All We Have Is Each Other

Mayday Call to Strike: May 1st/May Day

People’s Strike: Fighting for Our Lives, Forging Our Future

April 23rd, 2020
Cooperation Jackson

Why strike now?

This triple crisis of viral Plague, systemic economic breakdown and Government/leadership failure to prioritize our best interests, has thrown us into a fight for our lives over who and what is “essential.” We can survive, we can build something new, with what we know, now that we know that all who labor are essential; that we must come together at a level of cooperation unseen in our lifetime to make a healthier, regenerative and just future for all our people.

On May 1st, we will strike to protect ourselves, we will strike to protect each other. We will strike to be able to feed and care for ourselves, to claim our right to shelter and health care, our right to recover and survive. Everyone can strike, everyone can decide what kind of choices are no longer acceptable, what kind of world we want coming out of this crisis, what is “essential” for us, and who will decide, from here on in.

We refuse to work, because we refuse to die. We won’t go back to a system that rations health care for profit. We won’t go back to a system that expects us to lay down our lives, as if we are nothing, to benefit the few. Until there is a vaccine or a cure, this virus may linger with us and reappear. We have decided that our lives are essential.

We can protect each other. We will defend each other. We keep us safe.

How to strike.

No work. Walk out, sick out, slow down, work to rule (follow all the rules to the letter; safe work or no work). Hold a meeting of your coworkers, hold a moment of silence. Stop work however we can.

No shopping. Don’t shop today, in person, online. Prepare, and share.

No rent. Don’t ‘not pay’ alone, strike rent, together. Organize to stop evictions and to take over empty housing for those without.

No school. Log off, tune out, skip class, no testing, teach May Day, wear #redfored

No Borders. We strike in solidarity with people around the world facing crisis. Borders are for them not us, #wedecide #noborders we strike for the autonomy of indigenous autonomy and land rights. We strike to close the camps and protect water, air and land. #closethecamps #landback

No prisons. We strike in solidarity with the captive in prisons, jails and camps worldwide. We know these conditions are deadly, and mean execution without trial for too many. We know may prisoners are working under slave conditions. We know its not worth risking your own life to keep people locked up. #releasetheprisoners

No evictions. We strike against evictions; evictions kill. We strike to defend our homes and our communities. #ourhouse

No silence. We are not alone. Distance doesn’t mean we can’t fight together. We can’t stay quiet—in the words of fighters of the HIV pandemic, silence=death. We’ve decided to live, loud. In some cities we sing with our neighbors, in others we chant clap and bang pots and pans–connect online


CoronaStrike, #GeneralStrike, #MayDay2020, #GeneralStrike2020, #PeoplesStrike #strikeseflie #redfored #mutualaid #rentstrike #wedecide #stopshopping #schoolsout #noborders #releasetheprisoners #ourhouse #prepareandshare #noshopping #nowork #norent #noprisons #nosilence #noborders #noschool #landback #closethecamps #solidarityindistance


Cooperation Jackson is an emerging vehicle for sustainable community development, economic democracy, and community ownership.

Our long term vision is to develop a cooperative network based in Jackson, Mississippi that will consist of four interconnected and interdependent institutions: a federation of local worker cooperatives, a cooperative incubator, a cooperative education and training center (the Kuwasi Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Development), and a cooperative bank or financial institution.

Cooperation Jackson’s basic theory of change is centered on the position that organizing and empowering the structurally under and unemployed sectors of the working class, particularly from Black and Latino communities, to build worker organized and owned cooperatives will be a catalyst for the democratization of our economy and society overall.

Read more about Cooperation Jackson