Please support the organization of Fellow Workers behind bars. Donate or pledge to donate $300 individually or as a branch this November, to be paid by May 1st, 2016, or give what you can today at http://iwoc.noblogs.org/donate/.
Your donations will allow us to hire two formerly incarcerated people to help organize an entire state system of which we have a large presence, ensure sufficient resources to stay in touch with all members inside, and spread the national call from members inside demanding minimum wage and more!
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WHY DONATE?
While we know capitalism exploits every member of the working class, an often forgotten group is prisoners of the State. In the US, these workers are legally enslaved under the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery “except as punishment for a crime”. More than 3,000,000 souls are abused through destructive incarceration, with millions more on probation, parole, and legal discrimination after release. Exploited for pennies or dollars a day, there are few sections of the working class with more revolutionary potential and more reason to overthrow capitalism than those abandoned into the largest prison system in world history.
Increasingly people in prison are putting their very lives on the line to end state torture and exploitation. From labor strikes in Georgia and Alabama, to hunger strikes in California, to mass actions across the country, prisoners and IWW members are demanding change. We started the IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee in response to prisoners reaching out for support. Now, 21 months later, there are nearly 600 IWW members in prison. See newsletters online at [http://iwoc.noblogs.org].
As a revolutionary union our role is clear: work in solidarity with those incarcerated to organize, improve conditions, and shut down this oppressive system. We have members who participated in prison shut downs, strikes, and collective actions. Together we have combated torture, retaliation, and false medical diagnoses. It is with a call from our members for a multi-state prison action in 2016 for federal minimum wage in prisons that we send you this letter to ask for your support.
IWW members in prison are on the cusp of starting their own branches, and we need your help to honor the sacrifices they are making by having the resources to stay in contact and hire two organizers to organize a key state’s entire prisons system, including nurturing an outside support network, such that they will not be able to transfer our prison organizers out of their state system.
In the spirit of Red November/Black November we ask you, your branch, or community to:
1. Join the Committee of 100: Pledge $300 this November to be paid by May 1, 2016. We need 100 such donations to meet our budget.
2. Donate what you can. Every $1 you donate up to $100 a FW will match with their own $1 up to $10,000. Help us raise that 10,000!
3. Start a prison organizing letter writing group in your city or region. Join our Media, Newsletter, Legal, Outreach, or Research Committees. Or volunteer to make phone calls, transcribe letters, or do graphic design.
Contact iwoc@riseup.net and we will send you an intro packet and connect you to a regional organizing call.
Online donations can be made at [http://iwoc.noblogs.org/donate].
Checks, which save us the processing fee, can be sent to: IWW (c/o IWOC): PO Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618, USA.