Santa Cruz: May Day Car and Bike Caravan

Join the May Day strike against austerity and unsafe working conditions in Santa Cruz!

Our greatest weapon against layoffs, pay reductions, and cuts to social welfare during and after COVID is the withholding of our labor. Workers across the world at universities, Amazon, Whole Foods, Target, Instacart, Walmart, and FedEx, to name a few, are going on strike this May 1. In addition, millions of tenants are withholding their rent.

Do not go to work as usual May 1, whether in person or online. Do not pay your rent. Reclaim the time and resources you need to care for yourself and your community.

Join us for a May Day Caravan Friday from 12pm-4:30, as we stand with those striking and fighting for their right to live in this city. This will be a slow-moving, socially-distant action using car and bike transit. We will move from the UCSC campus downtown to support workers across the city (route details TBA). Those without a vehicle are welcome to join at one or more locations! If you are not currently in Santa Cruz, you can still be part of our journey by following along on Instagram @payusmoreucsc and Twitter @payusmoreucsc.

WHAT TO BRING!!!
-Personal masks or bandanas
-Banners, signs, and markers for vehicles in support of striking workers and renters
-White flags in support of the rent strike
-Flowers and other offerings for the UCSC loop bus driver who passed away due to COVID
-Care packages with masks, hand sanitizer, and other safety supplies to donate to front line workers and folks living unhoused

UCSC graduate workers have been striking since Fall 2019. While our tactics have had to change in response to COVID, we continue to demand living wages so we can have housing, food and healthcare security for graduate student workers, undergraduate students, and all university workers. Our strike has spread across the state but the UC has ignored our concerns, responding instead with police brutality, terminations, and trumped-up student conduct summons. COVID-19 and the move to online teaching via Zoom has systematically worsened the crisis we were already living in.

Many more workers are fighting back against life-threatening precarity during COVID. Front line workers including nurses, grocers, bus drivers, postal service workers and farm workers are risking their lives to provide the public with crucial services. Many are paid minimum wages and don’t have work-provided safety equipment. Our community members who are unhoused, incarcerated, or detained by ICE are at high-risk of dying from COVID due to crowded living conditions and lack of medical care. And due to job losses and reduced hours, millions of renters will be unable to pay their rent May 1.

How do we support these workers? Don’t mourn, organize! Join workers across the country in calling for what we need to survive. Solidarity Forever!