Happy May Day, International Workers Day! #MayDay2020 #GeneralStrike #SafeJobsSaveLives
What’s in this newsletter?
The Southern Workers Assembly extends its solidarity to all workers on May Day, International Workers Day. There are many work stoppages, actions, and strikes taking place across the South, the U.S., and the world today, and we’ve been proud to support Cooperation Jackson and People’s Strike to help elevate and spread the call for a General Strike.
We want to thank our incredible panel of Southern workers and organizers who helped to make the webinar we hosted this past Tuesday such a dynamic and successful event. More than 250+ people joined us over Zoom, and thousands more have watched the video on our Facebook page (and if you missed it, you can watch it there too!). Every state in the South had more than a dozen people tuned in to the discussion (and in many cases much more than that).
Through all the reports shared on the call – from nurses, city workers, bus drivers, postal workers, UPS workers, and more – we heard several common themes emerge. Across the board, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, bosses, state and federal government are willing to put workers lives in jeopardy in the name profit. The billionaires and the politicians that do their bidding are doing everything they can to use this crisis as an opportunity to accelerate attacks on workers and our communities, like the privatization and dismantling of the US Postal Service.
The only thing that can stop these attacks is if workers get organized and fightback. We heard many powerful examples of what workers across the South are doing to put forward a common platform for struggle right now – and the call conclude with the launch of the Safe Jobs Save Lives campaign, a call for building local workers assemblies, and several key petitions to sign right now to support workers in motion.
- SIGN & SHARE: APWU Petition – Tell Congress: During This Pandemic, Support Our Public Postal Service
- SIGN & SHARE: NNU Petition – Tell your elected official to sign the Patients Over Profits pledge
- Nurses are taking action at work in 139 hospitals on May Day to call for proper PPE for patient care staff. Some 22 of those hospitals are in southern states. Hospitals employ over 100k RNs
- READ & SHARE this important piece encouraging local unions and workers organizations to sign on to the UE call to organize in this period
- Other May Day & Workplace Collective Action Ideas: Wear same color shirts as co-workers or stickers to show solidarity and unity in front of the boss to push for safety and protection, conduct collective workplace political education work using info tool kit (below), or workplace walk-in
- Safe Jobs Save Lives Campaign
- Join SWA working group, such as Communications Committee and the Outreach Committee
- Help build a Local Workers Assembly in your area
- Email us at info@southernworker.org if you’d like to get involved or want support building a local workers assembly!
We’ve recently launched a Patreon to help bring in regular funds to support building the Southern Workers Assembly – including holding local meetings and workers schools, launching the Safe Jobs Save Lives campaign, supporting local workers assemblies, and much more!
Please share the link with your members and friends via email and social media, and consider making a monthly donation to help support this important work! We don’t receive any money from foundations – we’re completely supported by workers like you and contributions from unions and worker organizations.
We’ve put together this toolkit as an resource for workers to use on the job and in building out the Safe Jobs Save LIves campaign. Click the image below to download the toolkit, or follow this link.
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 