Ep 27: Strikes for Black Lives, with guest Robert Cuffy Labour Days: a labour movement podcast

What role has organised labour played in anti-racist and civil rights struggles, past and present? We look at recent actions by workers and unions as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the historic role of black workers' organisers and socialists in the US civil rights struggle. We also discuss the unfortunate presence in the US labour movement of “unions” representing the police, and what might be done to challenge that.

This episode also features an excerpt of an interview with Robert Cuffy, a Guyanese socialist currently based in New York, where he's a public sector working and trade union activists. Robert is a member of the Socialist Workers Alliance of Guyana and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Relevant/featured links for our segments are:

Edd:

A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today, Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates (2013)
https://monthlyreview.org/product/a_freedom_budget_for_all_americans/

'At The River I Stand' (film about the Memphis sanitation workers' strike)
https://www.kanopy.com/product/river-i-stand

Ellie:

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/13/876640607/calls-for-reform-put-minneapolis-police-union-leader-in-hot-seat?t=1598950697168&t=1598964381985

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/police-unions-american-labor-movement-protest?fbclid=IwAR26ge7rjkROHYLmBbbIjnuGOW8WqOb_X-GWplVWfjjKkfpjGJm_ALoGG_E

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report?fbclid=IwAR3gx0KakrQ6ZHq3hr-oGC4GHjmpanlEJej5IGxmXpQAWKa7vHmi-ZB3tUA

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/the-bad-kind-of-unionism/

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2016/12/contract-chicago-police-union-161205084413414.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-us

Daniel:

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bv8zaw/minneapolis-bus-drivers-refuse-to-transport-george-floyd-protesters-to-jail

https://labornotes.org/blogs/2020/06/west-coast-dockers-stop-work-honor-george-floyd

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/george-floyd-ilwu-work-stoppage-antiracism

https://apnews.com/d33b36c415f5dde25f64e49ccc35ac43

https://j20strikeforblacklives.org

The full interview with Robert Cuffy isn't up yet, but there's a transcript of an extended excerpt here: https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2020-08-12/black-youths-were-able-bring-along-rest