need for grassroots organizing models that could connect people the way that the unions did in 1946 and the Occupy assemblies did in 2011.