Our multinational labor movement is being asked if we will join this movement for a radical shift in how our country treats Black people and for a radical realignment in policing, incarceration, and funding for the public good.
The barriers to reform police unions erected over the years will pose an enormous obstacle to establishing a new, more accountable kind of policing in the United States.
Several local unions have moved to oust police unions, despite the federation's approach that collective bargaining can be used for police reform.
While some in the labor movement are seeking to distance themselves, most are supportive even as they call for reforms.
Police have a small but politically and ideologically influential presence in some of the country’s largest and most progressive unions
Recent Portside posts have explored different sides of the repressive role of the police and whether or not police unions as they are constituted should remain within the labor movement. Here Portside readers respond.
Jane McAlevey, a longtime labor organizer and strategist, argues that systematic grassroots organizing is the key to repairing today’s ravaged democracy.
Let’s put police unions on a raft and set them adrift. They can reapply for solidarity if they stop abusing the rest of us.
Organized labor is a direct threat to white supremacy. We need to put that threat into action.
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