A general strike is scheduled to take place in communities across the U.S. on Friday, January 30, prompting the closures of numerous restaurants, bars, and other businesses across the Bay Area. The action comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conduct violent raids and perpetrate deadly clashes with legal observers and protestors in Minnesota. Strikers in the Bay Area will join demonstrators in cities across the U.S., rallying against the widespread violence with a singular message: ICE, get the hell out.
Immigration and Border Patrol agents have conducted actions under all recent presidential administrations. However, those powers expanded under President Donald Trump in his second term, and with it, occupations of cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon. In recent weeks, horrifying images and stories have poured out of Minneapolis and St. Paul as Homeland Security initiated a massive crackdown on Twin Cities — traumatizing raids, wrongful detainments, injuries, threats, and violence. Multiple people have died in ICE custody. ICE and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24 and Renee Nicole Good on January 7 in Minneapolis; Silverio Villegas González on September 12 in Chicago; Isaias Sanchez Barboza in Texas on December 11; Keith Porter in Los Angeles on December 31.
“We know capitalism doesn’t cede to conscience, it cedes to pressure.”
Strikers pledge not attend work or school, or patronize major businesses. The disruption of business as usual is meant to show force and put economic pressure on the government to halt mass raids and decrease funding for ICE. It’s entirely noteworthy that the strike on Friday, January 30, coincides with Congress’s deadline to vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and just six days after Pretti’s death at the hands of ICE agents, the day after a massive strike in Minneapolis that saw hundreds of businesses close in solidarity.
Despite the economic impact of closing on one of the busiest days of the week for restaurants and bars in one of the most difficult months of the year for the industry, a swell of hospitality workers and small businesses have made the decision to close: Their ranks include Bombera, Specs, the Crown, the Mill, Hilda and Jesse, Al Pastor Papi, Donaji, Arizmendi, Cheese Board, Black Jet, and others.
Golden Sardine is owned by couple Anthony Paul Nelson and Caitlyn Skye Wild, both known for their work in poetry, as well as running their popular North Beach wine bar. As uncomfortable as he is being a voice for business owners in the midst of strike organizing, Nelson feels it’s important to speak up. “We’re opening our phone, and we’re essentially watching snuff movies every morning,” Nelson says. “There’s [a] feeling like there’s nothing you can do, so any small thing, even if it’s just sending support and standing in solidarity with communities that are even more affected than ours in Minneapolis or Portland or D.C., so people know that they’re not alone in their struggle and that there are folks all over the U.S., all over the world that are pulling for them.”
People rally during a demonstration at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 23. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Nelson says his team discusses the raids and resulting protests constantly, and the staff on Friday agreed to close. Still, Nelson recognizes that it may not be fiscally responsible for businesses to close for a day in January, a historically slow month for bars and restaurants, let alone a bustling Friday with patrons. “Anyone who does find a way to make it possible to close, that’s just exciting, for thinking of a different way of interacting with the regime and using our economic capacity to draw attention to what’s going on,” Nelson says. “But anyone that’s not going to close, I totally get that. I would never want to put pressure on the small businesses — we’re not the problem.”
Other businesses, in concert with their teams, have decided to stay open while trying to do what they can for the movement. What that looks like is places like Calaca Coffee or Oakland Yard Wine Shop offering to donate money earned on certain dishes or drinks, or offering a free bite and a place for the community to gather.
Chef and writer Reem Assil of Arab bakery and restaurant Reem’s recognizes the power of community, but also knows the financial stress it puts on employees to not work for the day. Assil checked in with her team and says they made the decision together to remain open, although they will be forgoing wholesale orders and deliveries on Friday. Instead, they decided to offer free coffee from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to encourage anyone who’s on the fence about protesting to come out. “[We] will continue to hold space for refuge, gathering, strategizing, organizing, and disrupting status quo,” the Reem’s post reads.
Assil, an outspoken activist and labor organizer, recognizes the power of protest and believes in organized, general strikes. “We saw what we let happen with our funded tax dollars in places like Sudan, and Palestine in particular, because our tax dollars are connected — we funded that genocide,” Assil says. “And so this is really the imperial boomerang, as we call it. If we can let that happen elsewhere, it’ll certainly come back to us.”
What Assil hopes to see is continued pressure on the government, more organized strikes, and more coordination among business owners to leverage their power in the city as “a force to be reckoned with.”
“As a union labor organizer, our consumerism, our dollars, our labor, all of that, that is what moves the cogs of this machine,” Assil says. “We know capitalism doesn’t cede to conscience, it cedes to pressure.”
“These strikes are supposed to feel uncomfortable, it’s supposed to remind people of what we’re living in,” Assil says. “And I think there is something to be said about putting your body on the line — we’re seeing what’s happening in Minneapolis, and this could happen here at any given moment.”
In solidarity with the general strike and the immigrants who support our national food system from our farms to restaurants, and in solidarity with Minnesota and communities across the United States, Eater SF will not publish stories on Friday, January 30.