Police violence is a labor issue too

What does police brutality have to do with labor? For one thing, over-policing is connected to poverty wages. Black workers face double the unemployment rate that white workers do. Nationally, 38.1 percent of Black workers earn sub-poverty wages, compared to 25.9 percent of white workers. The disparities are even greater for Black women and for young Black workers. As a labor movement, we haven’t been able to dismantle these inequalities. But as union density shrinks, the problem only gets worse. It’s Black workers who have been pushed out of union jobs the fastest. Between 1983 and 2007, the percentage of Black workers who have a union dropped by 16 percent – compared with only 9 percent for white workers. When low-wage jobs and part-time hours are the only options on offer, people are often forced into the informal economy – for instance, selling CDs on the street, as Alton Sterling was in Baton Rouge when he was killed. Then, as Todd Cherkis of United Workers in Baltimore reminded us last year, “it’s the police who are tasked with keeping the unjust order in place, harassing and arresting people for subsistence crimes – without offering them a viable alternative.” (…) When unions don’t fight on issues that affect their members’ lives – from immigration detention and deportation, to over-policing and mass incarceration – we lose the chance to build powerful alliances, and to be seen by members as a relevant source of power to fight and win. History has shown us time and time again that when the labor movement buys into the politics of division and exclusion, our entire movement is weaker for it.

Sonia Singh in Police Violence Is a Labor Issue Too (Labornotes)