Unions weigh stoppages over racial justice

NEW YORK — Ahead of Labor Day, unions representing millions of people across several working-class sectors are threatening to authorize work stoppages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement amid calls for measures that address racial injustice.

In a statement first shared with The Associated Press, labor leaders who represent teachers, autoworkers, truck drivers and clerical staff, among others, signaled a willingness Friday to escalate protest tactics to force local and federal lawmakers to take action on policing and systemic racism. They said the walkouts, if they were to move forward with them, would last for as long as needed.

“The status quo — of police killing Black people, of armed white nationalists killing demonstrators, of millions sick and increasingly desperate — is clearly unjust, and it cannot continue,” the statement says. It was signed by several branches of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Service Employees International Union, and affiliates of the National Education Association.

The broader labor movement has been vocal since the May 25 killing of George Floyd. In July, organized labor staged a daylong strike with workers from the service industry, fast-food chains and the gig economy to call out the lack of coronavirus pandemic protections for essential workers, who are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

Now, in the wake of the August shooting of Jacob Blake, who was critically wounded by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wis., the union leaders say they are following the lead of professional athletes who last week staged walkouts over the shooting. Basketball, baseball and tennis games had to be postponed. Some athletes resumed play only after having talks with league officials over ways to support the push for policing changes and to honor victims of police and vigilante violence.

“They remind us that when we strike to withhold our labor, we have the power to bring an unjust status quo to a grinding halt,” the union leaders said in the statement.

“We echo the call to local and federal government to divest from the police, to redistribute the stolen wealth of the billionaire class, and to invest in what our people need to live in peace, dignity, and abundance: universal health care and housing, public jobs programs and cash assistance, and safe working conditions,” the statement reads.

Among the supportive unions are ones representing Wisconsin public school teachers who, ahead of the mid-September start of the school year, urged state legislators to take on policing changes and systemic racism.

“We stand in solidarity with Jacob Blake and his family, and all communities fighting to defend Black lives from police and vigilante violence,” Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Amy Mizialko told the AP.

“Are we striking tomorrow? No,” said Racine Educator United President Angelina Cruz, who represents teachers in a community that abuts Kenosha. “Are we in conversation with our members and the national labor movement about how we escalate our tactics to stop fascism and win justice? Yes.”

The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, which represents several hundred professionals working at more than 25 civil rights groups and think tanks, said it signed onto the union statement because “the fights for workers’ rights, civil rights and racial justice are inextricably linked.”

At the federal level, the Democratic-controlled House has already passed the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, which would ban police use of strangleholds and end qualified immunity for officers, among other changes. The measure awaits action in the Senate.

A Republican-authored police bill, introduced in June by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, failed a procedural vote in the Senate because Democrats felt the measure didn’t go far enough to address officer accountability.

Meanwhile, officials who serve on governing bodies in more than a dozen major U.S. cities, including Seattle, San Francisco, New York City and Austin, Texas, have voted to defund their police departments and reallocate the money to mental health, homelessness and education services.