The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined ten national unions and other labor organizations in a call for solidarity with workers and all those who are being targeted by the Trump administration. Their statement says:
”Labor Demands an End to the Assault on the Right to Organize and Protest”
“The labor movement holds one value above all others: solidarity. Labor demands an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and federal government workers, their unions, and the services they provide.
“We will not stand by as President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrant workers with abduction, detention, and confinement without due process in unmarked facilities, far-flung detention centers, and a notorious prison in El Salvador.
“The attacks are ramping up, and we need to act fast. In Washington state, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents smashed a car window and detained farmworker Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a leader in the berry-pickers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, on his way to drop off his partner at work. They locked up SEIU Local 925 member Lewelyn Dixon, a lab tech at the University of Washington, when she returned from a family trip. They raided a roofing company where workers recently went on a safety strike and arrested 37 people.”
After detailing similar depredations in Massachusetts, Baltimore, New York,
In Massachusetts, the statement continued:
- We call on the Trump administration to immediately release our fellow workers and stop this campaign of terror.
- We call on all employers and state and local governments to refuse to collaborate with these attacks, and to do everything they can to resist.
- We call on university administrations to stand up to the threats and coercion, and to refuse any cooperation with federal immigration and law enforcement authorities seeking to unlawfully persecute foreign students and faculty and student dissenters.
- We call on all elected officials to find their spines and stand up for these workers.
We call on all unions to organize rallies, demonstrations, and other actions to demand that the administration stop these attacks and free our fellow workers. - The labor movement must act to stop Trump’s deportation, censorship, and intimidation machine. When necessary, we must disrupt business as usual.
- We must not be passive or silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on our rights, the Constitution, and democracy itself. An injury to one is an injury to all!
Signatories included: American Association of University Professors (AAUP) • Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) • American Postal Workers Union (APWU) • Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) • International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) • National Education Association (NEA) • National Nurses United (NNU) • National Writers Union (NWU) • Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) • Service Employees International Union (SEIU) • United Auto Workers (UAW) • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)
For more information: https://labornotes.org/blogs/
For the full statement: https://form.