On May Day, the first of May, the #GeneralStrike2020 (and beyond) campaign launches across the country. Learn more about the overall campaign in our most recent newsletter, “The Era of Mass Strikes Begins On May 1; First Day of General Strike Campaign.”
This prolonged and broad campaign will organize around a list of basic demands, as outlined here. Not on the list, but included is the demand to save the U.S. Postal Service. The campaign will follow a three-prong strategy – resistance through noncompliance, mutual aid and building alternative systems in our communities rooted in cooperation, solidarity and participatory democracy.
On May Day and extending through the weekend, there will be many activities. Read through and decide how you can best participate in the actions. There is something for everyone to do. Be creative!
Worker Strikes
Workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Fedex, Target, Instacart and more are planning to walk off the job in a call for protection of their health and hazard pay. If you work at a facility that is striking, take photos and share them on social media or email them to info@popularresistance.org so we can share them. Remember to include basic details about where you are, what is going on and how people can support you. If you don’t work at a striking facility but you do work for a corporation that exploits its workers and arent ready to strike, consider slowing down your work of using “work to rule” – following the rules in such detail that it slows the work. You can also stop working for an hour or for half a day or set up a meeting with other workers to talk about what you can do in the future. If you are not working, you can show up at one of the targets of the strike and hold a sign in solidarity with the workers. Bring some friends. Bring a car caravan of friends with signs on your cars. Remember to respect physical distancing, wear a face mask (even a bandanna or scarf) and practice good hygiene. You could give personal protective equipment to workers (masks, hand sanitizer or cleaning wipes) or notes of solidarity to the workers. If you can’t do any of that, then raise awareness of what is going on by talking about it with your family and friends or putting signs of solidarity on your windows. See below for more ideas.
Rent Strikes
People around the country are calling for rent to be canceled until the pandemic is over. They are targeting large corporations that own large amounts of properties. If you are in that situation, talk to your neighbors about not paying your rent. Some people who can pay their rent are withholding payment in solidarity with their neighbors who can’t. Everyone can call their local or state government or Members of Congress and urge them to place a moratorium on rent and stop evictions. People must be protected until the pandemic is over and they are on solid financial footing. Follow #CancelTheRent on social media.
Consumer Strikes
An easy action for all of us to take is to buy nothing on May Day and throughout the weekend (unless of course, it is an urgent need). Don’t shop in stores or online.
Student Strikes
College students are going on strike by refusing to pay tuition or register or attend classes over the ways the universities failed to protect them by closing student housing and dining halls. Students lost their jobs, housing and food security. Look around to see if students at a university near you are going on strike.
Debt Strikes
People are refusing to pay their student debt. You can learn more about that effort at StrikeDebt.org and DebtCollective.org. People are also refusing to pay water, electric and other bills until the crisis is over. Call your legislators and tell them to cancel student debt and to place a moratorium on the shutoff of services such as water and power.
Boycott Corporate Meat
Meatpackers are joining with farmers and environmentalists to take on the giant agriculture industry that exploits workers, strangles small farmers and pollutes the land, air and water. Many meatpackers are planning to strike. They ask you to boycott (don’t buy) eat from large corporations like Tysons and Smithfield Farms. They are calling it Meatless May. Turn to your local farmers if you require meat products or try vegetarian dishes.
Save The U.S. Postal Service
The USPS is struggling because of reduced business during the pandemic but Congress and the White House refuse to help. We may lose the USPS by this summer if nothing is done. This is exactly what big corporations like UPS and Fedex want so they can privatize mail delivery and make more profits. Tell Congress to bail out the USPS. Visit APWU.org you sign the letter to Congress and learn more. On May Day (and every day), let your postal carrier know you care about them.
Solidarity Actions
On May Day, the Peoples Strike coalition is holding a 24-hour broadcast from 12 am to midnight to cover what is happening. You will find that on their Facebook Page or website. Watch and share it with your friends by emailing them about it or sharing it on social media. If you have Facebook, you can share the live stream to your own page. Look for where it says “share” (usually underneath or to the right of the video).
Wear red on May Day and share of a photo of you holding a sign either by sending it to us at info@popularresistance.org or sharing it on social media. Tag us @PopResistance so we can share it too.
Put signs on your windows or in your yard supporting the General Strike and the various demands that are most important to you.
Call your local media to tell them what is going on and/or call your legislators and tell them about the demands and why you support them.
Be the media – Write a blog about the General Strike or a letter to your local paper, take photos or videos of what is happening in your community.
Tell any friends or family you speak with on Friday and over the weekend about the General Strike campaign that is starting.
Share the word on social media – If you use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media platform, look for posts/tweets about the General Strike and share them and/or create your own. Here are hashtags that will be used: #GeneralStrike2020 #MayDay2020 #CoronaStrike #PeoplesStrike #StrikeSelfie #RedForEd #MutualAid #RentStrike #WeDecide #StopShopping #SchoolsOut #NoBorders #ReleaseThePrisoners #NoShopping #NoWork #NoRent #NoPrisons #NoSchool
Ongoing Actions
This campaign will begin on May Day and continue for possibly years. There will be nationwide actions on the first of each month and targeted actions in between. All of the above actions are connected through this campaign.
Other parts of the strategy are building mutual aid networks and building alternative systems.
Mutual Aid – This is as simple as helping your neighbors in tough ties by providing food medicines, running errands or other forms of support. You can learn more about mutual aid at MutualAidDisasterRelief.org. Look for mutual aid efforts in your community and join them or start one. It is easiest to start one through existing groups such as community associations, churches or other organizations. Mutual aid will be essential to support each other as we build power in this campaign.
Alternative Systems – People around the world are building ways of organizing our societies based on solidarity, cooperation and participatory democracy. You can learn more about these efforts on our Resource Page, the Create section of our website and the New Economy tag. Start by joining a local group working on these efforts or start one in your community. We will have speakers on future calls to talk about this. You could start simply by gathering friends and neighbors and talking about what you need in your community and how to meet that need. Maybe it is a tool sharing effort or a childcare cooperative or a community garden.
Monthly Calls – We will hold monthly calls for educating ourselves, sharing information and planning how to support the monthly actions. Register for those calls at bit.ly/MayDayMeeting.
As we wrote above, there is something for everyone to do in the General Strike campaign. Think about what talents and skills you have and how you can best use them to participate.
Here Are Images You Can Download And Share On Social Media:
To download, place your cursor on the image, right-click and choose “save image as.” This will allow you to choose what to name the image and where to save it on your computer. Then click “save.”
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