Committing Our union to Anti-Racism

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What does anti-racism in the workplace look like? To answer this question, we must first ask what racism in the workplace looks like. There are of course the microaggressions, the thousand little cuts of disrespect BIPOC workers deal with on a daily basis from both their bosses and their coworkers. But there are also the macroaggressions, historic in scope: the enslavement of Black people and exploitation of BIPOC labor, the theft of Indigenous land, the violent logic of the Prison Industrial Complex, exclusionary hiring and training practices, and environmental racism. These historical crimes have made us all heirs to a world in which BIPOC generally own far less and must work far more than their white counterparts. The fact that Kenyon student workers are, as a class, more diverse than the general student body is a product of theft, not chance. Racism has always been a tool of the ruling class; anti-racism must, therefore, be a tool of the working class. 

But unions have not always understood this. The history of the United States is marked by “white-only” labor unions, often representing “skilled” workers with more power than most other wage laborers, calling for and enforcing racist and xenophobic policies that kept BIPOC workers from living dignified lives. Only through an unwavering commitment to stamp out white supremacy (in our workplaces as well as in our own understandings of the world) can we achieve our goal of collective liberation. In the words of Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, “We as a [labor] movement are not automatically on the right side. We have to choose to be. And we have to live that choice.” 

For K-SWOC, the choice to live the tradition of the labor movement that unites and empowers all workers, here and abroad, began with deciding to affiliate with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE). The UE, an independent and democratic union representing 35,000 workers in a variety of industries, was founded in 1936 to break away from the craft unions of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) that prioritized the needs of skilled workers at the expense of unskilled laborers, who disproportionately were Black, women, and immigrant workers. The founders of the UE understood that to “defend effectively the interests and improve the conditions of wage earners,” all workers must be united in organizations “regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, creed, or political beliefs.” 

UE’s foundational commitment to anti-racism was also combined with a deep commitment to “rank-in-file control,” which means democratic decision-making by all members rather than control by a few leaders at the top of the union. Through these two principles, UE aggressively struggled to win non-discrimination clauses in its contracts with corporations, like Westinghouse, who were using racist employment practices and fought to achieve equal pay for women in its membership. When the rise of unfettered free trade agreements decimated U.S. manufacturing, including UE’s primary base of membership, UE recognized the source of these changes were corporations and their stooges in government—not workers in other countries. Rather than resorting to xenophobia, UE built alliances with democratic unions in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Japan and strongly resisted U.S. military interventions that toppled pro-worker governments in Central and South America and the Middle East. 

Despite years of attacks from corporations, the federal government, and even other unions, UE still remains alive today and just as committed to its anti-racist principles. After the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, UE affirmed that “All Workers Must Stand Against Police Violence” by recognizing that the origins of policing are rooted in “institutions that were established to control workers, enforce white supremacy, enable colonialism, and protect the wealth of the capitalist class.” In the same statement, UE also articulated a strong stance against police unions, stating, “...as long as the organizations formed by police use their power to defend violent and racist practices — and as long as police are used to further the interests of the employers instead of those of working-class communities — we cannot consider their orders, associations or ‘unions’ to be part of the labor movement.”

K-SWOC brings the principles that still animate the UE today into our workplaces at Kenyon, especially UE’s commitment to fighting racial injustice. Just as the UE fought to include, protect and unite all workers, K-SWOC is committed to empowering the most marginalized members of our campus community, who are disproportionately represented in our membership. This means prioritizing the employment of student workers who need additional income and job experience the most; providing protections on the job for those student workers—like a just cause discipline policy—because the backlash from bad bosses uniquely hurts low-income and BIPOC workers; and, crucially, holding our own coworkers accountable through anti-harassment policies with strong accountability measures to ensure no student worker ever feels unsafe working at Kenyon. Finally, we stand behind existing groups and institutions in our community and use the power we gain through workplace struggle to lift up all oppressed people. 

By choosing to unite as student workers into a union, we understand that choice is not simply about advancing our own narrow self-interest as individual workers. Rather, we are choosing to become a part of a powerful tradition of working-class people all across the world who struggle against oppression for a better life for all. Anti-racism is foundational to that tradition and something we must live to uphold. We uphold it in our workplaces, expect it of our organizers, and hold it in our hearts as we move beyond Kenyon, working and organizing throughout the United States and across the world with the knowledge that none of us will be free until racist colonialism has been dismantled. This is who we are as K-SWOC and who we always strive to be as a union.