copies of these figures were printed out and posted on union bulletin boards throughout the planet; they were emailed back and forth from person to person so often that they flooded the system and forced it to a near crawl.
To make matters worse, Laura Whiting expanded her normal speech schedule of twice a week and began to make appearances every night. She would repeat the figures compiled by the accountants and repeat her requests for all Martian workers employed by an Earthling corporation to participate. As always, Whiting's speeches were the highest rated broadcasts of all time and the powers that be realized that the Martians were not watching them because they found them amusing.
In an attempt to head off the strike the corporate heads called a press conference to address the planet on Sunday night. In doing so they took the unusual step of asking for this press conference to be aired on MarsGroup in addition to the normal big three broadcast stations. MarsGroup, more out of a sense of sensationalism than anything else, quickly agreed and sent reporters to the Agricorp building, where the conference was being staged.
This conference took place in the large briefing room on the 300th floor where corporate training was usually held, a locale with spectacular views of the city and the wastelands in all directions. Representing the corporations were William Smith who, as the titular head of corporate interests on Mars had been elected as the spokesperson in this matter. With him were the heads of more than thirty other corporations that relied on Martian productivity for profits, everything from transportation to manufacturing to mining to food producers that competed with Agricorp itself. This group of CEOs stood as a unified force against the rebellion that was sweeping their breadbasket. Dressed in their finest, most expensive business suits they stood shoulder to shoulder, an impressive gathering for a single purpose.
'We, the leaders of the various business interests that operate on this planet,' said Smith in a carefully written speech, 'are sympathetic to the problems that are occurring of late in the Martian cities. We have denounced the overzealous tactics displayed by federal officials in regards to indiscriminate gunfire and we are appalled by the deaths that have occurred so far. However, we, the corporations, are not to blame for this. We are only here to provide goods and services to the people of WestHem and to provide jobs for the people of Mars. We must take a firm stance against anyone who threatens our productivity. So, with that in mind, let me make it perfectly clear to the people of Mars who are considering partaking in this illegal and subversive action tomorrow. Anyone who fails to show up for work tomorrow will be dismissed from their duties and will go into our hiring computer as unfit prospects for future consideration. This decree will be enforced uniformly, for both skilled and unskilled workers, for both management positions and general workforce. In short, if you strike, you will be fired and barred from future employment with any corporation represented here for the rest of your life. You will lose all health and lawsuit insurance and other benefits that come with employment. This decree applies not only to Agricorp, which I myself speak for, but any corporation that is represented here today. We are firm and committed to this action so I will advise you all to think very carefully before you decide not to show up for work in the morning. Production on this planet is vital to the continuation of WestHem and it
The press conference went on for another hour, though mostly it was the other corporate heads spouting variations of Smith's words. The media computers that monitored such things reported that seventy-four percent of Martian viewers had tuned in to watch the conference initially but that the number had dwindled to less than ten percent by the time it ended. Smith and his acquaintances were unsure how to interpret this data but eventually they managed to convince themselves that it was good news. They figured that they had made their point quite nicely to the ignorant greenies and congratulated each other on outthinking that bitch Whiting.
8:00 AM Monday morning dawned first in the cities of Libby and Ore City, which were located in the easternmost populated time zone. Libby was an agricultural city along the equator, the center of the third largest expanse of greenhouse complexes on the planet. Ore City was a mining and manufacturing city located 2100 kilometers due north. As the workday began in these places less than two percent of the total workforce showed up for their jobs. The public transportation trains ran through their Monday morning routes with hardly any passengers on them. The teaming high-rise office buildings of their downtowns were virtually deserted of Martian workers. The steel processing plants and the mines remained empty and non-productive. The greenhouses went unworked, their equipment going without maintenance.
Smith and his cohorts listened to reports in disbelief as the red planet turned slowly on its axis, bringing the next set of Martian cities towards the 8:00 hour. Never, in their wildest dreams, in their worst nightmares did they imagine that so many people would actually put their jobs at risk like that. Their disbelief grew as the scene was repeated every hour as more cities moved themselves into the workday and the vast majority of the Martian workers were not there to help run it. In all it was estimated that more than ninety-six percent of the total Martian workforce that were employed by Earth-based corporations elected to honor the general strike. Of the four percent that did show up, most of them were simply sent home again since their various occupations could not run without the other workers.
On this Monday no food was picked or tended or processed or packed for shipping on the planet Mars. No boxes were loaded onto trains for the trip to the spaceports and no ships already loaded took off for Triad for distribution. No iron ore was pulled from the ground or processed into steel. No bartenders showed up to work in corporate pubs and no checkers or clerks showed up to sell things in corporate owned grocery or supply stores. Even the big three media conglomerates themselves were forced to virtually shut down much of their Martian operations as their cameramen and computer technicians — men and women that they had thought loyal despite their heritage — abandoned their equipment and went home. Mars and nearly everything on it ground to a halt, strangling profits for the day and, despite the savings in salary outlay enjoyed by the lack of workers to pay, cost every Earth-based corporation, large and small, billions of dollars.
Encouraged by the response to her words, Laura Whiting congratulated the Martian people that night during her speech and continued to encourage them to follow through for the entire week. Smith and company gave another speech that night, this one directed at the welfare class. He invited them to several locations in each city to sign up for job training to replace the unskilled workers that were on strike. It was a fairly good gamble that they made but unfortunately it was a losing one. Less than two hundred people planet wide showed up for his job seminars on Tuesday morning and all of them were sent away in disgust when their numbers were realized. As for participation in the strike, nearly ninety-nine percent of the workforce stayed home on this day.
For the rest of the workweek this went on. Smith would beg and threaten the Martians at night on Internet addresses with what would happen if they continued to defy their employers and the next day his words would go unheeded and no one would show up for work. Back on Earth the stock market actually went into a free fall as food stocks and manufactured goods were virtually cut off at the knees. Pharmaceutical supplies, of which Mars manufactured greater than eighty percent for all of WestHem, dropped to an alarming level for certain brands in a shortage that would reverterbrate for weeks across the solar system.
When Saturday dawned on Mars, the first general strike officially came to an end. The first workers to return to their jobs were those who worked weekends: the maintenance techs and the service personnel, less than six percent of the grand total. They found their work backed up beyond belief but still waiting for them. No reports of dismissals were reported from any portion of the planet. The same occurred when the rest of the workforce returned the following Monday. Once again the commuter trains were full of Martians heading to their jobs and the various industries were able to staff themselves and get some work done. No one was fired or disciplined, they were simply told to get back to work.
'The first strike was a rousing success,' Laura Whiting told the planet that night on MarsGroup. 'I'm sure you've all noticed your various employers trying to pretend it was no big deal, that they all enjoyed their little vacations, but believe me, you folks hurt them badly. I congratulate you on your unprecedented unity. But this is only the beginning. This is only a taste of what we are really capable of. We must now follow up our actions with demands. Please allow me the liberty of making these demands for you. Since the corporations now know that their workers are capable of crippling them, we must demand that they open negotiations with us within the week for a peaceful transfer of assets and recognized autonomy for our planet. If they do not, then we must initiate another general strike fourteen days from now, this time for two weeks.'
