KOKOMO, Ind. – With the release of Grand Theft Auto VI seemingly right around the corner, millions of workers are expected to ditch work to spend some extended time in Vice City. General strike planners in the United States are now taking advantage of this large labor absence by co-opting the release of GTA VI and setting the latest general strike for November 19.

“For a general strike to be successful, we need to have between 10 and 13 million people committed to striking,” said a volunteer for the decentralized network, General Strike US, who wished to simply go by Stacy. “We currently have 590,000 signed strike cards, and all of those are just family and friends I talked into signing up.”

Fed up with the low sign-up numbers, Stacy and other volunteers decided to try something new.

“So, I was reading some bullshit in the New York Times about how GTA VI is going to decimate productivity for businesses all over the country and I thought, ‘Hey, if they’re all out of work, we should strike at the same time,’” Stacy said, before getting a text confirming that two more of her uncles had just submitted their strike cards. “So, all those gamers may not be outside with us, waving signs and screaming, but their absence will be felt in the fat cats’ wallets. And we’ve also made extra signs, just in case the Sony servers can’t handle those tens of millions of concurrent players all trying to download and play the same game, just in case those angry gamers, who took time off from work and can’t play their game, want to join us in making a difference.”

Some volunteers are skeptical about this new general strike plan.

“What if Rockstar delays again,” said another volunteer who seemed more worried about playing Grand Theft Auto VI than the general strike. “I just don’t think I can survive a few more months of not playing it and all the, ‘We got X before GTA VI’ memes. Just stop it, it’s not funny, generic Redditor.”

At press time, Stacy convinced her long lost half-brother to sign a strike card.