| As COVID-19 continues to spread across the US, the complete inadequacy of the US healthcare system and the failure of the government response is on full display. Essential workers are put at risk every day with low pay and without necessary protective gear. Widespread testing is unavailable. Millions without work face the prospect of rent bills they cannot pay and evictions to follow. Prisoners and migrants in detention centers are at particularly high risk of contracting COVID-19, as social distancing and basic sanitary measures are impossible under prison conditions. Billions are spent on criminal wars instead of addressing the pandemic. Governor Cuomo has refused support to undocumented migrants.
The caravan will follow social distancing and other safety protocols, and is in opposition to reactionary demonstrations over the past weeks that have demanded people return to work, a policy that would result in completely unnecessary mass infection and death. Workers and scientists should decide when to reopen the economy, not right-wing reactionaries. The caravan will show solidarity with working and oppressed people across New York City, especially hospital, transit, grocery & incarcerated workers at the front line of this crisis, and lay the blame where it belongs: at the doorsteps of Trump, DeBlasio, Cuomo and Wall Street.
For all these reasons we will mobilize as a car caravan on May Day, International Workers Day to demand the following and more:
People Before Profit
Hazard Pay & PPE for All Essential Workers
Relief Fund for Migrant Workers
Free Healthcare & COVID Testing for All
#CancelRent
#NoEvictions
#WontGoBack
#FreeThemAll
#CloseTheCamps
#AbolishIce
#WeKeepUsSafe
End the Wars – Fight COVID!
Capitalism is Killing Us!
Bail out Workers, not Banks!
Register for the caravan to participate or endorse:
bit.ly/MayDayCaravan
Partial list of Endorsers:
May First Movement
FIRE (Fight for Im/migrants and Refugees Everywhere)
Laundry Workers Center
Cosecha NYC
Close the Camps NYC
Red Bloom Solidarity Network
Social Service Workers Uprising Now
International League of People’s Struggle, Northeast US
New York Boricua Resistance
New York Community Action Project
G-REBLS
Danby Cooperative
The People’s MTA
International Action Center
People’s Power Assemblies NYC
Workers World Party
Register for the Caravan to Participate or Endorse
This action is being organized in response to the call for a People’s Strike coming out of Cooperation Jackson, and thourgh a broad coalition migrant worker and solidarity organizations in NYC initiated by FIRE (Fight for Im/migrnats and Refugees Everywhere) and the Laundry Workers Center. On May 1st, workers across the country will be organizing and mobilizing! Click here to read the Call to Action |
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