Pan-African Community Action (PACA) has joined the national call for a General Strike in the US in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts of capitalism during the pandemic, under the banner of the People's Strike.
The Call
People’s Strike: Fighting for Our Lives, Forging Our Future
Take Action Friday May 1st, 2020 – May Day
The CODVID-19 pandemic has starkly revealed the inequalities and injustices that daily plague the world.
The triple crises of viral plague, systemic economic breakdown, and the failure and/or unwillingness of Governments to provide necessary protections, especially for the poor and people subjected to white supremacy, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and mysogyny has thrown us into a fight for our lives.
The “Free Markets” that right-wing political figures like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and others are seeking to protect and rely upon to address the COVID-10 pandemic will continue to produce chaos and needless suffering for millions of people. The economic nationalism and imperial rivalry we see on full display in the midst of this pandemic magnify the threat of war.
We say ENOUGH! It is time to stand up! It’s Time To Strike Back – For Our Lives and Our Futures!
Collective Action is the Key. Determined mass, non-violent direct action conducted in a coordinated campaign can transform the institutions of governance and upend the power of the banks and the multi-national corporations, and can address the immediate needs of workers and peoples throughout the world.
Join us in initiating this mass action on Friday, May 1st, 2020. We are encouraging everyone throughout the U.S. and the world to join us in engaging #NoWork #NoShopping #NoRent #NoMortgage #NoEviction #NoDebt #NoSchool #NoPrison #NoDetention actions. Let’s send Trump and Wall Street a clear message: #WeWontDieForWallSt #PeopleAndPlanetOverProfits
Our Demands
Protect All Frontline Workers
in the Hospitals, the Supply Chains, Transportation Workers, and the Farms and Fields to ensure that they have all of the equipment and disinfectant materials that they need to keep themselves and the general public healthy
No return to work or end to Physical Distancing
until health experts determine it is safe.
Protect Vulnerable Communities
particularly Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian communities, the homeless, migrants, refugees, the elderly, and battered women and spouses from discrimination, repression, and physical abuse.
Institute Universal Health Care Now
starting with free COVID-19 testing and treatment for all, and extending to full coverage for all (including abortion), including non-citizens, as a fundamental human right.
Institute Universal Social Services Now
make all fundamental social services, such as access to water, electricity, transportation, and the internet free and universal, as well as childcare, elderly care and disability access based Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guidelines.
Institute the Human Right to Housing
starting with making all the vacant and uninhabited housing stock available to those who need it now, and proceeding to make land once again a public good rather than a commodity and instituting the democratic and social distribution of housing based on need and ecological limitations.
Bailout the People, Not the Corporations and Wall Street
democratize the Finance, Credit and Insurance Industries and turn them into Public Utilities.
Institute Universal Basic Income Now
starting with the distribution of basic income as a fundamental Human Right to everyone, to address social needs not provided by through the distribution of public goods and services or the provision of earned income.
Release prisoners and Detainees
All people imprisoned for non-violent offenses, political prisoners and refugees / asylum seekers. Abolish the system of mass incarceration.
Close the Detention Centers
Reunite the Families, Stop the Raids and Deportations
Freeze Payments
including rent and utilities; Cancel debt including student loans.
Decarbonize the Economy, End Fossil Fuel and Extractive Industries Now
Institute a Green New Deal based on a program of repairing damages frontline and fenceline lands and communities, the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty and the protection and transitioning of workers in petrochemical, nuclear, and extractive industries.
Institute Food Sovereignty Policies and Practices Now
end the industrial food and animal warehousing conditions that stimulate the germination of viruses like COVID-19, contaminate our water supplies, depleat our soils, and institute local food growing policies based on agroecology or permaculture techniques that perserve and expand biodiversity and soil preservation.
Democratize the Means of Production
Convert the Corporations and Workplaces into Cooperatives to institute democracy in our workplaces, eliminate growing income inequality, insure greater equity in society and job security for workers, and enable the production of what we need and distribute equitably according to need.
Close all of the Overseas Military Bases
Cut the Military (Defense) and Spy (Surveillance) Budgets and Redirect these funds to Health Care, Social Services, Universal Basic Income and Greening Public Infrastructure and the Economy.
End the Sanctions
the sanctions imposed on Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and several nations have crippled their efforts to combat COVID-19 and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people.
Take Action
Get all of the organizations and groups that we belong to – where we live, work, study, play and pray – to take action on May Day. We are not limited in what we can do and what impact we can have. There are a range of things that we can do based on present conditions and actions many have taken thus far in response to how the capitalists, corporations and politicians have treated and exploited the COVID-19 pandemic.
No Work
Walk out, sick out, sit down, slow down, work to rule (follow all the rules to the letter; safe work or no work), wildcats occupations. Hold a meeting of your co-workers. Hold a moment of silence. Stop work however we can. Wear RED to show solidarity.
Strike in Place
Encourage the hundreds of millions of people who are working from home or are unemployed, in prison or in a detention center to engage in “No Working, No Shopping, No Compliance” actions. Encourage those who can communicate their support for the day of action on social media or in their local media to do so by sharing their photos, their stories (video or audio), and what demands they support, utilizing the common hashtags we will collectively designate.
No Shopping
Don’t shop, in person or online on May Day and throughout the weekend for maximum impact. Prepare and share with your neighbors and loved ones, observing the most sound hygenic practices and physical distancing.
Targeted Demonstrations
We have witnessed very creative demonstrations the last several weeks, that demonstrate that folks take collective action and engage in proper social distancing at the same time. These include i) picking designated times to give accolades to frontline workers, ii) protests, roadblocks, and sideshows in vehicles and iii) old fashioned demonstrations and blockades of offices and various targets like landlords. These are some of the recommended actions, that
highlight concerns, that can be taken on May Day.
Rent and Mortgage Strikes
Encourage folks to collectively not pay rent to their landlords and target major renter companies, mortgage institutions and banks with phone blitz’s, communications jams etc. to demand a moratorium on rents and mortgages, no back payments and no evictions.
Occupation Defense, No Evictions
Many cities have utilized the vacant capacity of hotels to house the homeless and the sick. And homeless individuals and families have taken to occupying vacant homes in places like LA and Oakland in the midst of this crisis. Given the situation millions are now facing, due to unemployment and eviction, we have to protect those who are in these homes and facilities and all those who are being threatened by eviction because they are not able to pay rent.
Target Jams
Taking collective action to flood the telephone lines of the various politicians, CEO’s, shareholders, and corporations we are targeting to meet certain demands, to make our demands known and apply as much pressure as possible.
No Silence
We are not alone. Distance doesn’t mean we can’t fight together. We can’t stay quiet—in the words of fighters of the HIV pandemic, silence=death. We’ve decided to live, loud. In some cities we sing with our neighbors, in others we chant, clap and bang pots and pans–connect online #generalstrike2020 #strikeseflie #redfored #mutualaid #5.1.2020 #rentstrike #wedecide #stopshopping #schoolsout #noborders #releasetheprisoners #ourhouse #prepareandshare #noshopping #nowork #norent #noprisons #nosilence #noborders #noschool #landback #closethecamps #solidarityindistance