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Thousands to walk off the job across the U.S. in Strike for Black Lives protest against racism

20 July 2020
Dan Ackermann

Strike for Black Lives organizers expect "tens of thousands" of union workers, social and racial justice advocates in more than 25 U.S. cities in walking off the job Monday to protest racial inequality.

Driving the news: The action builds on protests demanding change and an end to systemic racism following the May death of George Floyd. Striking workers plan to commemorate black people killed by police by walking off the job at noon for eight minutes, 46 seconds — the length of time prosecutors say former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck.

  • Per a statement from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of some 44 groups organizing the protest, they're demanding corporations and governments "take action to confront triple threat of white supremacy," a public health emergency amid the coronavirus pandemic and a "broken economy."
  • Fast-food, nursing home, rideshare and other workers will rally outside corporations including McDonald's to highlight inequity. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Movement for Black Lives are also involved in the action.
  • Oakland McDonald's worker Angely Rodriguez Lambert, a leader in the Fight for $15 group campaigning for a wage increase that's also involved in the strike, said in a statement McDonald's "cannot on the one hand tweet that 'Black Lives Matter' and on the other pay us poverty wages and fail to provide sick days and adequate PPE.
"We're going on strike because McDonald's and other fast-food companies have failed to protect us in a pandemic that has ravaged Black and brown communities across the country."
Rodriguez Lamber statement

What to expect: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to join New York City protesters in front of the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan "to demand the Senate and President Donald Trump pass and sign the HEROES Act," Democrats' $3 trillion coronavirus rescue package that the House passed in May, AP reports.

  • In Missouri, striking workers will gather at the McDonald’s in Ferguson before marching to the memorial for Michael Brown, who was killed by police in 2014.
  • In Detroit, fast-food workers plan to rally with nursing home workers "to call out the industry's failure to protect its largely Black workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic and respect workers for the essential work they perform" per SEIU's statement. 
  • In Minneapolis, nursing home workers will participate in a caravan that will include a stop at the airport, "where they'll be joined in protest by airport workers including wheelchair attendants and cabin cleaners who are demanding $15/hr and a just and safe plan to bring people back into public and travel spaces," the statement said.
  • In Los Angeles, fast-food and nursing home workers are set to join Uber and Lyft drivers and Postmates workers, janitorial, security and other workers in a car caravan that begins at a McDonald’s, with stops at the LAUSD and the University of Southern California, where they will demand the nation's second-largest school district and the University drop their use of the LAPD on campuses.

Go deeper: Black Americans' competing crises

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.