In a 77-minute Zoom telecast on June 3, Trumka and other labour leaders—AFSCME President Lee Saunders, Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson, Painters President Ken Rigmaiden, Unite Here President D. Taylor, and two Unite Here regional leaders—laid blame for that racism at the feet of U.S. history and U.S. politicians.

And most said the fight to tackle racism must include key moves at the ballot box this fall, starting with the ouster of GOP President Donald Trump and his congressional enablers.

Trumka added that corporations are responsible for racism, too. They take advantage of racial divisions and animosities, Rigmaiden said.

After declaring workers and others “must come together and call out oppression,” the Painters chief added: “The U.S. is built on an economic system that thrives on dividing us by race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status. The wealthy thrive while we struggle.

“The only path to a just and more equitable society is through struggle,” he stated.

“Our labour movement” will play a leading role in the anti-racist movement, Trumka declared, “because protesting racial brutality, whether at the hands of a police officer, or a neighbour, or an employer, is not only the right cause. It’s a responsibility,” Trumka said.

“A racist society means workers of color are sent into unsafe workplaces by employers and a government that literally does not see them,” he declared.

“A racist society means millions are left jobless and uninsured when neither had to happen,” he added, referring to the more than 40 million people thrown onto U.S. jobless rolls since declaration of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March and subsequent closures and a depression, designed to stop “community spread” of the virus.

The depression, the closures, and the pandemic itself—which has infected over 1.8 million people in the U.S. and killed more than 107,000—has also disproportionately affected people of colour, be they Black, brown, or Native American.

Trumka convened the session after more than a week of mostly peaceful protests against systemic racism that has scarred the U.S. for 401 years, especially targeting African Americans. The racism came into sharp focus when videos showed Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdering 46-year-old George Floyd on May 25 while three other officers looked on and did nothing.

Chauvin kneed a handcuffed, unresisting Floyd in the neck for more than eight minutes, disregarding his gasps of “I can’t breathe” and demands from bystanders that he stop. The unconscious Floyd was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The four officers were fired and Chauvin was initially charged with third-degree murder, but on June 3 Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, ordered to take over the case, upgraded the charge to second-degree murder. Ellison also charged the other three with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. If convicted, each would face up to 40 years in prison.

Floyd’s murder, following those of other unarmed African Americans at the hands of police, has sent hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators into the streets from coast to coast denouncing and demanding an end to systemic racism in general and such police violence in particular.

But right-wing white supremacists and anarchists have infiltrated the protests, causing mayhem—torching buildings, smashing windows, overturning cars, and so on—in Pittsburgh, D.C., and elsewhere, prompting a militarized response from law enforcement agencies and the Trump administration.

Trump and his allies haven’t tackled the racism, instead turning federal police agencies against local peaceful demonstrators. Trump also prepared to call out the Army to police the streets of U.S. cities. But his own Defense Secretary Mark Esper, used as a prop for a Trump photo-op after D.C. protesters were tear-gassed on June 1, now refuses to obey Trump’s command.

Trump is wrong on all counts, Trumka and the other union leaders said. His ouster at the ballot box this fall is now an imperative, they declared. But it’s only a start, they added. And they promised the labour movement would lead the fight against systemic racism, for as long as it takes. (People’s World--IPA Service)