(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.