Seth Kaper-Dale Labor Day Message: Labor Strike, a total shut down, by documented and undocumented workers: only way to stop filling these hell holes!
Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States that exists to honor and celebrate workers and to recognize the contributions of laborers in the development and achievements in the United States.
I cannot recognize Labor Day this year without going to Delaney Hall in Newark, to scream words of support for laborers and workers suffering inside. Many of those captured were kidnapped from work places like warehouses, carwashes, lawn companies and ride share businesses). Others were kidnapped from their homes—just after a long day of work, or as they were leaving the house at 6am, to get to their labor-intensive job.
This Labor Day we can say, loud and clear, that laborers are at high risk in this country.
It feels like a Labor Strike, a total shut down, by documented and undocumented workers, all of whom recognize that the enemy isn’t the worker, might be the only way to stop filling these hell holes—and they are hell holes.
I spoke to a man inside a detention center last night who told me that conditions where he is (in PA) are so deplorable that there are constant fights, there are hungry people, there are sick people not getting treated, there is so much turn over in the guards that you don’t feel like anyone ever humanizes you.
This has become a horrible country for laborers—but what it has become for undocumented laborers, and laborers who have had their documents stripped, is so egregiously sinful that we cannot continue with business as usual.
I would love to see a massive shut down of Logistics (shipping, warehousing) for the month of October. All eyes are on New Jersey, for this gubernatorial race. Currently the Democrat is silent about care and protection of immigrants. The Republican is a raging xenophobe. Neither share a strategy that can protect workers. IF OUR GOVERNMENT, AND COMPLICIT POLITICIANS AND CORPORATE LEADERS BREAK UP FAMILIES IN THIS SINFUL WAY THE WHOLE SYSTEM SHOULD GRIND TO A HALT.
Can we organize a massive work stoppage, where New Jerseyans come together to support suffering laborers?
Usually the fights around U.S. labor are about higher wages, better safety, overtime policies, and more respect. This year the fight is about detention in concentration camps, kidnapping, dividing families and violence. These better be things worth striking for.
Maybe workers, and the middle/upper class, can bind together on behalf of workers—instead of the middle often succumbing to silence and complicity so as to keep their mediocre and compromised privilege.
God has a preferential option for the poor (the last are first). God’s option is not for the middle class. Definitely not the rich. Maybe this Labor Day we should stand where God stands—trying to keep people out of Delaney Hall.
If you’d like to support detained workers financially we are raising funds for legal services. https://diresupport.org/donate/
Peace, Seth
