Union members at the Communications Workers of America (CWA) national convention on June 10 passed a “Black Lives Matter” resolution to address the issues of “systematic racism” in the United States.
“Part of our goal in passing the resolution is to start active members of CWA talking about these issues,” said Bradley Harmon, president of the CWA Local 6355. “That has already started. I think it deepened our commitment towards working for racial justice.”
Harmon spoke about the resolution at the “Blacks & Labor – A call for change” town hall meeting on June 15 at the Omega Psi Phi Center. About 25 community and union members offered their opinions on proposed legislation and policies impacting African-American labor.
State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal , one of the four panelists at the event, commended CWA’s resolution. She also talked about her research on racism in the unions. She said in the early 1900s, unions passed some resolutions to push for more equality among workers.
“But as soon as there was some distress in the economy, African Americans always got the hit,” she said. “Change is incremental.”
The CWA resolution points out the “widening gap of trust” between law enforcement and minority communities.
It states: “Closing this gap requires that we address the underlying inequities that continue to divide working people in this country along racial and economic lines. We must oppose policies designed to marginalize minority communities and people of color, including the push to privatize education primarily in communities with high concentrations of African-Americans; attacks on public services using thinly veiled racial references that politicians use to stigmatize people who use public services and the workers who provide those services; trade and economic policies that destroy jobs in our big cities and small towns, many of which have large populations of African-Americans; and voter suppression laws that suppress the rights of minorities to vote.”