labor Labor Demands an End to the Assault on the Right To Organize and Protest

Unions are calling for the release of abducted union members and political organizers who are being swept up in the Trump Administration's campaign of terror against working people. Sign this call and add your name.

Various unions Submitted to Portside
Printer friendly  
Isaac Cavazos, a volunteer with nonprofit Community to Community Development, chants during a March 27 protest at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center in Tacoma.,Santiago Ochoa/Cascadia Daily News

The labor movement holds one value above all others: solidarity. Labor demands an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and federal government workers, their unions, and the services they provide.

We will not stand by as President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrant workers with abduction, detention, and confinement without due process in unmarked facilities, far-flung detention centers, and a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The attacks are ramping up, and we need to act fast. In Washington state, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents smashed a car window and detained farmworker Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a leader in the berry-pickers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, on his way to drop off his partner at work. They locked up SEIU Local 925 member Lewelyn Dixon, a lab tech at the University of Washington, when she returned from a family trip. They raided a roofing company where workers recently went on a safety strike, and arrested 37 people.

In Massachusetts, federal immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University on a student visa and an SEIU Local 509 member, on her way to break her Ramadan fast. She had written an op-ed in the student newspaper in support of Palestine. 

In Baltimore, they arrested sheet metal worker Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a SMART Local 100 apprentice and father of a disabled child, and sent him to El Salvador’s nightmarish prison—then they called it an “administrative error” and said they could not get him back.

In New York, they abducted Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and United Auto Workers Local 2710 member, for protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza. They have also taken many others whose names aren’t public yet. 

This administration attacked these members of our communities on their way to work, on their way to worship, on their way home. They locked them up after speaking their minds. And they did that on purpose.

They have also threatened and intimidated university administrations in an effort to enlist them in suppressing dissent. Sadly, many have acquiesced to these demands, making a mockery of the concept of “academic freedom” and the free exchange of ideas. Students have been suspended and expelled. Faculty members have been disciplined and discharged.

Further, the mass firings of federal workers and the attempt to abolish their collective bargaining rights are attacks also on the services they provide and the very function of our government. Trump wants a government that only serves the interests of corporations and oligarchs. Rather than a government of, by, and for the people, he would create one by and for the privileged rich. He wants to create a culture of fear. 

We must not bow to any of it. 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

  • We call on the Trump administration to immediately release our fellow workers and stop this campaign of terror.
  • We call on all employers and state and local governments to refuse to collaborate with these attacks, and to do everything they can to resist.
  • We call on university administrations to stand up to the threats and coercion, and to refuse any cooperation with federal immigration and law enforcement authorities seeking to unlawfully persecute foreign students and faculty and student dissenters.
  • We call on all elected officials to find their spines and stand up for these workers.
  • We call on all unions to organize rallies, demonstrations, and other actions to demand that the administration stop these attacks and free our fellow workers. The labor movement must act to stop Trump's deportation, censorship, and intimidation machine.When necessary, we must disrupt business as usual. 

We must not be passive or silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on our rights, the Constitution, and democracy itself. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Please sign this call and add your name
to a growing list standing up to Trump’s campaign of terror.

https://form.jotform.com/250850668516059

Signatorees:

American Association of University Professors (AAUP) • Association of Flight Attendants  (AFA-CWA) • American Postal Workers Union (APWU) • Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) • National Nurses Union (NNU) • National Writers Union (NWU) • Service Employees International Union (SEIU) • United Auto Workers Union (UAW) • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)

Agricultural Justice Project • American Federation of Teachers WA (AFT WA) • Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) •  Duke Graduate Students Union Local 27 • Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ) •  Food Chain Workers Alliance • MLK Labor • Massachusetts Teachers Association Board of Directors • Pacific Northwest Staff Union (PNWSU) • Piedmont Providers United (Southern Region) • Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 8 (OPEIU 8) • PROTEC17 •  Seattle Education Association (SEA) •  SEIU 26 •  SEIU 503 •  SEIU 775 • SEIU 1199 • Teamsters 117 •  Teamsters 174 • UFCW 3000 • UFCW 367 •  UAW 4121 •  UAW 4929 •  UAW 4591 •  WA Yell •  United Healthcare Workers East