Black Lives Matter at Work: New Report Offers Resources for Labor Activists To Fight White Supremacy

[eridani]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18447/black-lives-matter-labor-movement

The section “Black Women Organizing the South” jumps back and forth between recent tweets or hashtags and historical anecdotes going back 275 years.

“I want white people, Black people, Latinos, everyone to respond to these horrific, tragic events, but also get to the cause and identifying the system,” writes Leonard Riley of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Local 1422. “Let’s be real. Let’s identify these major things that have their roots in racism and capitalism. The thing that sticks in my head is that labor must lead. This group of workers, with union protections, can wage protests that others can’t. We can’t confine our energy to just going to work.”

Martese Chism, RN Case Manager at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Chicago, places the question as an existential one for labor. “If the Labor Movement wants to be great again, the Labor Movement must understand that Black Lives Matter. Either we all fight together, or we all get destroyed together.”

Jennifer Epps-Addison offers a direction for ramping up that fight together. “The statistics show us that the fastest growing organizing is among Black women—and campaigns organized by Black women. This is where we need to invest our resources in building power. We are demanding representation and ownership over our strategies and the direction of the organizing.”

“I believe the resource guide is a much needed invitation for all of us to face the question: how can Black Labor Power model co-resistance and complicity with the expansive, intersectional Movement for Black Lives?” said Jason Tompkins, an organizer in the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter.