Rank and File to SEIU: Drop the Cops!

Just in time for the revolutionary celebration of Black August — a month in commemoration of the fight for Black liberation — the rank and file group SEIU Drop Cops has released a set of demands calling on the SEIU and other unions to expel police from their ranks and to adopt a Movement for Black Lives platform. These demands were passed by an overwhelming majority of the growing group. Left Voice members are active in SEIU Drop Cops and Left Voice supports the movement within organized labor to disaffiliate with police unions.

DEMAND 1: SEIU DROP THE COPS

We demand SEIU drop cops from the union. We demand any job classification including law enforcement officers, jail and prison guards, probation officers, and armed security officers and their bargaining units, for example in the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and the International Brotherhood of Corrections Officers, be expelled from SEIU.

DEMAND 2: SEIU BEYOND POLICING AND PRISONS

We demand an SEIU beyond policing and prisons. We demand SEIU divest from campaigns organizing law enforcement officers, jail and prison guards, probation officers, and armed security officers. We demand SEIU invest in union organizing campaigns to protect, empower and expand sectors where workers prevent violence or harm as their work, such as essential workers, educators, healthcare workers, social workers, and food service workers. We demand a strong, unionized movement to eliminate policing, both as an action against the community and as a profession providing employment opportunities, to enact transformational social change beyond policing and prisons.

DEMAND 3: LABOR DROP THE COPS

We demand labor drop the cops. We demand that SEIU fight to expel the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and other law enforcement officers, jail and prison guards, probation officers, and armed security officers bargaining units, such as the Fraternal Order of Police, Police Benevolent Association and International Union of Police Associations, from labor councils on which SEIU locals participate.

DEMAND 4: SEIU DROP COP CANDIDATES

We demand SEIU drop cop candidates. We demand SEIU provide no support to any political candidate who accepts donations from law enforcement officers, jail and prison guards, probation officers, and armed security officers locals or who intends to act against defunding the police or the platform of the Movement for Black Lives while in office.

DEMAND 5: SEIU FOR BLACK LIVES

We demand an SEIU for Black lives. We demand SEIU acknowledge in word and action the centrality of being in solidarity with Black workers and communities to the labor movement. We demand SEIU adopt the Movement for Black Lives platform as an organizing goal and concretely enact the platform through its labor and political organizing.

Black Lives Matter

Cops Out of Our Unions

Labor Movement

SEIU

Left Voice Magazine: Special Issue on Our Congress

In July, Left Voice held its first congress. As part of this special issue of our magazine, we are publishing two documents that formed the basis of the discussions, as well as an substantive and rousing greeting from Leticia Parks, a Black revolutionary socialist from Brazil. We also include an appeal for Climate Leninism, a debate with Tempest, and a talk about women’s liberation in revolutionary Russia.

Labor Movement