COVID-19 general strike, 25/03/2020 – Matteo Charlie Ichino

In support to the healthcare workers who are working their asses off, often with little protection and with great risks of spreading the disease. They won’t be able to rest until we stop this pandemic
In support to the workers who would love to stay home to help reducing the spread of the virus, but can’t as they provide essential services for the community. You deserve the right to a health and safe working environment, your health should not be at risk
In support to all the workers who could stay home, but can’t because of narrow minded superiors who want to make profits out of this crisis. It is your time to be heard, you are not alone
In support to all the workers who have to stay home because their workplace, fortunately, is closed, but are doing great efforts to go through the crises with little or no prospect for a salary in these weeks. You don’t have to pay for this crisis while your boss got great bonuses last year, and will probably get them again this year
In support to all the workers who have decided to stay home, even before they were forced to, because they care. Our job will not be over until we will have obtained better working conditions for after the crisis
In support to the workers abroad, in counties which have not been affected yet. Their best chance to never see this virus is if we do our part here in stopping it before it spreads
As an infinitely little occasion to ask forgiveness to the families and friends of the fallen ones: whatever we do now is already late and will never be enough

Today we go on strike!

And it is a strange strike, as we are doing it from home, with little or no chance of being seen and heard. But it is fundamental that we do it now, in the middle of the crisis, as the risk of being forgotten at the end of it is very high. We need to take a step now, in order to be able to move forward later.

So today we shut up if our job is to talk
We make noise if our neighbourhood is silent
We postpone the food shopping to tomorrow, to give a bit of rest to the supermarket employees
We avoid ordering on-line, as we certainly don’t need that gadget now
We don’t ask for food deliveries, to support the riders’ strike
We write a post about the three things that we learned about our job during this lockdown, and about three ways in which we want to improve our working conditions when the virus will be under control
We put a strike sing at our window, balcony, door
We find the names of the business that are still open around us, and we let everyone know about them
We write to our city council, asking for better housing conditions for the homeless, which often have nowhere to stay in these days

And since we don’t have much else to do, we can go on as long as the lockdown is in place, because it is during the crises that we create the foundations for a better society.