You do these things to setup solidarity and organize. Want a general strike? It starts by getting lots of people to come out and protest. Then, people see that there are other people who will join them in a general strike. You can’t start by randomly calling one. Each individual person will see that they’re taking a risk of losing their job, and that risk can only be justified if everyone else is doing the same thing. Can’t fire all of us. If the organizers of the same protests you’ve been going to are saying we should all participate in a general strike, then individuals are assured they won’t be sticking their own head out there only for it to get hit by a truncheon.

Replace “general strike” with whatever sort of large scale action you’d prefer.