Greetings!

We are the Oakland local of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the Industrial Workers of the World. We are writing to you because your organization endorsed the 2016 National Prison Strike and/or #OperationPush, and we would like to ask if you would endorse the 2018 National Prisoner Strike set to begin August 21.

In April 2018, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak put out a press release calling for a two-week national strike beginning on August 21, the anniversary of George Jackson’s assassination, and extending until September 9, the anniversary of the Attica Prison Rebellion in 1971. The call has been taken up inside from coast to coast, and across at least 17 different states. The author of this call, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, is a national collective of incarcerated people who fight for human rights by providing other incarcerated people with access to legal education, resources, and assistance.

Over the past decade, a prisoners’ movement has arisen within facilities, with prison actions increasing in frequency, intensity, and coordination. The 2018 national strike represents the next point of escalation within this prisoner-led movement.

Based on your past endorsement it is clear that you understand the importance of providing support to folks inside who choose to take action within this fight. Their choice is one which risks additional charges and more time locked up, months or years in solitary confinement, punitive transfers away from family, and serious bodily harm, to name a few. Inside organizers have already begun to face retaliation. Inside leadership has asked us on the outside to stand in solidarity with them by creating as much awareness of and attention paid to the strike as possible, as this is one of their only protections from the brutality of the state's retaliation and repression.

And so we would like to ask if your organization will endorse the 2018 National Prisoner Strike by:

Adding your organization to the list of endorsers by emailing: prisonstrikemedia@gmail.com and requesting to be added to the endorsement list.

Publicly acknowledging your endorsement through your website, social media channels, meetings, email lists, press statements etc.

Encouraging your members or base to spread word of the strike and to participate in any supporting actions, including but not limited to forming phone trees to apply targeted pressure against facilities and figures engaging in retaliation against the strikers.

Providing whatever other organizational resources or connections you might have available for spreading and supporting the strike.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing your name among the many endorsers!

Inside Outside All on the Same Side,