In mid-February, as thousands of people were pondering what to do about a midweek “Day Without Immigrants,” one of them called up a union office in Chicago to ask if he should call in sick when going on strike for the day. “You can’t say you are calling in sick. You’re on strike!” replied an agitated union official. “If you are calling in sick, you’re just sick.”

This little bit of confusion illuminates larger and more important questions facing all those seeking the best way to protest President Trump, the GOP-led Congress, and the immigration, health care, and environmental polices the new administration seeks to impose upon a reluctant populace: what is the meaning of a strike, demonstration, or protest march?

Is it designed to register a vast outpouring of sentiment, as was so magnificently demonstrated in the women’s marches and assemblies held all across the country the day after Trump’s inaugural? Or are these protests really more like a political strike, designed to show that many workplaces (indeed, the entire functioning of a complex society), will be crippled, at least for a day, when both immigrants and those who support them don’t show up at work? That was the message put forward on Thursday, February 16 when thousands of workers shut down hundreds of restaurants, warehouses, retail shops, and garages in a work stoppage and boycott labeled “A Day Without Immigrants.”