Aviso en Español
Press Contact:
Lucia Allain, 646-488-5919, cosechamedia@gmail.com
Hundreds of Thousands To Join National “Day Without Immigrants” May Day Strike
Nationwide - Hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers, students and families join the national strike billed as a “day without immigrants” to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class people of color. Immigrant rights groups, worker centers and unions have joined together for what organizers expect to be the largest national strike since the Mega Marches of 2006. The Cosecha Movement was the first group to call for the “Day Without Immigrants” May Day Strike, with a public launch in early February.
Cosecha is planning strikes and marches in over 40 cities across the country, along with mass student walkouts and escalated actions.
“This Day Without Immigrants is the first step in a series of strikes and boycotts that will change the conversation on immigration in the United States,” said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a undocumented leader and the May 1st campaign coordinator with Movimiento Cosecha. “We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function, we will win permanent protection from deportation for the 11 million undocumented immigrants; the right to travel freely to visit our loved ones abroad, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect. After years of broken promises, raids, driving in fear of being pulled over, not being able to bury our loved ones, Trump is just the last straw.”
“On this day, we will not go to work. We will not send our children to school. We will not buy anything,” said Francisca Santiago, a farmworker from Homestead, Florida who will be joining the May 1st Strike. “We are the workers who harvest and prepare food, who repair homes, who come into office buildings after 7pm to clean them. But on May 1st, instead of going to work we will be in the streets celebrating our communities, and demanding the permanent protection, dignity and respect that our people deserve.”
Leaders of the Cosecha Movement are planning farmworker strikes and boycotts in rural communities, such as Homestead, Florida. Workers will also be striking in cities where Trump won with decisive margins, including Grand Rapids, Tulsa, Wichita, Memphis and many others. Immigrant workers and business owners who plan to close on Monday are available for interviews. For a full list of events see www.lahuelga.com/getstarted.
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Partners Include: SEIU United Service Workers West, The Food Chain Workers Alliance , the UNITE HERE Tech Cafeteria Workers, the Fight For 15, National Nurses United, Communications Workers of America, Our Revolution, LA RED: A Project of the PICO National Network, Amalgamated Transit Union, American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, United States Student Association and Sum of Us
Cosecha is a new national movement fighting for permanent protection, dignity and respect for all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States through mass economic noncooperation. Since our public launch in September, Cosecha has shut down Trump Tower, stopped the deportations of immigrant workers who were taken in the largest workplace raid under the Obama Administration, and launched the national #SanctuaryCampus Movement with mass student walkouts. On February 10th Cosecha publicly launched the May 1st #DayWithoutImmigrants Strike campaign at our National Assembly in Boston.
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