America's Slave Labour Industry Is Going On Strike.

          2016 saw the biggest prisoner strike in American history, this year starting August 29th The Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee are working towards this strike to have a great impact than the 2016. It will of course require solidarity and support from those outside the states repression cages.  Support and solidarity depend on publicity, so the more we share the details of this event the great the support and the great impact. The American prison system is a multi-billion dollar corporate industry that uses slave labour, under the guise of law and order, punishment and rehabilitation. All prisons are an abomination, the American prison system tops the list in mass incarceration and all for no other reason than repression and profit. 

         As we approach the start of the 2018 Prison Strike, which will begin on August 21st, Rust Belt Abolition radio sits down for this important dialog with Oakland IWOC about the strike.

         In this episode, we discuss how some of us are preparing for the upcoming 2018 Prisoner Strike — slated to take place between August 21st and September 9th. We speak with members of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the IWW, Oakland chapter, about the lead-up to the strike and how you can get involved.

        This year’s actions come in the wake of the extraordinary 2016 prison strike — the largest and most widespread prisoner strike in U.S. history. It is estimated that about 50,000 imprisoned workers in more than two dozen different states refused to do the work that keeps prisons running. In August 2017, the Millions for Prisoners march led prison officials in Florida and South Carolina to preemptively lock-down their entire prison systems — impacting over 121,000 imprisoned people.

         Rustbelt Abolition Radio covered these historic events in our September 2017 episode, Reports from the Prisoner Resistance Movement, as well as in our Making Contact audio documentary, Specters of Attica: Reflections from Inside a Michigan Prison Strike.

The prisoner resistance movement takes another step this August 21, 2018, as prison rebels in more than 17 states will refuse to labor and maintain the institutions that perpetuate their captivity.

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Solidarity In Struggle Is A Winning Weapon.

 

       We should never forget those in struggle, more so those confined to the state's prisons, repression cages, or in America, Incarcerated Labour Corporation, facilities, solidarity is the winning weapon. Since September 9th. the prisoners in America have been on strike, making a stand against the blatant corruption, corporate greed, slave labour and brutality that permeates the entire prison system. They need all the support that we can muster, these are workers without conditions, locked away from the prying eyes of the public and used and savagely exploited by the state and greedy corporations. The vicious treatment that is handed out to them is all cloaked in secrecy, behind high walls and armed guards, so therefore can be more savage than might happen out on the public streets. We need to allow those inside to know, that they have the support of those on the outside, we need the facts to come out, we need to keep the pressure on the authorities.

       Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as ‘Angola Prison’, to this day compels prisoners to plant and pick cotton by hand, for as little as 4 cents an hour. Eighty percent of its prisoners are African-American.
       Long rows of men, mostly African-American, till the fields under the hot Louisiana sun while armed guards, mostly white, ride up and down the rows on horseback, keeping watch. It is the largest maximum security prison in America, bigger than Manhattan, sprawling over 18,000 acres of farmland dotted with barbed-wire enclosures, gun towers and concrete dormitories.
A History of Slavery
      The land on which the prison sits is a composite of several slave plantations -it is called Angola, after the homeland of the slaves who first worked its soil - bought up in the decades following the Civil War. From when it was converted from plantations, prisoners have worked the land in much the same way as slaves did, under conditions so brutal, prisoners resorting to cutting their own Achilles’s tendons in protest in the 50′s.
      After the plantation was converted to a prison, former plantation overseers and their descendants kept their general roles, becoming prison officials and guards. This white overseer community, is located on the farm’s grounds, both close to the prisoners and completely separate from them. In addition to their prison labour, Angola’s inmates do free work for these residents, from cutting their grass to trimming their hair to cleaning up Prison View Golf Course, the only course in the country where players can watch prisoners labouring as they golf.    Continue reading:

This appeal from IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee:
URGENT!! Help Needed NOW to Stop Retaliation Against Prisoners. 

       Current stats based on the strike tracking that we have done so far:
-Number of prisoners on lockdown at least 1 day since 9/8: 23,849 minimum
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we know organizing was happening or where strikes are confirmed: 15,310
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we’re not sure about organizing: 8,484
        There are two things we really need help with. The first one is really easy. The second one is a bit more complex. Both involve calling prisons. Here is a great "how to" video for calling prisons if you are feeling nervous https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=251DPVDQ17A
       1. Very Easy Task: As we hear of individual prisoners or facilities that are being specifically targeted, we will add them to this phone zap list https://goo.gl/forms/ s4gBzsgvz6W9LQoN2 Please call all the numbers on this list as many times as you can and ask all your friends to do the same. Print the list and take it with you everywhere and call every time you can spare a minute. You can call day or night, weekdays or weekends, talk to a person or leave a voicemail, just call now and keep calling. The prisoners are on the front line and it is critical that we do everything we can to keep the administrators from torturing and killing them.
        2. Moderately Easy Task: The second thing you can do to help is call all the prisons in your state and ask if they are on lockdown:

Notes about the State by State Tracking:
- They aren't likely to divulge answers to all these questions, but you can try, anyway.
- If they ask, you can either say you're a concerned citizen, or that you want to schedule a visit, or that you're a student doing research. These things might not help.
- You can either give your name, or make up a name. It is probably not a good idea to give first and last name, or any other personal info of yourself or anyone else, especially not of prisoners.
       1. Look up the facilities' info. Make sure we know what state you're working on, so two people don't end up doing the same state at the same time. Every DOC has a different website, but most list basic info about the prisons.
- take note of whether or not they list current population on the website, if they do, you won't need to ask those questions.
- check and see if they have press releases or recent news or anything like that. Some DOCs will publicly announce lockdowns on their websites.
        2. call the prison, here's a script:
"Hello, are you on lockdown right now?"
If "yes" - "why?"
- "how many people are locked down"
- "how long have they been?"
- "what is your current population, are they all locked down?"
If "no" - "have you been on lock down at all in the last week?"
- "have there been any disturbances or trouble makers sent to the hole in the last month?"
        3. Write down any info you get on places that are / were locked down. Try and research info that wasn't available on the site (Wikipedia has entries for most prisons, which includes their capacities) a google search might bring up reports with more accurate info about current population levels, etc.
- Email anything you find to iwoc@riseup.net
Here's where it's getting posted:

https://docs.google.com/docume nt/d/1kyq-sEN5RRjWd9xDYp8Tq0U2 zwquqTYHkGptnL-ZNbw

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

September 9th. Prison Strike.

 

        It is well documented, but little publicised, that the American prison system is nothing more than continuation of the slave labour system that existed prior to the 13th. amendment, that supposedly abolished slavery. American prisons are profit making corporations, where human rights are non-existent, a vast slave empire hidden from public scrutiny. It is also a model that is being replicated here in the UK and else where. A society that cages its people is a society that must be abolished, and remade in the interest of all its people. Modifying prison regulations and prison reform, still leave you with the barbarity of humans in cages, an unacceptable situation.
       The coming September 9th. American prison strike demands support across all borders, solidarity knows no borders.

 This from Contr Info:

Call for International Anarchist Action
in Solidarity with US Prison Strike

 

        On September 9th [the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion], prisoners across the United States will begin a strike that will be a general work stoppage against prison slavery. In short, prisoners will refuse to work; they will refuse to keep the prisons running by their own labors. Prisoners are striking not just for better conditions or changes in parole rules, but against prison slavery. Prisoners state that under the 13th Amendment which abolished racial slavery, at the same time it allowed human beings to be worked for free or next to nothing as long as they were prisoners. Prisoners see the current system of prison slavery to thus be a continuation of racial slavery, which is a system that generates billions of dollars in profits each year for major corporations in key industries such as fossil fuels, fast food, banking, and the US military.
      Soon after the passing of the 13th Amendment, many former slaves were soon locked up in prisons on petty offenses, quickly returned to their former roles as slaves. Over a century later, the Drug War sought to deal with the growing unemployment rate brought on by changes in the economy (outsourcing, financialization, deregulation, etc.), as well as the threat of black insurrection which grew in the 1960s and 70s, by throwing more and more people in prison. At the same time, the state and corporations continued to look towards prison labor as a source to generate massive profits.
       Due to all of these factors, at the present time round 1 in 100 American adults is locked behind bars, and many more are on probation, parole, house arrest, or in immigrant detention facilities. While African-Americans, Native, Latino, and poor whites make up the bulk of the prison population, black, brown, and red convicts make up much a higher percentage of inmates than their white counter-parts. For instance, there are currently more African-American people locked within the prison industrial complex than were held in racialized slavery prior to the American civil war in the 1860s. It is in this climate that prison rebels have organized themselves to carry out the strike.

Read the full article HERE:

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