3 Ways to Go on Strike as a Developer

If social causes are close to your heart, and you want to take part in them, but you don't really know what options are available to you as a developer, here's a list of methods that will let you participate in your own way!

Note that these methods are valid in France, but it is your responsibility to check whether they are applicable in your country

#1 - Use your right to strike

This may be stating the obvious, but many employees only have a very theoretical knowledge of striking, so here's some information:

• To be valid, a strike must result in a total work stoppage (work carried out slowly or defectively could be sanctioned)
• No need to take a day off, a strike day simply won't be paid, and cannot lead to administrative sanctions
• The professional demands must be known to the employer

For more information, head over to the dedicated page on the Service Public website.

#2 - Make a donation to a solidarity fund

It may be that in certain situations, for a freelance developer, or one working for a company based abroad for example, striking is not possible or would only have a very limited impact on the demands.

In that case, it's possible to work normally, but to use your income to fund a solidarity fund. These funds strive to allow as many French people as possible to take part in social demands, even when their income doesn't allow them to.

You can fund a general solidarity fund, or find a local/thematic fund to support!

#3 - Make your websites inactive during the strike

Since the goal of computing is to automate as many processes as possible, you might want to go even further, and put your own websites on strike.

Of course, this solution only works for sites that belong to you and for which you have full responsibility (otherwise you risk legal action from your clients/your employer).

If this topic interests you, you can check out the StrikeJS library, which lets you make a site inaccessible for a given period of time!