We are postal worker union activists who also hail from Greensboro (and are now American Postal Workers Union president and solidarity representative, respectively). For decades we have defended the interests of the public Postal Service and postal workers, and we bring a much different perspective than that of multi-millionaire businessman DeJoy. We are concerned that DeJoy, a mega-donor to Republican Party causes and to President Trump, has been tapped to carry out the administration’s agenda.

Trump has shown implacable hostility to the public Post Office. He has called it “a joke” and railed against its low package prices. In late March, Trump and his Treasury Secretary (Steven Mnuchin of Goldman Sachs) blocked the bipartisan Congressional effort to provide funds to the Post Office in the initial 2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief legislative package, despite the Postal Service being so impacted by the COVID economic crisis that it could run out of money either later this year or early next year. 

Having children is one of the great mysteries of life. Like having sex, or falling in love, or developing faith in a higher power, it’s an experience that falls short of any description.

Also like sex, love and religion, having children sucks about half the time, and it particularly sucks now, thanks to the coronavirus.

That these calls are not being joined by a seemingly obvious ally is telling.

The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) led the way with a June 8 resolution urging the AFL-CIO to drop the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). Nine days later, the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council, an AFL-CIO regional affiliate, voted to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild from the coalition. Union shops representing postdoc researchers and teaching assistants have since passed resolutions demanding police union disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO, and a coalition of workers within the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have put forward a similar call to expel its police union affiliates. 

Except the WGAE, no national unions within the AFL-CIO have positioned themselves against police unions beyond calling for the IUPA—a union representing over 100,000 officers across the United States—to reform itself. But a movement is brewing in two large Hollywood unions.

Within the ranks of two unions representing theater and entertainment workers—International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)—the push to kick police out of the AFL-CIO has ballooned in the span of a few weeks, with members of each union saying that the effort has pushed them to consider, some for the first time, the power they possess as unionized workers.

Today in Texas, thousands of new cases are being reported daily. Hospitals in Houston and across the state are at near capacity. Adult COVID-19 patients are being transferred to Texas children’s hospitals to meet the exploding healthcare crisis in Harris County, the state’s most populous region. On June 26, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was forced to backpedal on his promise that Texas was going to remain “wide open for business.” And he shut-down bars and reduced seating at restaurants, just five weeks after he allowed them to reopen.

I am lucky. I’m able to keep working from home, but both of my parents have lost their regular income and are struggling to get by in the new COVID-19 reality. Before COVID-19 my parents lived below the poverty line. My 62 year-old diabetic mom, who doesn’t have more than a ninth grade education, worked as a Spanish language interpreter at a hospital.  When COVID-19 began spreading, she quit her job. For her going to work literally became a life or death choice. My dad ran a small fair trade business selling jewelry from Mexico, last year he personally made $18,000. Now, both my parents get their food from local pantries and food banks.

Yet, my life did change dramatically post COVID-19, because two weeks before Texas shut down on March 19, I was crisscrossing the state running as a progressive in the Democratic primary for the Senate, talking to voters about the economic pain they were already living before COVID-19  (in a 12-way race I missed making it into the run off by 1.5%)

Throughout the month of May, as the coronavirus pandemic was peaking in Mexico, Susana Prieto, a top Mexican labor attorney who has been defending workers' rights for over three decades, was making her voice heard.

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—The enormous white stone arch in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza is a memorial to the Union’s victory in the Civil War. Confederate monuments are toppling across the country, but the arch is only getting more popular. At 11:30 on a hot Juneteenth morning, Kyle Bragg stands in its shade, wearing a red T-shirt, a New York Knicks-branded face mask, and a purple hat with the logo of 32BJ SEIU, the 175,000-member union that he leads.

“My son is 25, and my daughter is 29. I worry every single time they’re out of the house,” says Bragg, a Black man who has spent decades as a labor leader. “The most important conversation I had with them when they were young was not about sex or drugs. It was about how to deal with the police.” 

The uprisings that have swept America this month are spontaneous, massive and often leaderless, and the structured world of unions initially seemed puzzled as to how to react. The burning of the AFL-CIO’s headquarters in the early days of the protests was symbolic of the disconnect between organized labor and the streets. But as the days went by, labor rallied to the cause. In the week leading up to Juneteeth, the June 19 holiday commemorating the end of slavery, it seemed unions found their voice.

As protesters press elected officials to defund police departments across the nation, they’ve also railed against police unions for protecting violent cops. 

Some observers on the Right, in turn, have leveraged the uprising for a broader attack on public-sector bargaining, suggesting that the problem with American law enforcement isn’t cops, but unions.

But police unions are a special beast, and police aren’t your average worker.

The figures are stark. The number of Covid-19 cases tripled in Lanier County, Ga., after one day of testing farmworkers. All 200 workers on a single farm in Evensville, Tenn., tested positive. Yakima County, Wash., the site of recent farmworker strikes at apple-packing facilities, now boasts the highest per capita infection rate on the West Coast. Among migrant workers in Immokalee, Fla.—who just finished picking tomatoes and are on their way north to harvest other crops—1,000 people are infected.

In this struggle, teachers unions have been organizing critical support for the movement, which is largely led by Black and Brown youth. Among them is the Chicago Teachers Union, which has been organizing rallies, mobilizing members, releasing statements of solidarity and contributing to a vision for what police-free Chicago schools could look like. In many cases, teachers are following the lead of their students, taking to the streets because youth are demanding profound change. Fresh off of a 2019 strike in which the union placed social justice demands front and center, CTU is showcasing how to mobilize for the common good during a time of social upheaval.

The rebellions over the police murder of George Floyd have renewed a longtime controversy regarding police unions. Several unions, such as the Writers Guild of America, East, are now calling for the AFL-CIO to expel the International Union of Police Associations, arguing that police unions have no place in the labor federation.

I am going to suggest that the discussion has gone down a rabbithole and we need to rethink the entire way that the problem has been formulated.