James,
My heart is heavy at the events of the past few days. I watched the video of George Floyd pleading for his life under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. No person of conscience can hear Floyd’s cries for help and not understand that something is deeply wrong in America.
What happened to George Floyd, what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, what happened to far too many unarmed people of color has happened for centuries. The difference is now we have cell phones. It’s there for all of us to see. And we can’t turn our heads and look away because we feel uncomfortable.
Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. This is a labor issue because it is a workplace issue. It is a community issue, and unions are the community. We must and will continue to fight for reforms in policing and to address issues of racial and economic inequality.
We categorically reject those on the fringes who are engaging in violence and destroying property. Attacks like the one on the AFL-CIO headquarters are senseless, disgraceful and only play into the hands of those who have oppressed workers of color for generations and detract from the peaceful, passionate protesters who are rightly bringing issues of racism to the forefront.
But in the end, the labor movement is not a building. We are a living collection of working people who will never stop fighting for economic, social and racial justice. We are united unequivocally against the forces of hate who seek to divide this nation for their own personal and political gain at our expense.
We will clean up the glass, sweep away the ashes and keep doing our part to bring a better day out of this hour of darkness and despair.
Today and always, the important work of the AFL-CIO continues unabated.
In Solidarity,
Richard Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
Statement from the CWA National Executive Board
May 29, 2020
As we reach a tragic milestone of 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19, we find ourselves confronting the other plague that has been rampaging through our communities since long before COVID-19: Racism. Compounding the devastation of a global pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted Black communities, Black people in America continue to face threats, brutality, and death for going out jogging. For being poor. For sleeping in their own bed. For watching birds in a park. For being Black.
The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the blatant display of racism in the Central Park incident with Christian Cooper demonstrate, again, this grim reality. These names are not the first, and without a profound change in ourselves and this country, they will not be the last.
The CWA Executive Board is committed to moving beyond an endless string of reaction statements and demonstrating our continued commitment to justice for Black people through our organizing, representation, political, and movement building work. We commit to creating dedicated spaces for open dialogue on race for our members and leaders to determine outcomes and clear steps the union must take to fight racism in the union, within the industries we represent and the community at-large.
There is no in-between. There is no neutral option. The only real way to dismantle racism and build the working-class power we seek is for every worker to take on the struggle for justice for Black people in this country as their own and to embrace actions that "an injury to one is an injury to all" demands of us.
It is not enough to punish the perpetrators who have taken these Black lives. It is not enough to simply identify a "few bad apples" to fire or prosecute -- a course of action which our deeply flawed legal system makes difficult to pursue. We must also do the hard, transformational work of rooting out racism in America's consciousness and the institutions that uphold it.
This work is necessary because these incidents did not happen in isolation. They happened in the context of 400 years of structural and systematic anti-Black racism. They happened in the context of centuries of stolen labor; economic pillaging by corporate America of Black communities; underfunding of public schools and services; over-criminalization and incarceration of Black bodies; the use of police as military-like forces in poor, Black and Brown neighborhoods; outsourcing of good, union jobs; persistence of food deserts in urban areas; the treatment of addiction as a crime rather than a disease; the fractured, profit-driven health care system; and the “surgical precision” of Black voter disenfranchisement.
The only pathway to a just society for all is deep, structural change. Justice for Black people is inextricably linked to justice for all working people - including White people. The bosses, the rich, and the corporate executives have known this fact and have used race as one of the most effective and destructive ways to divide workers. Unions have a duty to fight for power, dignity and the right to live for every working-class person in every place. Our fight and the issues we care about do not stop when workers punch out for the day and leave the garage, call center, office, or plant.
We will never build enough power as working people if an entire community is living under the threat of death and subject to discrimination based on the color of their skin. We will never build enough power if an entire community has its neck under an oppressor's knee.
If we are to make progress, we must listen to the experiences and stories of Black CWA members, Black workers, and the Black community. We must join together - every one of us - to dismantle this system of oppression. This means every White union member, Black union member, Latino union member and every ally, must fight and organize for Black lives. Thoughts and prayers aren't enough. No amount of statements and press releases will bring back the lives lost and remedy the suffering our communities have to bear. We must move to action.
President Christopher Shelton
Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens
District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor
District 2-13 Vice President Edward Mooney
District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt
District 4 Vice President Linda Hinton
District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings, Jr.
District 7 Vice President Brenda Roberts
District 9 Vice President Frank Arce
AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson
IUE-CWA President Carl Kennebrew
TNG-CWA President Jon Schleuss
NABET-CWA President Charles Braico
T&T Vice President Lisa Bolton
PHEW Vice President Margaret Cook
CWA-SCA Director Martin O’Hanlon
Diversity At-Large Member Dante Harris
Diversity At-Large Member Vera Mikell
Diversity At-Large Member Carolyn Wade
Diversity At-Large Member Erika White
This is from Arthur Goldstein's Executive Board Report.
Resolution on the Police Killing of George Floyd
WHEREAS, George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, while he was handcuffed and lying face down on the road; and
WHEREAS, Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng also helped restrain Floyd, who is Black, while officer Tou Thao stood nearby and looked on; and
WHEREAS, the killing was recorded by bystanders and those recordings show Floyd pleading that he couldn’t breathe; and
WHEREAS, Floyd’s death comes on the heels of the deaths earlier in the year of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman in Louisville, Kentucky, who was shot multiple times during a no-knock police raid on the wrong house, and Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man in Georgia who was chased, shot and killed while jogging by a retired police officer claiming to perform a citizen's arrest; and
WHEREAS, a National Academy of Sciences report found in 2019 that African-American men and boys are two and a half times more likely to die in an encounter with the police than their white peers; and
WHEREAS, the senseless killing of George Floyd has sparked widespread outrage and calls for justice nationwide; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, the United Federation of Teachers stands in support of George Floyd’s family and the thousands who have engaged in peaceful protests across the country; and, be it further
RESOLVED, the UFT supports the American Federation of Teachers, which condemned the killing on May 27, and asks whether this would have happened had Floyd not been Black; and, be it further
RESOLVED, the UFT demands the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of Floyd’s killing be thorough, complete and independent, and the union further avows that the nature of these acts require serious charges; and, be it further
RESOLVED, that the UFT supports a day of mourning in NYC for George Floyd, and will advocate with the DoE, the mayor, and other unions and community organizations to set such a day this month.
80 comments:
Naomi Klein
A big march can be tolerated. But there is no form of protest, expressing real rage and demanding real change, that will not be smeared and dismissed. For being too disruptive or too destructive; too incoherent or too orchestrated. It's a power struggle and power fights back.
AFLCIA at it again dividing good protestors from bad instead of organizing and facilitating the worker uprising.
How does the destruction of stores and stealing expensive merchandise bring us together?
I'm confused, Floyd's brother is telling the people in Nn to vote, every person elected there is already Democrat.
Who is dumber, teachers for repeatedly voting in mulgrew or MI, MN, MD, CA for voting dem and never seeing change or improvement?
We're doing so well u0nder Republican Trump? Maybe not.
UFT leaders do the same...Hypocrites...Deputy Chancellor Josh Wallack is just the latest top city Department of Education figure to be exposed as a hypocrite.
Wallack oversees the DOE’s drive to scrap screened admissions to elite middle and high schools — but, as The Post’s Selim Algar reported last week, he’s sending his own child to a highly selective and disproportionately white Manhattan middle school.
He’s not alone, First Deputy Chancellor Cheryl Watson-Harris, on arriving from Boston, placed two children not in their zoned schools but at PS 184 (68 percent white) and IS 187 (91 percent Asian and white). Those selective schools have the demographics that Chancellor Richard Carranza routinely blasts as “segregated.”
Oh, and: As superintendent of District 11 in The Bronx, Meisha Ross Porter used her connections to enroll a child she was caring for at a Bronx middle school that offered gifted and talented classes, instead of her zoned one that didn’t.
Heck, Carranza himself sent his daughter to a top screened school in San Francisco. Both of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s kids attended selective, screened schools, too.
We don’t blame any parent for wanting the best for their children, or for moving mountains to avoid having a kid stuck in one of the city’s all-too-many rotten zoned schools.
What’s appalling is to see some of these very same parents actively working to destroy the healthy part of the school system — after their own kids are safely out.
In other words, they work to rob others of the chance for excellence that they grabbed for their own children.
Local vs federal
1968-76: Republican presidents. 1981-1992: Republican presidents.2001-2008: Republican President.2017-2020: Republican president.
32 out of 52 Republican since 1969. Except for the thieves on Wall Street, who has gained from Republicans controlling our federal government along with basically 20 years of Democrats who look out for the same corporate masters?
Federal has tons more money and power. They can deny states and localities funding for just about anything.
Again, I'm confused at your response. What I said was that some cities have repeated dem control, FOREVER. They demand change, then re-elect the same people, the party stays in power, FOREVER. There have been R and D presidents, split fairly evenly. Since 1980, 12 years R followed by 8 years D followed by 8 years R followed by 8 years D then trump. Pretty split.
Great idea, they should pay us 5 hours per session to take more bias training.
Governors on Social Distancing
May 20: “We MUST follow the science, we cannot put lives at risk.”
June 1: “This is about healing and freedom of expression.”
So now, instead of people feeling bad for Floyd, they will say "ya see, those blacks looting again."
32 out of 52 Republican and 20 ears of centrist Democrats. Local officials have much less power. You have had your day since Nixon. No more.
To me, the looters are nothing bjut the lowest of the low in every aspect. There are criminal sentences for broken laws. That is how it works. What happened during 8 years of obama? if everyone is so mad, where was he to fix the issue.
Obama left wing, are you nuts or just under informed? Larry Summers, Bob Gates, Arne Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, etc. Look who he surrounded himself with. He made a couple of liberal supreme court appointment. And, he stimulated the economy like Trump is doing now.Obqmacare is essentially Mitt Romney's Republican get rich insurance companies medical plan.
Other than that, corporate all the way.
Wall Street looters are okay with you? Heads I win takes you lose hedge funders and banksters are fine.
This is going on right now in NY...Broad daylight. No fear of consequence, it seems. Wtf is happening in this city,
@NYCMayor
Leadership vacuum. What a disgrace.
SOHO LOOTED: Garbage bags full. @Citi bikes ready for the getaway. Broad daylight.
pretending that crime is not crime does not solve the problem.
It is crime and criminals should be arrested and prosecuted. Ok?
Riots lead to Republicans getting elected in backlash like in 1968.
Just saying i dont understand. We pretty much all agree the cop was wrong. He was arrested. what does stealing nike and dior and coach etc do except prove one is a lowlife. I could understand someone is mad and loses his temper and throws one rock...even though that would be wrong.
Is anyone going to ask one of these mayors or governors -- or folks who were celebrating the scotus ruling -- why it's ok to join mass protests but not go to church?
We all agree looting and rioting are wrong. Can we move on?
I agree with 309 and that is what trump is gonna say. dem leaders have no control, dem states are out of control, biden is bailing out rioters...and guess what, i agree with trump. liberals have proven to be criminal friendly.
They shouldn't be out. None of them.
Your conservative justice John Roberts wrote that opinion on governments having the right to close church services.
You proved my point: riots embolden conservatives who just screw us over further.
The senator from MBNA who wrote the crime bill to incarcerate so many minorities. That's Joe Biden. Yeah, he's the answer. Maybe no but under Trump this country is falling apart. Four more years and we won't recognize it.
It wouldnt be biden, it would be his vp and pelosi running the country.
Didn't these leftists//blm/antifa folks vandalize afl-cio headquarters in D.C.? Just sayin.
Pelosi is a corporate Democrat too. So is Chuckkee Cheeze Schumer
Washington Post
George Floyd died of ‘asphyxia due to neck and back compression,’ his family’s autopsy finds — contradicting county’s initial exam
The independent autopsy appears to contradict information from the criminal complaint, which said that the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation," saying that "the combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death."
So now that we agree, how are we going to change the crime rate, the single parent issues, the educational disparities, etc...
Mayor Bill de Blasio
@NYCMayor
New Yorkers: I’ve spoken with @NYGovCuomo and for everyone’s safety we have decided to implement a citywide curfew in New York City tonight. It will take effect at 11pm and be lifted at 5am tomorrow morning.
Unlike you, I don't have all the answers. I would suggest more technical education for people who might not exactly be college bound. We need good jobs that people see are attainable.
Dont worry, biden is leading by double digits.
Question...If a nyc public school has the whole staff together with the black power fist in the air and photographed it, is that appropriate?
Good luck America. Lol.
As you all sit on your psuedo high horse discuss how folks should behave, get ready for your boss and union to march you important people back into potential death chambers. The students of nyc are better off being passed and then getting the hell away from the morally bankrupt.
Divide and conquer again.
The Black Power slogan was also criticized by Martin Luther King Jr., who stated that the black power movement "connotates black supremacy and an anti-white feeling that does not or should not prevail."[74] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also disapproved of Black Power, particularly Roy Wilkins, then the NAACP's executive director, who stated that Black Power was "a reverse Hitler, a reverse Ku Klux Klan...the father of hate and mother of violence."[11] The Black Power slogan was also met with opposition from the leadership of SCLC and the Urban League.[10]
Bring this up.
@4:42pm...Yep.
@4:43 pm: What is your point? Are you black?
@4:43 pm: What is your point? Are you black?
Ok james and others, a nycdoe school has a picture of that on the official school website, the whole staff it appears, who should it be forwarded it to? what should be done?
Make an OEO complaint if you are so offended. Side show is all this is.
Tell the NYPost. They'll expose it.
Folks spending hours complaining about some vandals and property while folks are dying. Asking about black power fists? When we all celebrate St. Patrick's day by wearing green or folks wearing italian colors on Columbus day. It's all good. We do one thing and everyone gets nervous. Working class, blacks, brown, Chinese lol...if you haven't realized it yet...were all in the same building of life. We are in the tenement and the wealthy are in the house. You don't believe me? Where were many of you in mid-march? Trump is dumping on china. Some folks think they are far removed from the BS because they are on the first floor of the tenement. They may not have had their foot on your neck but they certainly pushed each and every one of you into the hot zone with zero regard.
Food distribution in Chicago Schools was suspended today. Some of our neighborhoods have no stores open.
Daily News
Protests against police brutality could give coronavirus a chance to come roaring back, Gov. Cuomo warned Monday.
The demonstrations that have rocked New York City and other cities in the wake of the death of George Floyd “could potentially be infecting hundreds and hundreds of people, after everything that we have done," the governor said.
What would happen if BK tech had the whole staff with the white power sign? It is not a side show.
If you were white or black and were made to stand in that picture? Is that not abuse of power? Is that not a felling of discomfort?
It's bullshit. As Waiting for Support said, people are dying and you are offended by a black power salute. 1,000 new COVID-19 cases is a huge problem. Rioters, looters and protesters spreading it is a bigger concern.
Call the Post if you are so offended.
When we all celebrate St. Patrick's day by wearing green or folks wearing italian colors on Columbus day. It's all good. Not the same as a principal forcing a staff to do that.
The Wall Street Journal
@WSJ
·
Students have learned one lesson well in online school: how to digitally prank their teachers
Fake grades is what we should be discussing.
Newsday
"I don't see how you could not be concerned when you see large groups of people in close proximity, screaming, chanting and yelling," said Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious diseases at Northwell Health, the largest health system in the state. "It's all horrible, because they deserve to protest, but what happens when it leads to more cases, and then the secondary cases also go directly back to those communities?"
Farber said he was slightly less concerned about Long Island communities being immediately impacted by a protest spread.
"The spread is a density issue," he said, adding that the larger protests have taken place in large cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Just had a conversation with a progressive Democrat in Colorado. Major fundraiser.
“The protestors got a few blocks from my house. And I don’t know anybody who owns a gun.”
He’s buying one today.
The left is losing their base, folks.
People choose order over anarchy.
History in 1968 shows riots helped Nixon. Nothing new. You should be happy. We will all get f***d some more. That should make you super happy.
Forced? Do you mean like someone forcing their knee in your neck? Just asking. I mean could you have said like no?
Biden is winning by double digits right now.
@5:13 pm...exactly. folks better understand that when blacks raise hell everyone benefits at the end. You're welcome. Civil rights act for All.
Coward, only word that applies, won't file a complaint or call the Post or do anything but comment anonymously.
@5:05 pm Knee on neck. Think about that.
Dont gimme that, teachers talk all the time how they are targeted, maybe the staff was fearful. They all look very young and untenured. Im sure you know the uft wouldnt save them.
@5:04 pm: Thank the coldhearted cop who killed a man.
The NY Post was just emailed with pic.
The law and order crowd may yet go to Trump if he wasn't such a terrible leader and if Biden picks Stacy Abrams or some other faces in high places African American.
My guess is that the email was anonymously sent or with a phony name. No phone numbers of outraged staff members given because there was only one I gather.
1 outraged is enough.
Hong Kongers have been on the streets protesting for over a year.
Not one shop looted.
Not. One.
Anarchy has been around since the first black stepped foot off the slave ship. American Indians can tell you more. The Japanese interred can speak up. The Chinese. The Irish. The Italians who were treated as less than... let's talk about that. You better believe that blacks are going to always fight for themselve . If nobody else will join oh well. Jews joined us i the 60s. Good folks joined us. There are some white folks vandalizing and have been confronted by black protester asking why are they doing it. The vandals come in many colors and backgrounds. Why are they vandalizing? Beats me. What i do know is that a cop murdered a man and thank God it was filmed because they (Minneapolis police, medical personnel, cops) lied and said he died in the hospital and was resisting arrest and "possibly" had drugs in his system. If it weren't filmed many of you would have believed it. The only thing they haven't whipped out YET is his criminal record. I'm still waiting for order. When's it gonna arrive? Im pass 50 already. Hurry up order and bring integrity, civility, respect for all, fairness and love with you. Peace.
P.s Buildings can be replaced. Dead is forever
LOL. So now it mus by 100% staff outrage to be wrong or right?
@2:47 pm: Newsflash. Those people already have preconceived notions.
How many Hong Kong protesters choked to death? 0
@2:47 pm: Newsflash. Those people already have preconceived notions. I hope you're not living your life worrying about how someone else perceives you. Do the right thing. Live honestly and respectfully. Treat others with kindness. There will always be people who look down on black folks. I laugh at their weak azz. They can't do anything for me or too me. I'm good.
There have been two deaths associated with the protests: Chow Tsz-lok, a student who died after a fall inside a car park in Tseung Kwan O, and Luo Changqing, an elderly man who died as a result of reportedly being struck on the head by a brick thrown by a protester during a confrontation between two opposing groups.
0 killed by police.
The looters were teens, where were the parents? I wonder why we have problems in the DOE.
I am spending the afternoon moderating comment emails. This is not a paid job moderating emails or this blog. I get an email most of the time, not always, when a new comment comes along. Now I am exhausted keeping up. You had it out politically speaking and you were all heard but enough. Can we move ahead please? Thanks.
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