On
Wed., Sept. 7 from 8:30 to 9:30 PM, gather at North Avenue and Charles
Street near the Ynot Lot and join a National Day of Rage and Day of Action for
Mumia Abu Jamal and hear Pam Africa electronically. Federal Judge Robert
Mariani has denied the preliminary injunction motion in “Abu-Jamal vs.
Kerestes” that demanded life-saving hepatitis C treatment for Mumia. His health
is precarious. He is stable, but he remains at great risk. Mumia's lawyers will
appeal, refile or amend this complaint quickly. Call 443-221-3775. Called by
the Peoples Power Assembly, Baltimore NAACP President candidate Cortly CD
Witherspoon, Workers World Party, FIST Youth Group and many others. The
action will take place immediately after West Wednesdays and the monthly PPA
meeting. Pam Africa will address the gathering electronically at 9 PM sharp.
Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/390020274455102/
.
On
Fri. Sept. 9 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM join others in a national prisoners
strike. This is the 45-year anniversary of the Attica rebellion. Come to
Fallsway and Madison Sts. The Peoples Power Assembly has been fighting against
inhuman conditions including asbestos and mold. Organizers are the Peoples
Power Assembly; SCLC Baltimore Chapter; Rev. Cortly CD Witherspoon; FIST (Fight
Imperialism Stand Together) Youth Group; Workers World Party; Monica
Moorehead/Lamont Lilly Workers World Party Presidential candidates and many
others. Bring banners & signs and noise makers! Call 443-221-3775.
Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/upcoming.
Prison. (photo: MyFuture.com)
Incarcerated
Workers Plan Labor Strike to
Resist Prison Slavery System
By Kevin Gosztola,
Shadowproof
05 September 16
Unlike
labor strikes outside of prisons, prisoners, who engage in work stoppages and
other forms of resistance, cannot leave and go home. There many, many more
risks involved for prison labor strikes, and prisoners need solidarity from
people on the outside to discourage guards from engaging in brutal acts
intended to quell resistance.
A
prison labor strike is planned for September 9 and will coincide with the rebellion by Attica
prisoners, which took place 45 years ago. It is expected to last for a long
period of time.
On
this week’s “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast, Azzurra Crispino, the media
co-chair for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), talks about
plans for a nationwide labor strike organized by prisoners. Crispino
describes why prisoners are striking and the stakes for prisoners, who take the
risk to engage in resistance.
During
the discussion portion, host Rania Khalek discusses the re-branding of an al
Qaeda group in Syria and how multiple journalists have fallen for it. Kevin
Gosztola talks about the New York Times’ yellow journalism on WikiLeaks.
The
episode is available on iTunes. For a link to the episode (and also to download
the episode), visit http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/a/4/ea449801edd6ba19/S3E22.mp3?c_id=12662060&expiration=1473217246&hwt=c253559bc039c84559120795a7491449
A page will load with the audio file of the interview that will automatically
play.
KEVIN
GOSZTOLA: Why are prisoners organizing a labor strike to coincide with
September 9?
AZZURRA
CRISPINO: September 9 is the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising, which
was seen as an important moment in the prisoners’ struggle. So, the reason why
prisoners are organizing varies, to a certain extent, from prisoner to prisoner
and unit by unit, but in general, we can talk about lack of access to adequate
medical care, working conditions that are deplorable, lack of wages being paid
to prisoners for work that they are required to do, long-term solitary
confinement, brutality from the guards, etc.
RANIA
KHALEK: And in terms of the labor that you just mentioned that prisoners
do—Since this is a strike, can you talk a little bit about the conditions and
the pay that prisoners can expect for doing labor for a lot of major
corporations across the U.S.?
CRISPINO: Most
prisoners aren’t paid at all, or they are paid, they are paid a few cents to an
hour. Fourteen cents is the number that often gets bandied about. But basically
prisoners are in a situation where if they don’t show up to their prison job,
then they will get write-up and they’ll end up potentially being thrown in
administrative segregation or solitary confinement. And often, they’re kind of
dangled with this carrot of good release, that if they show up to their jobs
that this will help them to get out of their sentence faster. But the reality
is that this so-called good time pay is not actually granted to them.
For
example, in Texas, one of the prisoners that called for the strike, Malik
Washington, just went up for his sixth parole review. And including his good
time, he has served a hundred percent of his sentence, but he was nevertheless
denied release.
In
terms of the type of work, you mention that prisoners often work for major
corporations, and that’s true. If you eat a McDonald’s hamburger, there’s a good
chance that the beef was raised by a prisoner. But in addition, most of the
work that keeps a prison running is done by the prisoners themselves, whether
that’s working in the kitchen or doing plumbing and maintenance. There are a
wide variety of ways that prisoners help to run prisons. If you think about the
ratio of guards to prisoners, there’s just no way that the guards can do all of
the work that is necessary to keep a prison functioning.
KHALEK: It’s
interesting that you mention that prisoners are doing all that work because
prisoners also have to pay out money for various services including medical
care, is that right?
CRISPINO: Yes,
ma’am. So, in Texas, for example, in order to see a doctor, a prisoner has to
pay $100/co-payment. If you think about, if you’re getting paid fourteen cents
an hour, where are you going to come up with money for a co-payment? And just
because you pay the co-payment doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be
given care.
There’s
an hepatitis C epidemic that is going on in prisons due to overcrowding, lack
of sanitary conditions, people get into fights and there’s blood contamination,
unprotected sex and sexual assault, stick-and-poke tattoos, etc. Most prisoners
don’t have access to hepatitis C treatment. Probably the most famous right now
is Mumia Abu Jamal, who has yet again been denied hepatitis C treatment, even
though he is on death’s door from that illness.
Certainly,
I would like to see every single prisoner in this country, who is testing
positive for hepatitis C to be treated immediately, not to be put on a waiting
list until they’re practically dead before they can receive this life-saving
treatment.
GOSZTOLA: How
does a prisoner get involved and launch a prison strike, and then how do people
on the outside support that so that it’s possible to challenge conditions?
CRISPINO: The
first answer is very carefully because our organizers are often getting thrown
into administrative segregation or solitary confinement on kind of bogus
charges. They’ll get written up for something they didn’t do, or they won’t
even be written up and they’ll be thrown in the hole, as a way to stop them
from organizing. But certainly, some of the ways that prisoners are
getting information about the strike is by writing in to IWOC, and then we’ve
been sending literature back out to them.
The
prisoners are organizing themselves because they recognize that this is a
prison slavery system. And in terms of different ways that prisoners themselves
can resist, let me start out by saying that prisoners in administrative
segregation or long-term solitary confinement do not have prison jobs and hence
can’t work stop. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be part of the strike. There
are different ways that they can still engage in resistance. For example,
they can refuse to go to store and buy anything on the day of September 9, or
they can refuse to return their trays when the guards bring them their meals.
But in
terms of different ways that prisoners are resisting, it can include a complete
lay-it-down—We’re not going to work. We’re not coming out of our cells—to a
work slowdown sabotage. So, I mean, to a certain extent, this is being done one
person at a time, one conversation at a time, one pod a time, one cell block at
a time, one unit at a time.
In
terms of how people on the outside can support, there are a variety of ways. If
there are listeners outside of the United States, you can protest at one of the
corporations that uses prison labor or you can protest at a U.S. embassy. We’ve
asked for solidarity demonstrations at incarceration facilities, whether that’s
a jail, a prison, an immigrant detention center. You can go and protest at any
of the government offices that are directly responsible for incarceration.
Most
importantly, we are going to need people to help when repression occurs. So, we
are expecting that prisoners will face repression for going on strike. There
are three call-in campaigns for repression response, but we need people to
call-in and write to officials when repression occurs. Because if officials
receive 500 phone calls and 1000 letters demanding that repression does not
occur, then they’re going to know that there’s outside support for this strike
and they’re going to be substantially more careful.
That’s
why writing post cards and writing letters is so important. The guards know
when prisoners are receiving support and when they’re not receiving support.
And it’s obviously going to be much easier to take somebody on a very long
elevator ride and beat them if you don’t think that anybody on the outside is
going to think that’s what’s occurring.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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