AFL-CIO PRESIDENT EMAIL- UPDATED WITH CWA STATEMENT AND UFT EXEC BD RESOLUTION CONDEMNING KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD

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.