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<h1 id="reader-title">"A Call to Action Against Slavery"—We're
About to See the Largest Prison Strikes in US History</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Jeremy Galloway</div>
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<p><em>August 9th, 2016</em></p>
<p>On September 9, a series of coordinated work stoppages
and hunger strikes <a
href="https://iwoc.noblogs.org/post/2016/04/01/announcement-of-nationally-coordinated-prisoner-workstoppage-for-sept-9-2016/"><span>will
take place</span></a><span> at prisons across the
country. Organized by a coalition of prisoner rights,
labor, and racial justice groups, the strikes will
include prisoners from at least 20 states—making this
the largest effort to organize incarcerated people in
US history. </span></p>
<p>The actions will represent a powerful, long-awaited
blow against the status quo in what has become the most
incarcerated nation on earth. A challenge to mass
incarceration and the <a
href="http://criticalresistance.org/about/not-so-common-language/"><span>prison-industrial
complex</span></a><span> in general, the
strikes will focus specifically on the widespread
exploitation of incarcerated workers—what the
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC)
describes as “a call to action against slavery in
America.” </span></p>
<p>The chosen date will mark 45 years since the <span><a
href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2011/sep/15/remembering-attica-forty-years-later/">Attica
prison uprising</a> (pictured above)</span><span>,
the </span><a
href="http://www.talkinghistory.org/attica/"><span>bloodiest
and most notorious</span></a><span> US prison
conflict. The 1971 rebellion—which involved 1,300
prisoners and lasted five days—and the state’s brutal
response claimed the lives of dozens of prisoners and
guards. The events left a lasting scar, but have
inspired a new generation among today’s much larger
incarcerated population. </span></p>
<p>Tomorrow (August 10), information campaigns, speaking
events, and solidarity demonstrations will take place in
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia,
Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota,
California and elsewhere.</p>
<p>The organizing coalition includes <a
href="http://wearetops.org"><span>The Ordinary People
Society</span></a><span> (TOPS), </span><a
href="http://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com"><span>Free
Alabama Movement</span></a><span> (FAM), </span><a
href="http://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/uhuru-rowe/free-virginia-movement-159-uhuru"><span>Free
Virginia Movement</span></a><span>, </span><a
href="http://freeohiomovement.org"><span>Free Ohio
Movement</span></a><span>, </span><a
href="https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/category/free-mississippi-movement/"><span>Free
Mississippi Movement</span></a><span>, </span><a
href="https://newundergroundrailroadmovement.wordpress.com/"><span>New
Underground Railroad Movement</span></a><span> (CA),
</span><a href="https://ficpmovement.wordpress.com/"><span>Formerly
Incarcerated, Convicted People, and Families
Movement</span></a><span> (FICPFM), and </span><a
href="https://iwoc.noblogs.org/"><span>IWOC—</span></a><span>which
has chapters across the country and with which I’ve
been involved for several years. </span></p>
<p>FICPFM has scheduled <a
href="https://ficpmovement.wordpress.com/2016-ficpfm-national-conference/"><span>a
national conference</span></a><span> September 9-10
to coincide with the main strikes, which have also </span><a
href="https://www.nlg.org/news/announcements/nlg-stands-prisoners-struggle-endorse-iwoc-national-prison-strike-september"><span>been
endorsed</span></a><span> by the National Lawyers
Guild.</span></p>
<p>These widespread and coordinated actions haven’t
happened overnight; they’re the result of years of
struggle by people on both sides of the prison
walls. Significantly, it’s incarcerated people who are
taking the reins in organizing the strikes this time
around—<a
href="https://itsgoingdown.org/organizing-prisoner-class-interview-iwoc/"><span>despite</span></a>
<a
href="https://itsgoingdown.org/organizing-prisoner-class-interview-iwoc/">intimidation</a>
by the state.</p>
<p>If history is an indicator, the state will do all it
can to limit media coverage. So organizers inside and
outside are organizing communication via YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter. The “revolution” may not be
televised, but these strikes will be accessible in
real-time via social media, despite prison officials’
efforts to keep them hidden.</p>
<p><b>Leaning on History and Technology</b></p>
<p>Organizing incarcerated people on such a large scale is
unprecedented for a reason. As recently as 2009, during
my two-year stay with the Georgia Department of
Corrections, simply <em>talking</em> about unions was
unthinkable for fear of retaliation and isolation.</p>
<p><span>Now, not only are incarcerated workers in Georgia
and across the country talking</span><span> about
fighting back against an unjust system—they’re
actually </span><i><span>doing</span></i> it.</p>
<p>Many of us involved with organizing this wave of
strikes weren’t even born when Attica happened. But we
do have the twin resources of plenty of history to learn
from and modern communications—especially mobile phones
and social media—to lean on as we seek to shape
resistance.</p>
<p>Attica happened at a time when, <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/im-a-cop-and-i-support-black-lives-matter-how-can-we-heal-these-wounds/">like
today</a>, racial tensions and conflict between police
and people of color and poor people were high. In 1971,
the Civil Rights Movement and the assassinations of
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were fresh in the
public mind, and the government was systematically
targeting and eliminating leaders of more militant
groups like the Black Panthers.</p>
<p>Three months before the Attica Uprising, President
Richard Nixon <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/nixon-advisor-we-created-the-drug-war-to-destroy-black-people-and-leftists/">had
</a><span><a
href="http://theinfluence.org/nixon-advisor-we-created-the-drug-war-to-destroy-black-people-and-leftists/">declared</a> his War
on Drugs.</span><span> The combined US state and
federal prison population then </span><a
href="http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war"><span>hovered
below 200,000 people</span></a>.</p>
<p>Through the <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/how-ronald-reagans-drug-war-fueled-americans-addiction-to-racist-ideas/">Reagan</a>
and Clinton years—which ramped up the drug war and
introduced mandatory minimum sentencing—until today,
that number ballooned to over <i>1.5 million. </i><span>In
total,</span><span> over 2.2 million people now behind
bars—in jail, prison, <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/how-the-drug-war-destroys-immigrants-lives/">immigration
detention</a>, or <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/americas-network-of-youth-prisons-is-shockingly-large/">youth
detention</a>—on any given day. </span></p>
<p><span>This makes the United States the world’s <a
href="http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All">number
one prison state</a></span> and massively raises the
stakes for organized resistance. Millions of people’s
lives and freedom are on the line.</p>
<p><b>Earlier Uprisings and the Long March to Reform</b></p>
<p>The few improvements we’ve seen to the US incarceration
system have been painfully slow in coming—and they
frequently occur <a
href="https://www.thenation.com/article/after-attica-uprising/"><span>only
</span><i><span>after</span></i><span> resistance from
inside</span></a><span> or public pressure from
outside, like the 2009 </span><a
href="http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/Explaining_the_RDL_reforms_of_2009_FINAL.pdf"><span>Rockefeller
drug law reforms</span></a></p>
<p>The Attica uprising led to sweeping changes in New
York’s penal system, but many of the particpants’
grievances remain problems today. The demands of recent
prison strikers strongly echo Attica’s <a
href="http://rac.sagepub.com/content/53/2/28.extract#"><span>Manifesto
of Demands</span></a><span> and the earlier </span><a
href="http://libcom.org/blog/folsom-prison-strike-manifesto-bill-rights-1970-05012012"><span>demands
of inmates at Folsom</span></a><span> in California:
basic medical care; fair pay for work; an end to abuse
and brutality by prison staff; fair decisions by
parole boards; sanitary living conditions; and
adequate and nutritious meals. </span></p>
<p>One of the clearest, and least known, examples of
prison workers striking to improve conditions came from
North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women (NCCIW)
in 1975, four years after Attica. Incarcerated women
there staged a sit-in strike against conditions at the
state’s only prison laundry facility.</p>
<p>Their nonviolent protest was met with force by prison
guards, who corralled them into a gymnasium and
assaulted them. The women fought back, triggering the
state to send in 100 guards from other prisons to quell
the uprising. The prison resumed normal operations four
days after the strike began, but the prison laundry was
closed shortly after the incident. [1. & 2.]</p>
<p>The NCCIW strike, the Attica Uprising, and the <a
href="https://libcom.org/library/black-white-dead-all-over-lucasville-insurrection-staughton-lynd">Lucasville,
Ohio prison rebellion of 1993</a><span>—the only major
prison uprising in the US to be resolved peacefully—
provide vital lessons for prisoners and their allies
on the outside.</span></p>
<p>Siddique Abdullah Hassan, who participated in the
Lucasville uprising and remains incarcerated, was <a
href="https://itsgoingdown.org/final-straw-free-ohio-movement/"><span>recently
interviewed by IWOC members</span></a>. He expressed
the need for solid support from the outside during
prisoner resistance:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“[I]t is a sad commentary on our part, meaning
both those people behind enemy lines and on the
outside who are activists. When people step up to
the plate and fight in a righteous cause, I think
that we should not leave those people for dead.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2010: A Flashpoint in Georgia</strong></p>
<p>The wave of hunger strikes and work stoppages that have
built up to the September 9 coalition began in December
2010, when inmates at six Georgia prisons refused to
report for meals and work assignments.</p>
<p>Since almost all the work that allows Georgia’s prison
system to function comes from unpaid inmate
labor—cooking meals, maintaining facilities, picking up
trash, repairing storm damage, and doing other work for
county government that would otherwise be filled by
members of the community (many incarcerated workers work
alongside workers from the free world), even building
new prisons and handling administrative tasks for prison
officials—the strike made an immediate and lasting
impact.</p>
<p><span>The strikers’ demands </span><a
href="http://www.georgiagreenparty.com/blogs/bdixon/GA_InmatesStageHistoricOneDayPrisonStrikeToday"><span>were
simple and familiar</span></a><span>. So was the
State’s response. The Georgia Department of
Corrections reacted by shutting off water and
electricity to the strikers’ living quarters. Most of
them quickly succumbed to these harsh measures, but a
handful dug in and continue to resist.</span></p>
<p><span>The state retaliated against 37 inmates who were
identified as organizers with extreme isolation and
punishment. </span></p>
<p><span>Prison guards at </span><span>Smith State Prison
in South Georgia</span><span> were captured on film
brutally </span><a
href="http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/lawmaker-groups-arms-over-violent-prison-video/242915020"><span>beating
Kelvin Stevenson and Miguel Jackson with hammers</span></a>
[<em>caution:<span> </span><span>graphic violence</span></em><span>]</span><span>.
In what prisoners say is a long-running practice, the
two men were isolated from public view and denied
visits from family members and legal counsel until
their wounds healed. </span></p>
<p>Three Georgia corrections officers were convicted in
2014 for an earlier beating, but justice continues to
elude Jackson, Stevenson and their families. The Georgia
Department of Corrections responded to the beatings <a
href="http://investigations.blog.ajc.com/2014/12/24/georgia-asked-google-to-censor-youtube-video/?ecmp=ajc_social_facebook_2014_politics_sfp"><span>by
asking Google to censor</span></a><span> the YouTube
video.</span></p>
<p>Four of the original Georgia strikers, now under close
security, staged another hunger strike in 2015. This
time their only demand was that their security level be
reconsidered, per state policy.</p>
<p><b>The Rising Tide</b></p>
<p><span>The Southeast, which incarcerates more of its
residents than any other US region, has been a focal
point of prison organizing. </span></p>
<p>Inspired by the actions of their Georgia neighbors,
incarcerated workers and supporters in Alabama began
organizing work stoppages and hunger strikes of their
own under the banner Free Alabama Movement (FAM). Since
its inception, FAM has organized for a flurry of work
stoppages and minor uprisings at St. Clair, Holman and
Staton Correctional Facilities in <a
href="http://inthesetimes.com/prison-complex/entry/16607/alabama_prisoners"><span>2014</span></a><span>,
</span><a
href="http://www.alabamaprisonwatch.org/2015/02/support-strike-at-st-clair-correctional.html"><span>2015</span></a><span> and
</span><a
href="http://www.alabamanews.net/2016/05/11/more-prisoners-across-alabama-join-prison-strike/"><span>earlier
this year</span></a><span>.</span></p>
<p><span>FAM organizers </span><a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrc8BSNO0jo&feature=youtu.be"><span>explain
in this YouTube video</span></a><span> why they’re
organizing incarcerated workers: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><em><span>“They [Alabama Dept. of Corrections] not
gonna make this man go to school if he needs a
GED. They’re not gonna make him get a skill or
trade. They’re not gonna make him do the things
that will help him be successful when [he] gets
back to the streets. They gonna make him work for
them and provide free labor. And that’s where Free
Alabama Movement comes in.”</span></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>FAM developed a manifesto called “Let the Crops Rot in
the Fields,” which lays out a framework that’s spread to
prisons across the country. Instead of relying on
support from the outside or passive actions like hunger
strikes, incarcerated workers are utilizing the most
powerful tool they have: their labor.</p>
<p><span>Incarcerated workers are paid pennies an hour—or
not at all in Georgia and Texas—for often-backbreaking
labor that keeps prisons operating and benefits the
state and, increasingly, </span><a
href="http://usuncut.com/class-war/these-7-household-names-make-a-killing-off-of-the-prison-industrial-complex/"><span>private
corporations</span></a><span>. </span></p>
<p><span>If they refuse or are unable to work, </span><a
href="http://freeohiomovement.org/call_to_action.html"><span>inmates
say they’re subject to punishment</span></a><span>,
including “isolation, restraint positions, stripping
off our clothes and investigating our bodies as though
we are animals.”</span></p>
<p><span>FAM is also working within the system to enact
legislation geared toward improving conditions for
incarcerated people in Alabama. They recently
presented the </span><a
href="http://freealabamamovement.com/12-18-14%20fam%20bill.pdf"><span>Alabama
Freedom Bill</span></a><span>, which would expand
access to education, rehabilitation, and reentry
services—services which are already supposed to exist
on paper, but rarely do in practice.</span></p>
<p>Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, a formerly incarcerated person
whose organization, The Ordinary People’s Society
(TOPS), was a critical player in the early resistance in
Georgia and Alabama, says: “They created the
School-to-Prison Pipeline, we want to flip that and
organize a Re-entry Pipeline.”</p>
<p>Considering the barriers to <a
href="http://theinfluence.org/ex-prisoners-must-get-a-fair-chance-of-a-job-says-a-new-york-law-but-employers-are-breaking-it/">employment</a>,
<a
href="http://theinfluence.org/ban-the-box-movement-fights-to-end-discrimination-against-formerly-incarcerated-college-applicants/">education</a> and
housing created by a criminal record, reentry services
are vital, yet the state rarely gives them priority—if
they provide them at all.</p>
<p><strong>An Alternative to the Silence of Mainstream
Unions </strong></p>
<p>At a time of high tension, this coalition finds itself
at a critical intersection of racial, structural and
economic oppression.</p>
<p>Mainstream unions have been largely silent on the issue
of inmate labor. In fact, major unions like <a
href="http://www.afscme.org/union/jobs-we-do/corrections"><span>American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees</span></a><span>
(AFSCME), </span><a
href="http://www.seiu521.org/workplace/region4/fresno/cofresno/unit2-correctional-officers/"><span>Service
Employees International Union</span></a><span>
(SEIU), </span><a
href="https://www.afge.org/take-action/campaigns/safe-prisons-project/"><span>American
Federation of Government Employees</span></a><span>
(AFGE), and the </span><a
href="https://teamster.org/news/2016/04/teamsters-fighting-union-rights-florida-correctional-officers"><span>Teamsters</span></a><span>
represent corrections officers and police across the
country—placing them in direct conflict with prison
workers and the most marginalized people in our
society.</span></p>
<p><span>These unions frequently fight to keep prisons
open, </span><a
href="http://solitarywatch.com/2013/02/21/solidarity-and-solitary-when-unions-clash-with-prison-reform/"><span>even
when their members are guaranteed work elsewhere</span></a><span>.
This effectively puts them in the same boat as private
prison companies like Corrections Corporation of
America and GEO Group, whose contracts often contain
quotas </span><a
href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/jul/31/report-finds-two-thirds-private-prison-contracts-include-lockup-quotas/"><span>which
require a certain percentage of beds remain filled</span></a><span>.</span></p>
<p><span>IWOC currently </span><a
href="https://itsgoingdown.org/strike-against-white-supremacy/"><span>counts
about 1,000 incarcerated members</span></a><span>, a
number which continues to grow as September 9
approaches. This makes it the largest area of
organizing within </span><a href="http://iww.org"><span>Industrial
Workers of the World</span></a><span>—a labor union
controlled directly by workers which operates outside
the mainstream union model.</span></p>
<p>Most, though not all incarcerated people have committed
crimes—or at least, what are considered “crimes” under
our current system. But they often do so out of
necessity, sometimes to support drug problems where
treatment or harm reduction services don’t exist and,
too often, to support families or just survive in a
system which discriminates by race, gender, sexuality
and economic status, and robs anyone with a criminal
record of opportunities.</p>
<p>Incarcerated workers are still workers, regardless of
criminal records. Other than by ending or massively
reducing incarceration itself, it is only by building
connections between workers behind bars and in the free
world that will we begin to reform a system that feeds
on human suffering.</p>
<p><strong>A Canary in the Coal Mine</strong></p>
<p><span>September 9 could be the most powerful call in
over a generation to reform—or dismantle—a system that
IWOC organizer and Ohio prisoner </span><a
href="https://iwoc.noblogs.org/post/2015/06/26/why-should-free-world-workers-care/"><span>Sean
Swain calls</span></a><span> a “third world colony”
within the US and a “canary in the coal mine.”
Conditions in prison today foreshadow what workers on
the outside might face in the future, because the
oppression inside is merely an amplified version of
the oppression faced by poor people everywhere. In
this way and others, this issue impacts <em>all</em>
working people, not just those living in prison. </span></p>
<p>Most incarcerated people will be released one day. Do
we want people who are bitter, humiliated, lacking work
skills and education, desperate just to put food on the
table and at great risk of reoffending living next door?</p>
<p>Or do we want people who can work, who have ties to
their communities, have maintained relationships with
loved ones, and who have a vested interest in helping
build stronger, more socially and economically just
communities when they return home?</p>
<p>If we succeed in making the US pay attention to the
events of September 9, it might just help the country
decide which of those paths to pursue.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>References:</em></p>
<p><em><span>1. </span></em><span>The New York Times</span><em><span>,
</span><span>“Women Inmates Battle Guards in North
Carolina,” June 17, 1975.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span>2. </span></em><span><a
href="https://www.akpress.org/dixie-be-damned.html">Dixie
Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American
South</a></span><em><span>, “On the 1975 Revolt at
the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women,”
Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford</span></em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Jeremy Galloway is harm reduction coordinator at <a
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://fsdp.org&source=gmail&ust=1462557892590000&usg=AFQjCNFFBnBHMoba0AxXqIcYsjDYV3nKWA"
target="_blank" href="http://fsdp.org/">Families for
Sensible Drug Policy</a>, program director at <a
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://facebook.com/SoutheastHarmReduction&source=gmail&ust=1462557892590000&usg=AFQjCNFmW9PXHdO2Aj7pX16qtyoQQRL6Ow"
target="_blank"
href="http://facebook.com/SoutheastHarmReduction">Southeast
Harm Reduction Project</a>, co-founder of <a
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.georgiaoverdoseprevention.org/&source=gmail&ust=1462557892590000&usg=AFQjCNFXhLZ49BcxaoZv0yzpM60-k08y5w"
target="_blank"
href="http://www.georgiaoverdoseprevention.org/">Georgia
Overdose Prevention</a>, and a state-certified peer
recovery specialist. He lives in North Georgia with
his wife and three cats. He writes and speaks
regionally about drug policy reform, harm reduction,
his experiences, and the importance of including the
voices of directly impacted people in policy
decisions. His last article for The Influence was “<a
href="http://theinfluence.org/lets-abandon-the-idea-that-if-youve-been-addicted-to-a-drug-total-abstinence-is-essential/">Let’s
Abandon the Assumption That If You’ve Been Addicted
to a Drug, Total Abstinence Is Essential</a>.”</em>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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