[artinfo] E.A.S.T.

[Molly Hankwitz]

Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational

Note from LeftEast Editors: We share the 
Essential Strike Manifesto by E.A.S.T. (Essential 
Autonomous Struggles Transnational), a network 
composed mostly of women, migrants, workers and 
activists born out of the struggles on social 
reproduction triggered by the pandemic crisis of 
Covid-19. E.A.S.T., as the acronym suggests, has 
Eastern and Central Europe as its main focus but 
looks at this specific space as a part of a 
transnational field of struggle. The network 
wants to ignite new struggles and strikes against 
exploitation, male violence and institutional 
racism by connecting existing struggles and 
building a common space of organization which 
overcomes the local and national isolation and 
fragmentation of single social and labor 
initiatives.

We are the women who are essential for the 
healing of the entire world from the pandemic. We 
are doing essential work and yet we find 
ourselves in miserable conditions: our work is 
underpaid and undervalued; we are overworked or 
jobless; we are forced to live in overcrowded 
places and to constantly renew our residence 
permits. We face a daily struggle against male 
violence, at home and in our workplaces. We are 
fed up with these violent and exploitative 
conditions and refuse to remain silent! We 
started organizing together in a network that 
connects struggling women, migrants and workers 
in Central, Eastern and Western Europe: this is 
Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational 
(EAST). On the 8th of March we call all who 
struggle against capitalist, patriarchal and 
racist violence to join our strike!.

On the 8th of March we strike against the 
exploitation of our productive and reproductive 
labor. With our essential work as nurses, 
cleaners, teachers, grocery store workers, 
logistic and seasonal workers, paid and unpaid 
domestic workers and caregivers for kids, elderly 
and sick people, we keep society afloat. 
Especially with schools and kindergartens closed, 
the burden of childcare and domestic work is on 
our shoulders. During the pandemic many of us 
have lost their jobs among others because at home 
we had children to take care of and domestic work 
to do. Our work is essential, at home and in the 
workplaces, and yet degraded.

On the 8th of March we strike against the 
tightening of patriarchal violence! National 
governments are using the pandemic as a chance to 
strengthen the grip of patriarchy: in Poland, 
with the attempt to further limit freedom of 
abortion; in Turkey, with the proposal to 
withdraw from the Istanbul convention; in 
Hungary, with the restrictions of transgender 
rights and an anti-LGBTQ agenda. While we were 
told to "stay home, stay safe", many of us don't 
have homes at all. And for many others their 
homes are everything but a safe space as they 
live with abusive partners and struggle against 
increased domestic violence during the lockdowns. 
An open attack has been waged to make us stick to 
the role of serfs of society, subordinate at home 
and exploited in the outside world.  

On the 8th of March we strike against the racist 
and exploitative regimes of mobility! As care and 
seasonal migrant workers from Eastern Europe, we 
have been "allowed" to reach Western countries to 
perform essential labor here, but we had to do so 
at our own risk, with no protections or social 
security. Our work sustains (health)care in the 
West, while in the East, the healthcare systems 
are collapsing on the shoulders of overworked and 
under equipped workers. Migrants and refugees 
from within and outside of the EU are left living 
in overcrowded dormitories, camps and working in 
unsafe environments, while they are never 
entitled to the same monetary aid that local 
populations are given. On the unequally divided 
map of Europe, migrants are paying the highest 
price of the pandemic, as they usually pay the 
highest price of exploitation.

We refuse to be considered essential only to be 
exploited and oppressed! Inspired by former and 
ongoing struggles, we build on the experiences of 
the global women's strike, the Polish women's 
strike and the feminist struggles in Argentina 
for the right to abortion. We look up to the 
protests and strikes of nurses, doctors, 
(child)care workers, logistic and seasonal 
workers in Bulgaria, Georgia, Austria, Romania, 
the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and France. We 
learn from the struggle against the Romanian law 
banning the discussion of 'gender' in education, 
the migrants' transnational mobilizations and the 
demonstrations for black lives. Building on these 
collective experiences of struggle and their 
power to challenge the status quo, we call women, 
workers, migrants and LGBTQI+ people to join us 
in an essential strike on the 8th of March. Our 
strike strives to disrupt the current conditions 
of our oppression and claim us a voice in the 
conditions of the reconstruction. With our strike 
we fight for the following demands:

Freedom from patriarchal violence in all its 
forms! We see violence against women not as an 
isolated event, but as part of the whole 
patriarchal system that wants to make us stick to 
the role of caregivers. We refuse to bear the 
burden of essential work imposed on us through 
violence and harassment. We oppose the attacks of 
ultra-conservative governments and demand safe, 
legal and free abortion and contraception in 
every country. We demand an immediate stop of the 
political and legislative attacks on LGBTQI+ 
communities.

Higher wages for all! Our feminist struggle over 
wages is not simply against the gender pay gap, 
but against the capitalist conditions which 
produce and reproduce so many more wage 
hierarchies between genders and ethnicities, 
nationalities and whole regions. While the rich 
have sought the pandemic as an opportunity to 
amass more wealth, we are left behind to bear the 
burden of austerity. Enough! We do not simply 
claim wage equality of the genders, but higher 
wages for all workers! We demand the 
transnational redistribution of wealth! Let's 
start taking back what is ours!

Well-funded and inclusive welfare 
transnationally! We refuse reconstruction plans 
that continue off-loading the costs of 
decades-long welfare cutbacks on women and 
migrants. We want to create transnational 
connections between struggles for welfare, aids 
and social security. Even though welfare 
conditions differ from country to country, they 
are based on the gender and racist division of 
labour and wage differences that create 
hierarchies between women of different 
nationalities. We want to turn these hierarchies 
into a common fight against patriarchal welfare 
transnationally!

Unconditional European residence permit for 
all migrants, refugees and asylum seekers! We 
reject the way governments and bosses blackmail 
migrants by imposing impossible economic and 
institutional requirements necessary to obtain 
and renew residence permits. This forces 
migrants, especially from outside the EU, into 
otherwise unacceptable working conditions.

Safe and better housing for all! By March 2020, 
we were already in a deep housing crisis. 
Throughout the pandemic our homes have become 
politicized even more so beyond our agency and 
consent! We demand adequate and financially 
accessible housing for all, free from 
overcrowding and precarious conditions! We call 
for the immediate rehousing of persons that went 
through domestic violence!

With our essential strike we want to show 
that our lives and our struggles are essential! 
Therefore, we need to join forces across the 
borders. On the 8th of March we want to call 
everyone to make visible the force of essential 
labour and use it as a weapon to impose our terms 
for the post-pandemic reconstruction! 

We call on everyone to organize strikes in the 
workplaces and outside of them, demonstrations, 
marches, assemblies, flashmobs, symbolic actions, 
pañuelazos, ruidazos! Let's push unions to 
support the women strike! Let's imagine together 
the ways to make our different struggles visible 
and connect them across borders.

We call all women, migrants and workers who share 
our vision and demands to join us for a public 
assembly on the 21st of February where we will 
discuss the horizons of our essential strike!

We invite everyone, who identifies with this 
manifesto <https://forms.gle/zpNnciKrGZikBHB79>to 
sign it, share it widely or translate it to their 
language so that it can reach more women, 
migrants and workers.

Our work is essential, our life is essential, our strike is essential!

Sign the manifesto 
here: <https://forms.gle/zpNnciKrGZikBHB79>https://forms.gle/zpNnciKrGZikBHB79 

Stay in touch with us on Facebook 
(<https://www.facebook.com/EASTEssentialStruggles>EAST 
- Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational) 
or by email 
at <mailto:essentialstruggles at gmail.com>essentialstruggles at gmail.com.


E.A.S.T. (Essential Autonomous Struggles 
Transnational) is a network composed mostly of 
women, migrants, workers and activists born out 
of the struggles on social reproduction triggered 
by the pandemic crisis of Covid-19. E.A.S.T., as 
the acronym suggests, has Eastern and Central 
Europe as its main focus but looks at this 
specific space as a part of a transnational field 
of struggle. The network wants to ignite new 
struggles and strikes against exploitation, male 
violence and institutional racism by connecting 
existing struggles and building a common space of 
organization which overcomes the local and 
national isolation and fragmentation of single 
social and labor initiative

--

molly hankwitz - she/her

<http://bivoulab.org>http://bivoulab.org