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The House-passed Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is a solid first step toward real justice for Black Americans targeted by police brutality. Its provisions – including the banning of chokeholds and no-knock warrants, the creation of a national police misconduct database, and eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement – are necessary and welcomed. Still, we must do more than simply change the way the law is enforced if we are truly invested in justice for Black Americans.

Laws at federal, state, and local levels continue to create the conditions for the criminalization of our Black sisters, brothers, and non-binary siblings. Disproportionate sentencing, disparities in “random” police stops, and the stigma of a conviction record preventing employment opportunities are all intimately tied to the scourge of police brutality and our racist criminal justice system, as well, but go unaddressed in this bill.

On June 19, 1865, the Union Army announced in Galveston, Texas, then a sparsely populated state, that all enslaved people were to be liberated, two years after Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation.

One hundred and fifty-five years later, on the anniversary of that fateful day, Juneteenth is celebrated nationwide in what is believed to be the oldest African-American holiday. OPEIU joins this national celebration and remembrance of black history, black culture, black struggle, and black progress.

This Juneteenth also serves as an opportunity to remember our black brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings who today are still working, without choice, within the U.S. prison system. Hundreds of companies in the U.S. produce their products on the backs of underpaid workers in our nation’s broken prison system, populated through our nation’s broken criminal justice system that seems to criminalize blackness at every step of the way.

In celebrating Juneteenth this year, OPEIU recommits itself to the long and difficult struggle for black equality, black empowerment, and black freedom from a set of systems and institutions – ranging from policing and employment discrimination to profit-based healthcare and the intentional defunding of social programs – built specifically to benefit the few at the expense of many.

The following statement was made by OPEIU President Richard Lanigan in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the rights of DACA recipients in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California.

The Supreme Court’s ruling today is a landmark victory for a group of hardworking young people who deserve to live and work without fear of deportation or repression. Though OPEIU celebrates this milestone victory, there is more work to be done to fully win justice for DREAMers. 

Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), AFL-CIO, President Richard Lanigan on the Supreme Court decisions for Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, and R.G. & G. R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

OPEIU applauds yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions, which solidified long-sought workplace protections for our LGBTQIA+ siblings.

This is a monumental victory for our LGBTQIA+ family. No one’s livelihood should be taken away by a discriminatory employer just because of who one loves, or how one identifies.

All working people deserve justice in the workplace, so we are pleased by the Supreme Court’s decision to extend essential rights to a group of people whose rights have unjustly hung in the balance for far too long.

Dear OPEIU Member:

We all have been affected by the turbulence created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our workplace environment has changed, travel, family and social engagements are at a distance or halted, our financial wellness is on high alert and what we prioritized earlier in the year may have changed.

The U.S. also has seen a sharp increase in pandemic-related unemployment fraud as jobless numbers climb and more people file for unemployment benefits.

(Washington, D.C., June 9, 2020)—Today, the General Board of the AFL-CIO adopted a comprehensive set of recommendations to take concrete action to address America’s long history of racism and police violence against black people.

These recommendations include calling for the immediate resignations of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their roles in the misuse of federal military power to put down peaceful demonstrations (full statement below); supporting the call of the Minnesota AFL-CIO for the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis union to resign and backing the statement of MLK Labor in Seattle demanding changes from its police affiliate; recommending that every central labor council work with local unions to engage in community listening sessions modeled after the 2013 AFL-CIO Convention; recommitting the labor movement to continue acting on the findings of the AFL-CIO Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice and the demographic recommendations of the AFL-CIO Commission on the Future of Work and Unions; and supporting recommendations put forth by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to crack down on police brutality while protecting the due process rights of all pubic service workers.

The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), AFL-CIO, is outraged by the murder of George Floyd and stands in solidarity with the peaceful protesters calling for an end to the racial injustice and inequality that plague this nation.

OPEIU has always been committed to finding solutions to economic and societal inequalities both on and off the worksite. The murder of George Floyd is the latest in a long line of instances of police brutality against people of color, and just one of the many insidious examples of systemic racism in this country. This is clear as our nation struggles with a much higher rate of infection among communities of color during the COVID-19 pandemic.

All elected officials and people of conscience must fully commit to rooting out instances of institutionalized racism in the United States and implementing policies that address abuse at the hands of law enforcement, as well as income inequality, education inequity, minimum wage reform and affordable housing shortages. 

It’s time for real and positive change. It’s time for our nation to end the centuries-long abuse of communities of color and instead commit ourselves to building a fair and equitable nation for all our citizens. 

(Washington, D.C., May 18, 2020)—This morning, the AFL-CIO filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the U.S. Court of Appeals to compel the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS) protecting U.S. workers against the coronavirus.

The petition demonstrates that thousands of workers have been infected on the job through exposure to infected patients, co-workers and unscreened members of the public. As the economy reopens and people return to work, person-to-person contact will increase and health experts predict the already shocking number of infections and deaths among workers will rise.

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