[ad_1]
On the eve of Labor Day in America, which is celebrated this Monday, unions representing millions of people in various sectors of the working class threaten to authorize work stoppages in support of the movement Black lives matter, amid calls for concrete action to address racial injustice.
In a statement shared for the first time with The Associated Press, union leaders representing teachers, auto workers, truckers and clerks, among others, indicated on Friday their willingness to intensify protest tactics to force local and federal lawmakers to take action on law enforcement reform and systemic racism. They said the walkouts, if they went ahead with them, would last as long as necessary.
“The status quo – of police killing black people, armed white nationalists killing protesters, millions of sick and increasingly desperate – is clearly unfair, and cannot continue,” the statement said. It was signed by various affiliates of the American Federation of State, District, and Municipal Employees, the International Union of Service Employees, and affiliates of the National Education Association.
The trade union movement in general has made itself heard Increasingly since the May 25 murder of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who was killed when a white police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes in the course of a counterfeit money arrest.
Floyd’s death in Minneapolis triggered an unprecedented wave of protests and riots from coast to coast this summer. In July, unionized workers organized a one-day strike with workers from the service industry, fast food chains and the independent economy to denounce the lack of protection against the coronavirus pandemic for essential workers, a sector where Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately more numerous.
Now, after the August shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man seriously wounded by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, union leaders say they are following the lead of several professional athletes, who last week staged strikes in the wake of the incident. Basketball, baseball, and tennis league games had to be postponed. Some athletes resumed the games only after talking with league officials about ways to support the push for reforms in police departments and honor victims of police violence and citizen patrols.
Although some unions have a history of excluding workers on the basis of gender or race, the marriage between the racial and labor justice movements dates back decades. That alliance was most prominently displayed during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which featured the visions of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Representative John Lewis and was organized by A. Philip Randolph, a black icon. of the labor movement.
Today, black workers are more likely to be unionized than any other segment of the workforce, as a result of decades of collaboration between labor and civil rights activists, said the New York University professor and civil rights historian. Thomas Sugrue.
“That connection has only been intensified by the importance of workers of color, particularly African-Americans, in the labor movement,” Sugrue said.
Public and private employers are faced with a “whose side are you on?” Moment. due to growing support for the Black Lives Matter movement, said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party and a leading organizer in the Movement for Black Lives, a national coalition of 150 organizations led by black activists.
“If I were a decision maker analyzing whether or not to comply with the demands of the unions, I would be scared”Mitchell said. “This movement is spreading. We have been constantly on the streets, we are moving forward on the electoral front and now we are seeing this conversation at the highest levels of the workforce. “
[ad_2]
