GEO Calls for IFT, AFT, and AFL-CIO to Expel Police Unions
In the wake of the police murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor, as well as the countless examples of police brutality and violence in the nationwide protests of the past weeks, the Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Urbana-Champaign, IFT/AFT Local 6300, calls for the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the AFL-CIO to expel all law enforcement, school resource officers, and correctional officer unions from their membership.
The goal of a labor union is to empower its membership to collectively organize for better working conditions and a better world. The police, by definition, stand in the way of this goal. From their origins in slave patrols, to the countless instances of police using violence to break strikes or intimidate organizers, police have historically enforced oppression and have attempted to quash the power of the labor movement, the Civil Rights movement, and today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement. Further, members of police unions consistently side with the bosses against workers. When workers go on strike, rather than respecting the picket line, police protect scabs who cross picket lines. While most real workers’ unions show solidarity for workers on strike by donating to strike funds and publicly releasing solidarity statements, police unions are silent at best, and protect the interests of the bosses at worst. Indeed, during our historic strike in 2018, management encouraged the public to call the police on our picketers. The history of the labor movement is also a history of the police threatening, brutalizing, arresting, and even killing working-class organizers. Police are enemies of the labor movement.
We are living in the midst of an epidemic of police murdering and terrorizing Black and Indigenous people. Police unions exacerbate this problem by undermining attempts to hold police officers accountable and aggressively opposing even the most tepid reforms. Police union contracts often include many provisions directly designed to decrease accountability: providing officers who shoot civilians with time to confer and get their story straight before being questioned, barring the public from accessing civilian complaints or internal disciplinary actions, and more. Research suggests that after the police gained access to collective bargaining rights, the rate at which they killed civilians increased substantially. The right of police to terrorize with impunity, won in the name of organized labor, has endangered communities large and small: here in Champaign-Urbana we have seen the effects when the police murdered 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington in 2009, and again in 2017 when Richie Turner died at the hands of officers.
Our parent union, the American Federation of Teachers recently signed onto a letter calling for a “national overhaul” of police practices and celebrated the removal of police officers from Minneapolis schools. Yet under the AFL-CIO we are affiliated with unions such as the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) which will undoubtedly attempt to oppose such a goal, as they have done in the recent past. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has stated that “It is not enough to simply say ‘Black Lives Matter,’” and that we have a responsibility to protest racist violence. And yet, the AFL-CIO has opposed the growing demand to expel police unions, arguing that “”the best way to use our influence on the issue of police brutality is to engage our police affiliates rather than isolate them.” But stripping the powers of organized labor from the police is exactly what must be done if we are to curtail and ultimately eliminate their ability to ruin and destroy the lives of Black people, people of color, and workers of all backgrounds. If Trumka’s words are more than just performative, he should turn his past criticisms of the police into meaningful action by heeding the calls of members to expel all police from the AFL-CIO’s ranks.
As long as we are affiliated with police unions, our calls for reform and justice ring hollow. As long as we are affiliated with police unions, we are complicit with police violence. As long as we are affiliated with police unions, we are failing to keep our Black and Indigenous members safe. Join GEO members and other labor unions/workers by signing this petition to call for the AFL-CIO to expel police unions and put an end to sanctioned violence and white supremacy in our labor movement.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009 and in February 2018, over 1,000 GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and more accessible UIUC campus. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.
For more information, please contact geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on GEO’s website at www.uiucgeo.org.
Twitter: @geo_uiuc
Facebook: @uigeo @geosolcomm
Instagram: @geo_uiuc