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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOccupy May Day: Not Your Usual General Strike
Last December, Occupy Los Angeles proposed a General Strike on May 1 for migrant rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace and to recognize housing, education and health care as human rights. The idea has spread through the Occupy movement. Occupy Wall Street in New York recently expressed solidarity with the proposal and called for a day without the 99%, general strike, and more! with no work, no school, no housework, no shopping, take the streets! Reactions are ranging from enthusiastic support to outraged skepticism. What form might such an action take, and what if anything might it achieve?
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Most Occupy May Day advocates understand that a conventional general strike is not in the cards. What they are advocating instead is a day in which members of the 99% take whatever actions they can to withdraw from participation in the normal workings of the economic system -- by not working if that is an option, but also by not shopping, not banking, and not engaging in other normal everyday activities, and by joining demonstrations, marches, disruptions, occupations, and other mass actions.
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What Occupy May Day Could Achieve
The Occupy May Day event is first of all a great chance for 99% to show itself, see itself, and express itself to represent itself to itself and to others. The kinds of plans that are being made by OWS in New York, with a wide variety of ways in which people are being invited to participate, can encourage multiple levels of sympathy, response, connection, and mobilization among the 99%. The result can be a percolation of the ideas OWS has been promoting through workplaces, communities, and other milieus.
May Day can provide a teachable moment. It is an opportunity for millions of people to contemplate the power that arises from collectively withdrawing cooperation and consent. It can propagate the idea of self-organization, for example through general assemblies. If it truly draws together a wide range of working people, ranging from the most impoverished to professionals, from urban to suburban to rural, and including African Americans, Latinos, whites, and immigrants, it can embody the ability of the 99% to act as a group. It can demonstrate the idea of solidarity, for example by the movement as a whole supporting the needs of some particular groups. And because May Day is a global working class holiday which will be celebrated all over the world, it can reveal a rarely seen vision of a global working class of which we are as individuals and as members of diverse groups are part.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/26-8
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Most Occupy May Day advocates understand that a conventional general strike is not in the cards. What they are advocating instead is a day in which members of the 99% take whatever actions they can to withdraw from participation in the normal workings of the economic system -- by not working if that is an option, but also by not shopping, not banking, and not engaging in other normal everyday activities, and by joining demonstrations, marches, disruptions, occupations, and other mass actions.
---
What Occupy May Day Could Achieve
The Occupy May Day event is first of all a great chance for 99% to show itself, see itself, and express itself to represent itself to itself and to others. The kinds of plans that are being made by OWS in New York, with a wide variety of ways in which people are being invited to participate, can encourage multiple levels of sympathy, response, connection, and mobilization among the 99%. The result can be a percolation of the ideas OWS has been promoting through workplaces, communities, and other milieus.
May Day can provide a teachable moment. It is an opportunity for millions of people to contemplate the power that arises from collectively withdrawing cooperation and consent. It can propagate the idea of self-organization, for example through general assemblies. If it truly draws together a wide range of working people, ranging from the most impoverished to professionals, from urban to suburban to rural, and including African Americans, Latinos, whites, and immigrants, it can embody the ability of the 99% to act as a group. It can demonstrate the idea of solidarity, for example by the movement as a whole supporting the needs of some particular groups. And because May Day is a global working class holiday which will be celebrated all over the world, it can reveal a rarely seen vision of a global working class of which we are as individuals and as members of diverse groups are part.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/26-8
Occupy Global General Strike on May 1st.
Strike for:
IM/MIGRANT RIGHTS
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE and LABOR RIGHTS
PEACE WITH JUSTICE
CIVIL LIBERTIES END THE POLICE STATE
HOUSING, EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE AS HUMAN RIGHTS
WOMENS RIGHTS, LGBTQ RIGHTS & GENDER EQUITY
What is #M1GS?
Worldwide, May 1st is traditionally a Workers day a day of Labor Solidarity, and a public holiday. Its a day to celebrate and march in support of im/migrant rights. In protest against the corruption of the worldwide marketplace, which has led to illegal foreclosures, mass unemployment, low wages, high taxes and a penalization of all those who do not own the 99% of the worlds resources, and in solidarity with the im/migrant movements of May 1st, we decided to declare May 1st, 2012 a Peoples General Strike. Instead of calling upon unionized Labor to make a specific demand (illegal under Taft-Hartley), we are calling upon the people of the world to take this day away from school and the workplace, so that their absence makes their displeasure with this corrupt system be known.
Occupations across the world have made similar calls for a General Strike, or day of economic disruption, in direct response to Occupy Los Angeles, or through a synchronicity of thought, a buzzing hive mind that feels the need to express solidarity with movements and people throughout the world who honor May Day and see this years expression of that as our next major step.
How can I participate?
If you are part of unionized labor, and your contract is up for negotiation, you can officially strike on May 1st. If you are not call in sick. Take a holiday. Dont show up to school. March with us, or join in one of the many events that will be taking place on May 1st, either in the day or in the evening. Block parties, rallies, protests, marches, family BBQs this is a day when we take a stand against the way the system has enslaved us and burdened us with unmanageable debt, incredibly long working weeks, unfeasibly expensive healthcare by taking a day for ourselves, being human again, spending time with our families and friends. Our bosses dictate everything to us but not our holiday. The holiday of the working class, the 99%.
If you cant participate on #M1GS, you can contribute in other ways. Spread the word. Poster your neighborhood. Help form Strike Committees in the workplace. Agitate...
http://www.occupymay1st.org /
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Occupy May Day: Not Your Usual General Strike (Original Post)
Zorra
Apr 2012
OP
xchrom
(108,903 posts)2. Du rec. Nt
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)3. This is what will bring people from all over the world together eventually:
Its a day to celebrate and march in support of im/migrant rights. In protest against the corruption of the worldwide marketplace, which has led to illegal foreclosures, mass unemployment, low wages, high taxes and a penalization of all those who do not own the 99% of the worlds resources, and in solidarity with the im/migrant movements of May 1st
Globalism was only for the wealthy, exploiting people in many countries, who did not have the power on their own to fight it. But now, the people are becoming Global as the whole, devious, corrupt system becomes more and more obvious to people everywhere.
It will take a while, it took a while to develop, but imo, it is inevitable that people will eventually take control of their own lives. It has happened over and over again throughout history. Only not on a Global scale, so far.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)4. +1. It's time. nt
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)5. Yes, way past time!
Zorra
(27,670 posts)6. kick 20 days til May Day
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)8. It would be great to see a big May Day turnout for once in my life.
Resolved by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions the United States and Canada, that eight hours shall constitute legal day's labor from May First, 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations throughout their jurisdiction that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named.
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)10. M1GS