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UC Unions Call On AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union's Membership |
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UC Unions Call On AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union's Membership |
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UC Unions Call On AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union's Membership
Citing a "long history of police intervention in labor politics and its
complicity in racial violence," the UAW members say they want the cops'
union out of the country's largest labor federation. (Ben Musseig / Flickr)
Citing a "long history of police intervention in labor politics and its
complicity in racial violence," the UAW members say they want the cops'
union out of the country's largest labor federation. (Ben Musseig / Flickr)
United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing 13,000 teaching
assistants and other student workers throughout the University of
California, called on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the
International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) in a resolution passed by
its governing body on July 25.
The resolution came in the wake of a letter written by the UAW's Black
Interests Coordinating Committee (BICC). The group formed in December 2014
in response to the acquittals of police officers in the deaths of Mike Brown
and Eric Garner and is largely inspired by recent actions in the Black Lives
Matter movement. With the letter, BICC aims to "start a really difficult
conversation that the labor movement has had in the past and needs to
continue to have around the intersections of race and labor, economic
privation and racial disparity," according to BICC member Brandon Buchanan,
a graduate student currently studying Sociology at UC Davis who serves as
Head Steward.
The letter charges that police associations operate in ways that are
antithetical to the mission statement of the AFL-CIO, particularly its
stated goal "to fulfill the yearning of the human spirit for liberty,
justice and community; to advance individual and associational freedom;
[and] to vanquish oppression, privation and cruelty in all their forms."
It provides historical evidence to its allegations, saying, "Police unions
in particular emerge out of a long history of police intervention in labor
politics and its complicity in racial violence," before referencing deadly
disputes with activist workers in the 19th century, the defense of Jim Crow
segregation, the lobbying that enabled the circumstances of Freddie Gray's
death and the crackdown on the Occupy movement across the country as
examples of American police acting as a "violent supressive force."
The letter can be read in full below:
block quote
We, UAW Local 2865, call on the American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to end their affiliation with the
International Union of Police Associations. It is our position that this
organization is inimical to both the interests of labor broadly, and Black
workers in particular. Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve
the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests
of police as laborers. Instead, their "unionization" allows police to
masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in
enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the
working-class. We ask that the AFL-CIO recognize this history and take steps
to serve the interests of its Black workers and community members.
Background:
The AFL-CIO's official mission is
"to fulfill the yearning of the human spirit for liberty, justice and
community; to advance individual and associational freedom; [and] to
vanquish oppression, privation, and cruelty in all their forms." This, we
argue, is the calling of a union to be a force for advancing the lives of
workers. Within this framework, police unions fail to meet the criteria of a
union or a valid part of the labor movement.
While it is true that police are workers, and thus hypothetically subject to
the same kinds of exploitation as other laborers, they are also the
militarized, coercive arm of the state. It is the job of the police to
protect capital and, consequently, maintain class society. How can there
ever be solidarity between law enforcement and the working class when elites
call upon police and their organizations to quell mass resistance to poverty
and inequality? The police force exists solely to uphold the status quo.
Their material survival depends on it, and they hold a vested interest in
the preservation and expansion of the most deplorable practices of the
state.
Present Day:
We have seen this vested interest manifest itself very visibly over the past
year. By calling themselves a union, police have utilized union resources to
defend brutality and anti-Blackness. Police unions channel resources towards
upholding racist practices in a few key ways:
list of 3 items
Lobbying to oppose independent oversight by civilians and other governmental
entities.
Campaigning for political actors who support limited police accountability.
Defending officers' crimes of racist brutality in court.
list end
These elements have clearly shaped the context that enabled the tragic
circumstances of Freddie Gray's death and speak to the contemporary moment
in which Black lives are considered less important than job protection for
police. Advocated for by the police union, The Maryland Law Enforcement
Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBoR) aims to protect the rights of officers
above the needs of the community. In cases where police misconduct is
reported, such as in instances of "rough rides," police officers do not have
to answer questions until 10 days have passed and a lawyer has been
consulted. Subsequently, the overall review process outlined by the LEOBoR
empowers a hearing board of fellow officers to have final approval over any
penalties imposed upon accused officers-this has resulted in the
preservation of employment for nearly all accused officers despite the 3,048
complaints have been filed against 850 Baltimore PD officers (30% of its
police force) since 2012. If complaints do manage to make it past this
extra layer of due process, union legal resources are used to defend the
officers against charges of racist misconduct in court. By unconditionally
insulating officers accused of brutality from facing consequences, police
unions maintain the status quo of racial violence that upholds the
exploitation of Black communities in particular, as well as other
communities of color.
Historical Evidence:
We recognize that these are not isolated incidents, but arise from a long
history of policing as a profession. Police unions in particular emerge out
of a long history of police intervention in labor politics andits complicity
in racial violence. The modern U.S. institution of the police has roots in
the repressive demands of powerful white capitalists. Overseers and slave
patrols in the South evolved alongside the growing need to maintain "order"
in early urban areas in the North. In fact, armed "night watches" mirrored
policing practices by being a front line of defense against Native American
raids on colonies. Policing in the U.S. has always served the needs of
colonialism, racism, and capitalism by protecting the property of those who
would steal land and exploit the labor of others. Neither the property of
indigenous people nor the products of the labor of both workers and slaves
has ever come under protection of the institution of the police. It has only
ever been the property of the powerful that the police protect. Maintaining
this system of relations is the so called "order" that police have sworn to
defend.
In fact, early attempts by labor to organize and fight for rights and better
pay and working conditions have historically been met with violence. These
instances are many: from picket line fights to police enforced lock-outs;
from crackdowns on rallies, like the Thompson Square "riot" of 1874 at a
rally for the unemployed in New York City, when police indiscriminately
brutalized men, women, and children; to massacres committed by private
police, like the two dozen men, women, and children killed in the Ludlow
Massacre; and by public police, notably during the Haymarket Massacre we
commemorate every year on May Day.
Modern examples exist as well: police played a significant role in defending
Jim Crow segregation. We have all seen the images and video of police
siccing dogs on Black protesters, shooting them with water cannons, or billy
clubbing them. Racist violence was not confined to the pre-Civil Rights
South; Philadelphia police bombed the headquarters of Black radical
organization MOVE in 1985, killing 11 people, including children. Recall
also the assassination of Fred Hampton, leader of the Black Panther Party,
by the Chicago PD in collaboration with the FBI. Very recently, the
nationally-coordinated effort to crack down on and ultimately destroy the
Occupy movement involved police departments across the country working in
unison to stop the most effective modern social movement in opposition to
economic inequality. American police as an institution have historically
been and continue to be the violent supressive force used to maintain a
white supremacist capitalist system on settler colonial land. If labor is to
ever truly exert its power and challenge the corporate rule of the U.S., we
will need to break the illusion that the police are part of the family of
unions that make up organized labor.
Conclusion:
The AFL-CIO is an organization truly concerned with issues facing the
laborers of America today. The history of policing and its use of union
resources to silence those who are harmed by police brutality runs contrary
to this mission statement. As Shawn Gude recently put it, to become agents
of progressive change and labor solidarity, police unions would need to work
actively to negate their own power and abolish the police. We endorse this
position, and call on the AFL-CIO to do so as well. As a union, we argue
that the International Union of Police Associations fails to adhere to the
goals of the Federation, and therefore should not be included in the list of
unions which are fighting for worker's rights.
block quote end
The letter was presented by Buchanan on behalf of BICC to the joint council
of UAW Local 2865, the local's governing board. According to Buchanan, the
letter and its call to the AFL-CIO were endorsed overwhelmingly.
"The AFL-CIO is an enormous part of the labor movement. It has a lot of say,
it influences elections, it is an organization which serves to build a lot
of solidarity between a number of different unions," Buchanan told
In These Times. "But at the same time, one of the things that we noticed is
that it also has these police associations which are a part of it-police
associations who have consistently worked not necessarily in the interest of
workers, in particular black workers, but instead have upheld a capitalist
status quo as well as white supremacy."
The endorsed letter echoes the sentiment made by Shawn Gude
last year at
Jacobin:
block quote
When there's mass resistance to poverty and inequality, it's the cops who
are summoned to calm the panic-stricken hearts of the elite. They bash some
heads, or infiltrate and disrupt some activist groups, and all is right in
the world again.
Such is the inherent defect of law-enforcement unionism: It's peopled by
those with a material interest in maintaining and enlarging the state's most
indefensible practices.
block quote end
Earlier this year, in an article entitled
"Blood On Their Hands: The Racist History of Modern Police Unions," human
rights attorney Flint Taylor gave an overview of such sordid practices for
In These Times.
Buchanan says that while the endorsement came with an overwhelming majority
of the governing board voting in favor, there was concern from certain
members who questioned whether the endorsement would alienate those who had
relationships with people in the police force.
"This is not about individuals. We're not talking about or calling out
individual people. We're calling out structures of power," Buchanan stresses
in response. "We're not saying that [police officers] are individually bad.
But what we're talking about is things like vilifying black bodies to
protect police officers who brutalize and kill black people and then get
away with it with the support of these police associations."
UAW 2865's governing body made similar waves with its activist streak last
year when it became
the first American local to endorse the global movement for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
While numerous American unions have held actions
against police brutality in the past year (such as the May Day port
shutdowns by ILWU Local 10 in Oakland and ILA Local 1422 in Charleston,
South Carolina), UAW 2865 is the first local to explicitly call for
disassociation between police unions and the rest of organized labor
currently operating under the umbrella of the national federation.
In a story detailing the history of police unions and organized labor for Al
Jazeera America in December, Ned Resnikoff reported that an AFL-CIO
spokesperson downplayed any tension between the two sides,
saying, "The AFL-CIO is like any family. . With 57 affiliated unions and a
diversity of membership there is bound to be some disagreement."
Buchanan believes that disaffiliation between the AFL-CIO and IUPA would
mean that the IUPA would lose legitimacy as an organization and thus
transfer AFL-CIO support from police associations and instead towards people
of color and their communities, who he says have been traditionally locked
out of organizing spaces.
"It's a question of legitimacy. Having [the AFL-CIO] disaffiliate
demonstrates that if our union organizing is meant to address the interests
of workers-and black workers are included in that-then these police
associations are inimical to those interests," Buchanan says.
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UC Unions Call On AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union's Membership
Citing a "long history of police intervention in labor politics and its
complicity in racial violence," the UAW members say they want the cops'
union out of the country's largest labor federation. (Ben Musseig / Flickr)
Citing a "long history of police intervention in labor politics and its
complicity in racial violence," the UAW members say they want the cops'
union out of the country's largest labor federation. (Ben Musseig / Flickr)
United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing 13,000 teaching
assistants and other student workers throughout the University of
California, called on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the
International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) in a resolution passed by
its governing body on July 25.
The resolution came in the wake of a letter written by the UAW's Black
Interests Coordinating Committee (BICC). The group formed in December 2014
in response to the acquittals of police officers in the deaths of Mike Brown
and Eric Garner and is largely inspired by recent actions in the Black Lives
Matter movement. With the letter, BICC aims to "start a really difficult
conversation that the labor movement has had in the past and needs to
continue to have around the intersections of race and labor, economic
privation and racial disparity," according to BICC member Brandon Buchanan,
a graduate student currently studying Sociology at UC Davis who serves as
Head Steward.
The letter charges that police associations operate in ways that are
antithetical to the mission statement of the AFL-CIO, particularly its
stated goal "to fulfill the yearning of the human spirit for liberty,
justice and community; to advance individual and associational freedom;
[and] to vanquish oppression, privation and cruelty in all their forms."
It provides historical evidence to its allegations, saying, "Police unions
in particular emerge out of a long history of police intervention in labor
politics and its complicity in racial violence," before referencing deadly
disputes with activist workers in the 19th century, the defense of Jim Crow
segregation, the lobbying that enabled the circumstances of Freddie Gray's
death and the crackdown on the Occupy movement across the country as
examples of American police acting as a "violent supressive force."
The letter can be read in full below:
block quote
We, UAW Local 2865, call on the American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to end their affiliation with the
International Union of Police Associations. It is our position that this
organization is inimical to both the interests of labor broadly, and Black
workers in particular. Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve
the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests
of police as laborers. Instead, their "unionization" allows police to
masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in
enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the
working-class. We ask that the AFL-CIO recognize this history and take steps
to serve the interests of its Black workers and community members.
Background:
The AFL-CIO's official mission is
"to fulfill the yearning of the human spirit for liberty, justice and
community; to advance individual and associational freedom; [and] to
vanquish oppression, privation, and cruelty in all their forms." This, we
argue, is the calling of a union to be a force for advancing the lives of
workers. Within this framework, police unions fail to meet the criteria of a
union or a valid part of the labor movement.
While it is true that police are workers, and thus hypothetically subject to
the same kinds of exploitation as other laborers, they are also the
militarized, coercive arm of the state. It is the job of the police to
protect capital and, consequently, maintain class society. How can there
ever be solidarity between law enforcement and the working class when elites
call upon police and their organizations to quell mass resistance to poverty
and inequality? The police force exists solely to uphold the status quo.
Their material survival depends on it, and they hold a vested interest in
the preservation and expansion of the most deplorable practices of the
state.
Present Day:
We have seen this vested interest manifest itself very visibly over the past
year. By calling themselves a union, police have utilized union resources to
defend brutality and anti-Blackness. Police unions channel resources towards
upholding racist practices in a few key ways:
list of 3 items
Lobbying to oppose independent oversight by civilians and other governmental
entities.
Campaigning for political actors who support limited police accountability.
Defending officers' crimes of racist brutality in court.
list end
These elements have clearly shaped the context that enabled the tragic
circumstances of Freddie Gray's death and speak to the contemporary moment
in which Black lives are considered less important than job protection for
police. Advocated for by the police union, The Maryland Law Enforcement
Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBoR) aims to protect the rights of officers
above the needs of the community. In cases where police misconduct is
reported, such as in instances of "rough rides," police officers do not have
to answer questions until 10 days have passed and a lawyer has been
consulted. Subsequently, the overall review process outlined by the LEOBoR
empowers a hearing board of fellow officers to have final approval over any
penalties imposed upon accused officers-this has resulted in the
preservation of employment for nearly all accused officers despite the 3,048
complaints have been filed against 850 Baltimore PD officers (30% of its
police force) since 2012. If complaints do manage to make it past this
extra layer of due process, union legal resources are used to defend the
officers against charges of racist misconduct in court. By unconditionally
insulating officers accused of brutality from facing consequences, police
unions maintain the status quo of racial violence that upholds the
exploitation of Black communities in particular, as well as other
communities of color.
Historical Evidence:
We recognize that these are not isolated incidents, but arise from a long
history of policing as a profession. Police unions in particular emerge out
of a long history of police intervention in labor politics andits complicity
in racial violence. The modern U.S. institution of the police has roots in
the repressive demands of powerful white capitalists. Overseers and slave
patrols in the South evolved alongside the growing need to maintain "order"
in early urban areas in the North. In fact, armed "night watches" mirrored
policing practices by being a front line of defense against Native American
raids on colonies. Policing in the U.S. has always served the needs of
colonialism, racism, and capitalism by protecting the property of those who
would steal land and exploit the labor of others. Neither the property of
indigenous people nor the products of the labor of both workers and slaves
has ever come under protection of the institution of the police. It has only
ever been the property of the powerful that the police protect. Maintaining
this system of relations is the so called "order" that police have sworn to
defend.
In fact, early attempts by labor to organize and fight for rights and better
pay and working conditions have historically been met with violence. These
instances are many: from picket line fights to police enforced lock-outs;
from crackdowns on rallies, like the Thompson Square "riot" of 1874 at a
rally for the unemployed in New York City, when police indiscriminately
brutalized men, women, and children; to massacres committed by private
police, like the two dozen men, women, and children killed in the Ludlow
Massacre; and by public police, notably during the Haymarket Massacre we
commemorate every year on May Day.
Modern examples exist as well: police played a significant role in defending
Jim Crow segregation. We have all seen the images and video of police
siccing dogs on Black protesters, shooting them with water cannons, or billy
clubbing them. Racist violence was not confined to the pre-Civil Rights
South; Philadelphia police bombed the headquarters of Black radical
organization MOVE in 1985, killing 11 people, including children. Recall
also the assassination of Fred Hampton, leader of the Black Panther Party,
by the Chicago PD in collaboration with the FBI. Very recently, the
nationally-coordinated effort to crack down on and ultimately destroy the
Occupy movement involved police departments across the country working in
unison to stop the most effective modern social movement in opposition to
economic inequality. American police as an institution have historically
been and continue to be the violent supressive force used to maintain a
white supremacist capitalist system on settler colonial land. If labor is to
ever truly exert its power and challenge the corporate rule of the U.S., we
will need to break the illusion that the police are part of the family of
unions that make up organized labor.
Conclusion:
The AFL-CIO is an organization truly concerned with issues facing the
laborers of America today. The history of policing and its use of union
resources to silence those who are harmed by police brutality runs contrary
to this mission statement. As Shawn Gude recently put it, to become agents
of progressive change and labor solidarity, police unions would need to work
actively to negate their own power and abolish the police. We endorse this
position, and call on the AFL-CIO to do so as well. As a union, we argue
that the International Union of Police Associations fails to adhere to the
goals of the Federation, and therefore should not be included in the list of
unions which are fighting for worker's rights.
block quote end
The letter was presented by Buchanan on behalf of BICC to the joint council
of UAW Local 2865, the local's governing board. According to Buchanan, the
letter and its call to the AFL-CIO were endorsed overwhelmingly.
"The AFL-CIO is an enormous part of the labor movement. It has a lot of say,
it influences elections, it is an organization which serves to build a lot
of solidarity between a number of different unions," Buchanan told
In These Times. "But at the same time, one of the things that we noticed is
that it also has these police associations which are a part of it-police
associations who have consistently worked not necessarily in the interest of
workers, in particular black workers, but instead have upheld a capitalist
status quo as well as white supremacy."
The endorsed letter echoes the sentiment made by Shawn Gude
last year at
Jacobin:
block quote
When there's mass resistance to poverty and inequality, it's the cops who
are summoned to calm the panic-stricken hearts of the elite. They bash some
heads, or infiltrate and disrupt some activist groups, and all is right in
the world again.
Such is the inherent defect of law-enforcement unionism: It's peopled by
those with a material interest in maintaining and enlarging the state's most
indefensible practices.
block quote end
Earlier this year, in an article entitled
"Blood On Their Hands: The Racist History of Modern Police Unions," human
rights attorney Flint Taylor gave an overview of such sordid practices for
In These Times.
Buchanan says that while the endorsement came with an overwhelming majority
of the governing board voting in favor, there was concern from certain
members who questioned whether the endorsement would alienate those who had
relationships with people in the police force.
"This is not about individuals. We're not talking about or calling out
individual people. We're calling out structures of power," Buchanan stresses
in response. "We're not saying that [police officers] are individually bad.
But what we're talking about is things like vilifying black bodies to
protect police officers who brutalize and kill black people and then get
away with it with the support of these police associations."
UAW 2865's governing body made similar waves with its activist streak last
year when it became
the first American local to endorse the global movement for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
While numerous American unions have held actions
against police brutality in the past year (such as the May Day port
shutdowns by ILWU Local 10 in Oakland and ILA Local 1422 in Charleston,
South Carolina), UAW 2865 is the first local to explicitly call for
disassociation between police unions and the rest of organized labor
currently operating under the umbrella of the national federation.
In a story detailing the history of police unions and organized labor for Al
Jazeera America in December, Ned Resnikoff reported that an AFL-CIO
spokesperson downplayed any tension between the two sides,
saying, "The AFL-CIO is like any family. . With 57 affiliated unions and a
diversity of membership there is bound to be some disagreement."
Buchanan believes that disaffiliation between the AFL-CIO and IUPA would
mean that the IUPA would lose legitimacy as an organization and thus
transfer AFL-CIO support from police associations and instead towards people
of color and their communities, who he says have been traditionally locked
out of organizing spaces.
"It's a question of legitimacy. Having [the AFL-CIO] disaffiliate
demonstrates that if our union organizing is meant to address the interests
of workers-and black workers are included in that-then these police
associations are inimical to those interests," Buchanan says.
UC Unions Call On AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Uni
