Occupy May 1st General Strike by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror Despite the physical eviction of many let alone radical activity, and the Ports of Los Angeles and with them before they were ordered back to work. Good occupations, the Occupy movement is starting Long Beach are huge, remote and fed by numerous roads, Jobs, which took some Occupiers from around the country highways and rail lines. to DC, discovered that their infectious spirit of resistance to demonstrate its tenacity and to sink roots. also applied to top-down labor organizing. L.A. Occupiers Occupiers have not been deterred by their But a “port action/general strike” affinity group was who went to DC spread word of the General Strike call. internal contradictions or political diversity. In formed, attracting support from the Occupy LA Labor Committee as well. The key political decision was made A significant sector of the Occupy movement is now the face of police brutality and numerous arrests to connect the port action to the struggle of the port truck building towards a General Strike as a form of direct action around the country, Occupiers continue to meet, drivers, mostly Mexicano and Central American, who to mobilize the power of working and oppressed people. study, and communicate. Adhering to principles had twice before shut down the ports through industrial This has served as a frame for other protests, marches, of transparent horizontal democracy and action, by withholding their labor, in conjunction with im/ actions, occupations, civil disobedience, educational consensus decision-making, they are still able migrant rights mobilizations. Consensus was reached to activities and outreach we engage in. It helps counter build a relationship with the port truck drivers and other efforts to divert Occupy into partisan electoral politics. It to take significant actions. This is a testament port workers. We laid out a political rationale of exposing provided a concrete way of addressing the fundamental to the depth of the systemic contradictions that the damage the rule of the 1% at the ports, symbolized economic problems and system underlying the current are producing their opposition. It also reflects by the Goldman Sachs owned shipping company SSA crises of debt, housing, unemployment, and corporate the rapid learning curve precipitated by both Marine, had done to entire economy. We set the date of the domination of politics. It also put the Occupy movement engagement in struggle and the technology and proposed “Occupy the Ports” action for December 12, the squarely into the camp of struggling for im/migrant rights. day of an already scheduled immigrant rights mobilization We were initially only partially successful in spreading this ideology of “open source.” The same leaps in on “el dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe.” We framed the port understanding to other Occupies. The Occupy Oakland call information processing that have generated action as the first step towards a general strike on May for a “west coast port shutdown” on the date we chose for unprecedented productivity and eliminated tens 1. May Day, which has been cut off from its roots in the our “Occupy the Ports” action did specify solidarity with of thousands of jobs even during the “recovery” US and celebrated mostly by small socialist sects, has in the port truck drivers as well as with the ILWU. But now are now fueling the development of political recent years been revived and made a mass phenomenon building towards May 1, this support for im/migrant rights by im/migrant workers, particularly from Mexico and is spreading throughout the Occupy movement, reflecting insight and solidarity. Meanwhile, the economic Central America. In Los Angeles in particular, May 1st the widespread growth of the indigenous/Mexicano and realities manifested in the Census analysis that has seen rallies of over a million people in the streets, Meso-American population throughout the US, and its shows almost half the US population living in in response to repressive anti-immigrant legislation and centrality to the US labor force. or near poverty have underscored the need for with the involvement and encouragement of the organized labor movement, which has developed a fundamental The port action, and the call for a General Strike that we radical approaches. orientation towards immigrant workers’ rights. These two reiterated in its aftermath, are helping break the sense of defeatism and isolation that has held us back individually In December, we published a special “Occupy” edition of key decisions gave Occupy LA about a month to build the and collectively. The May 1 General Strike provides a Turning the Tide, (on-line at www.antiracist.org) focusing port action, and to do so with a longer-term orientation of way to cohere our disparate efforts. It makes it possible to on the importance of anti-colonial politics. We identified the internationalism and labor solidarity towards May 1 and connect im/migrants rights struggles, occupations, student necessity to address issues of indigenous sovereignty and beyond. activism, labor actions, prisoner resistance, or consumer settler colonialism. This is particularly important because Occupy LA reached consensus to establish a General boycotts into a common and mutually reinforcing Occupy Wall Street and the spontaneous outpouring of Strike Preparation Committee, to work with the Dec. 12 framework, where each action or component builds upon resistance it inspired, base themselves on the concept of (immigrant rights) Coalition, port truck drivers, longshore, the last and builds up towards the next. In Los Angeles, we re-occupying the “commons.” Unlike in Europe or Africa, warehouse and other port workers, community residents, learned several tactical and political lessons from the Dec. where the commons is the remnant of earlier, land-based unions, and Occupy Long Beach to plan and organize 12 Occupy the Ports action that have helped shape and economic and social formations, the “commons” in the the Dec. 12 actions. Simultaneously, the decision was improve on-going work. US context was based on the conquest and expropriation made to develop alliances in the process with organized of indigenous land, and the collaboration of settlers in and unorganized labor, student and community groups to First of all, in reaffirming the General Strike, we established that process. This ongoing reality of land theft leaves prepare for and build towards a General Strike on May 1, functional organizing subcommittees that could engage an indelible imprint on class and national formation and 2012, and to call on other Occupations to act on Dec. 12 and involve the Occupiers in day to day organizing and identity in the US. In addressing foreclosures and other and May 1. alliance building. Organizing meetings have often been manifestations of class and colonial contradictions between larger than the General Assembly itself, and we have taken the ruling elite and the 99%, for example, Occupiers must The rationale given was significant. The GA agreed our outreach to Occupy the Rose Parade and Occupy the address the reality that in the US, all private property in that “the 1% are depriving port truck drivers and other Dream efforts at the Martin Luther King Day Parade, land, all so-called “title,” is based on that original theft. workers of decent pay, working conditions and the right presenting a radical alternative within those celebratory to organize, even while the port of LA/LB is the largest in spectacles. The Occupy movement originated in a cross-class response the US and a huge engine of profits for the 1%. The 1% to only the most recent manifestations of corporate greed have pursued a conscious policy of de-industrialization Second, we strengthened the politics behind the general and anti-democratic concentration of wealth and power. that has resulted in ‘trade’ at the port meaning that there strike by reaching consensus on six key points expressing However, lessons being drawn from both state repression are 7 containers coming in for every one going out. The why we would be undertaking a General Strike: and internal political struggle and reflection have served to 1% have driven migrant workers into a ‘grey market’ For im/migrants rights! For economic, social & radicalize and deepen the commitments and comprehension economy and repression. The 1% use police brutality and environmental justice and labor rights! For peace with of many Occupiers. This is not uniform, and it does not repression, jails and prisons to suppress, divide and try to justice! For civil liberties-end the police state! For housing, yet guarantee that the Occupy movement will be able to silence the 99% and all who oppose their insatiable greed. education & health care as human rights! For women’s overcome privilege and steer clear of the forces seeking to To put an end to all that, we call on the 99% to march, rights & gender equity! Although this program is neither reabsorb it into neutered electoral identification with the boycott, occupy the ports, and STRIKE on December 12 explicitly anti-capitalist nor anti-colonialist, it unites Democrats. It doesn’t mean that Occupy has internalized for full legalization, good jobs for all, equality and justice. significant radical democratic elements in a mutually anti-colonial or even thoroughly anti-capitalist politics. The port drivers and other workers have the power to push reinforcing way. It allows for the expression of particular But in practice, many Occupations are seeking alliances forward the kind of change we need. By building towards demands by sectors, nationalities and movements that with the most oppressed and exploited, correcting a General Strike, we can spread the Occupy movement engage with the general strike, for example, ending mass their understanding of the nature of policing and other and sink roots in the 99%.” This consensus overcame the incarceration and the new Jim Crow or freeing political repressive aspects of this society, and charting a course incessant infighting between reformist and radical views prisoners.