Opinion: Labor Solidarity Needed for a Safer Austin

This Friday, May 1, we celebrate May Day, a day globally recognized as International Workers’ Day. On this day we acknowledge the hard-fought gains that workers in this country have won, like the eight-hour workday and OSHA protections. Those lessons from history still hold: Every gain working people have ever won came from collective action when we stood together to challenge institutional power.

This May Day is no different. In cities across the country, including here in Austin, not all workers are safe. ICE is invading our communities and tearing apart families, workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods. This matters for all of us, whether you are an immigrant, have citizenship or not.

As city employees, as union members, as immigrants, residents, and citizens, we are expected to serve our communities in ways that uphold the values that we are asked to represent as a city. Values of Empathy, Ethics, Excellence, Engagement, and Equity that are listed as guiding principles on the city’s job board website when we get hired. Values that should be embraced by not just rank-and-file employees but by all of city leadership, and every city department – most especially those charged with public safety.

Last week, the Austin City Council passed a resolution aimed at making it “safe to call” emergency services for help independent of status. It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough.

If we are serious about being a city that people can trust, then we have to follow through. All Austinites deserve the safety to not only call city services when we need them, but we also deserve to feel safe to go to work, to send our kids to school, and to live our lives outside of work because immigrants should have safety and dignity regardless of the labor we provide.

This safety means clear policies that limit unnecessary cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, stronger protections for all Austinites – who regardless of status are entitled to access city services by virtue of paying taxes – and accountability when those standards aren’t met. It means our city leadership must be willing to answer questions from the community when city management signs agreements accepting state funding in exchange for not interfering with ICE and allowing Gov. Abbott to line-by-line edit our local policies, effectively restricting local control. It requires transparency when decisions are made that could put our communities at further risk of harm.

Solidarity isn’t a slogan. It’s a decision about how we show up for each other.

And it means we need leadership that is willing to stand firm. Recent state-level threats to interfere with local decision-making are real, and they’re designed to create fear and force cities to back down. But if we believe in the policies we’ve put forward, and trust that it is the right thing to do even if the state wants to play legal chess, then we can’t abandon these policies the moment they’re challenged. Our responsibility and obligation is to the people who live here and work here.

For those of us in unions, this moment calls for something more from us, too. Solidarity isn’t a slogan. It’s a decision about how we show up for each other. There is a history in this country of treating some as more disposable than others, with origins in enslaved and oppressed labor. We learn from that history too and recognize that when some workers are targeted, all workers are affected. Fear on the job, in our communities, or in our homes weakens all of us.

We don’t all have to agree on everything. But we do have to decide whether we will stand together when it matters. This May Day, that choice is in front of each of us, in our workplaces, in our unions, and in the choices made by our city. Let’s demand that they do the right thing, and if not, that we hold them accountable in honor of the labor legacy that we must fight to uphold.

Seon-Ju Seung-Bickley is an AFSCME Local 1624 member writing with the support of the AFSCME 1624 Immigration and Worker Justice Committee. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1624 is the union for city of Austin and Travis County employees. Since 1969, AFSCME Local 1624 has been fighting for fair wages, safer working conditions, and respect on the job.

Got something to say? The Chronicle welcomes opinion pieces on any topic from the community. Submit yours now at austinchronicle.com/opinion.

The post Opinion: Labor Solidarity Needed for a Safer Austin appeared first on The Austin Chronicle.