Black Labor Organizers and Police Unions

In his book Strike Back (2014), labor lawyer Joe Burns notes that in the early 20th century, the AFL was reluctant to grant charters to police unions.  “Ambivalent about accepting police officers as members given their traditional role in busting strikes, the AFL initially rejected the police applications” (p18).  Following the Boston Police strike of 1919, however, the AFL decided to begin granting charters to police unions.

The recent high-profile spate of police shootings and the rise of the Black Lives Matter campaign has black labor organizers at the University of California calling on the AFL-CIO to reconsider, and in some cases terminate, its relationships with police unions.  Brandon Buchanan, a graduate student employee in the University of California system, helped to form the Black Interests Coordinating Committee and recently presented a letter calling on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations.

Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests of police as laborers,” the letter said. “Instead, their ‘unionization’ allows police to masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the working-class.

The whole article, Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police, is timely, thoughtful, and a great read.