Oakland Stands With the Prisoners’ Work Strike!

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Three hundred rallied in Latham Square and marched on Saturday, Sept. 10th, 2016 in support of the nationwide Prisoners’ hunger strike, begun Sept. 9th. That date is the anniversary of the 1971 Attica Prison Uprising, 45 years ago. Supporting actions around the country have been organized by the IWW_IWOC – Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (@IWW_IWOC).

Touring downtown Oakland, with stops at various large company outlets that use slave prison labor, the march eventually made their way to the jail on 7th St. and back to Latham Square, but not before confronting police and having three arrests happen.

The Strike’s call to action:

Our protest against prison slavery is a protest against the school to prison pipeline, a protest against police terror, a protest against post-release controls. When we remove the economic motive and grease of our forced labor from the US prison system, the entire structure of courts and police, of control and slave-catching must shift to accommodate us as humans, rather than slaves.

prison-strike-banner-oak2-9-10-16

 

Various Oakland organizations showed their solidarity in different ways. Planting Justice, an organization that employs the formerly incarerated, created this video is solidarity…

Planting Justice offers this video in solidarity with the National Prison Strike movement because we believe in the inherent value, dignity and humanity of every person who is currently incarcerated in the United States.

Oakland Privacy released this statement

Oakland Privacy strongly supports the National Prison Strike, which begins Sept. 9, and issues this statement in support.

While Oakland Privacy is primarily committed to ensuring that people’s privacy is not invaded by the state, our commitment extends to the protection of the full gamut of civil rights and liberties – all of which are violated by prisons, jails, and correctional facilities.

We deplore the conditions in this country’s prisons, especially but not exclusively those which violate the 6th Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishment, and the use of what amounts to the slave labor of prisoners by the State.

Oakland Privacy is a citizens coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.

Actions in support of the Prison Work Strike took place, and are continuing to take place, all over the country. Here are tweets from a few locales:

St. Louis:

Austin, TX

Portland, OR

New Orleans

Brooklyn, NY

Houston.

Minneapolis.

 

IWOC Statement of Purpose

1. To further the revolutionary goals of incarcerated people and the IWW through mutual organizing of a worldwide union for emancipation from the prison system.

2. To build class solidarity amongst members of the working class by connecting the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers to workers struggles locally and worldwide.

3. To strategically and tactically support prisoners locally and worldwide, incorporating an analysis of white supremacy, patriarchy, prison culture, and capitalism.

4. To actively struggle to end the criminalization, exploitation, and enslavement of working class people, which disproportionately targets people of color, immigrants, people with low income, LGBTQ people, young people, dissidents, and those with mental illness.

5. To amplify the voices of working class people in prison, especially those engaging in collective action or who put their own lives at risk to improve the conditions of all.

Follow the IWW_IWOC twitter stream for updates on the strike.

A more detailed account of the Oakland march.:

300 TAKE TO THE STREETS TO TARGET CORPORATIONS PROFITING FROM PRISON SLAVERY

And a photo album.

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One Response to “Oakland Stands With the Prisoners’ Work Strike!”

  1. LaborSolidarityCommittee

    Late Tuesday, Sept 13th, via twitter: “Good news: The three comrades arrested during the #PrisonStrike solidarity march in #Oakland have been released and all charges dropped!”