Did you notice the “Day Without Immigrants” strike?
We didn’t either
Today, cities across the country participated in a “Day Without Immigrants” strike.
Did you notice? Because we didn’t.
Organized by The Cosecha Movement, the strike promised hundreds of thousands of participants to, “demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class people of color.”
The goal? To, “change the conversation on immigration in the United States.”
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.”
Not surprisingly, the strike is backed by major labor unions and other progressive orgs:
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
During a similar strike in February, dozens of participants received a hard lesson in the ways of the private sector when they were fired after skipping work to attend “Day Without Immigrant” protests. NBC reported at the time:
Dozens of protesters across the country were fired from their jobs after skipping work to take part in last week’s “Day Without Immigrants” demonstration.
Restaurants and day cares were among the businesses in states like Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma and New York where bosses fired workers after they didn’t show up for work in order to protest.
In Nolensville, Tennessee, nearly 20 employees at Bradley Coatings, Incorporated — a commercial painting company — were laid off after participating in the nationwide strike on Thursday, NBC4 reported.
The company’s attorney, Robert Peal, said in a statement obtained by the news station that all employees were told they risked termination if they skipped work on Thursday, but 18 did so anyway.
The public is *so* interested in the “Day Without Immigrants” protest, that a whole three people were tuned into the protest Facebook live:
These types of movements continue to beclown themselves, making issues where none exist based on false narratives. Just yesterday, Congress came to an agreement on a short-term budget bill that’s missing one major “anti-immigrant” allocation — the southern border wall.
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Comments
Last time this happened, Americans tended the garden, and the roses [still] bloomed.
Why would anyone who came here, legally, to get a better job, legally, or go to school, legally, want to leave those things to protest people who don’t do any those things, legally, and, illegally, reap all the rewards the person who is here, legally, have worked so hard for?
The level of this, unfortunately legal, stupidity is mind-numbing.
I think they have proven defininitvely that we are not terribly dependent upon those who violate our laws to be here. We’ll get along just fine without them.
I did not notice this strike. Everything seems to be functioning normally in my community and in my workplace.
I would lay off any employee, legal or not, who skipped work today in order to strike. Go protest before or after work, but don’t expect to take time off to protest and to then come back to work the next day.
They need to combine this with the “day without women” strike, so we cannot notice the effect at the same time.
Good one
Isn’t it cheating when you combine any labor related action with ‘May Day’ ?
I was really tempted to march with them just to make my fitbit happy, but I only know controversial Spanish so I went to the gym instead. Okay, I lied like CNN. There wasn’t a march here.
“We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function, we will win…the right to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Why does someone who has shown absolutely no respect for this country’s laws expect me to show them “repect”?
wonder how many stingrays were deployed today?
how many cameras for facial recognition?
how many are “on the radar” now?
We need a march of all the Americans and legal immigrants whose jobs are being held by illegals.
@ MrSatyre – they wouldn’t, as you correctly surmise. I’m a (naturalized) citizen who came here as a (legal) immigrant and yesterday was business as usual for me.
They key word in the above may be “business”. I’m a small business owner, libertarian/conservative and not much interested in promoting illegality.