UE Convention Resolutions
Defend Our Civil Liberties
Sweeping changes during the Bush regime, including the so-called Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) amendments, as well as executive orders and legal opinions, have greatly expanded the ability of government agencies to spy on and disrupt organizations in the U.S. The Obama administration appears to have embraced many of these surveillance powers and there is no indication that they will relinquish them without a fight.
American history is full of examples showing when the government is given powers of domestic surveillance and "counterintelligence," it can and will use them against ordinary, innocent Americans, particularly those who speak out against government policies, and especially those who represent a credible power base, such as the labor movement. During the McCarthy period in the 1940s and 1950s, the combined forces of the federal government, business, and their business-union co-conspirators nearly destroyed the UE and progressive trade unionism.
Today, more Americans than ever before are under government and corporate surveillance, and information about us is being shared widely among all levels of law enforcement, the military and with private entities. Law enforcement agencies are allowed to spy on and infiltrate organizations without any indication that a crime has been committed or is being planned; surveillance cameras are increasingly being used in the workplace, on city streets, and in other public spaces; and our telephone and email communications are being swept up en masse. Bureaucratic initiatives such as fusion centers (state, local, and regional law enforcement coordinating centers) and joint terrorism task forces are speeding the sharing of often invalid or illegally-obtained information.
This will not protect us from events like 9/11. The problem was not a lack of information but the failure to analyze and act upon existing information. The government obsession with gathering information on non-terrorist political opponents means there are fewer resources to combat real crime, including terrorism.
Bosses try to instill fear in workers during union organizing campaigns – that is the kind of fear that the government has tried to spread across society as a whole. People may avoid anti-globalization rallies if they know they are under government surveillance. A union member will think twice about voicing their outrage on a picket line if they know they could face trumped-up terrorism charges. Fewer people attend organizing meetings if they suspect that someone in the room could be a police agent.
The core challenge during the Obama era to civil liberties is to rollback the repressive policies of the Bush regime, while fighting any further erosion of constitutional rights. For example, while President Obama's announced decision to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is welcome, there is great concern over his preventive detention proposal, which would allow the government to indefinitely imprison without trial anyone who they say is dangerous.
Many Americans resisted the attacks on civil liberties during the Bush administration. Over 400 local governments and several states passed resolutions supporting the Bill of Rights and objecting to parts of the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 laws, executive orders, and policy changes. Some cities passed ordinances directing police to facilitate, not impede, peaceful demonstrations. This work must continue despite the change in presidents.
A growing number of Americans also question the use of the death penalty. Why should working people who regularly express deep distrust of our government officialdom trust these same forces with the power to inflict the ultimate penalty of death? The question is especially crucial when a rising tide of evidence demonstrates our judicial system is stacked against those without money. When evidence such as DNA testing reveals death row prisoners are innocent, it confirms our justice system is fundamentally flawed. The question of capital punishment is historically of great concern to union members. On numerous occasions our government has framed and executed labor leaders. Among the more famous are the Haymarket martyrs, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leader Joe Hill, immigrant labor activists Sacco and Vanzetti, and the coal miners known as the Molly Maguires. Spared the death penalty only after massive campaigns to save them were Tom Mooney, who spoke to an early UE convention, and the legendary Big Bill Haywood.
Attacks on civil liberties are not minor infringements on the rights of a few extremists. Today they affect a vast cross-section of Americans. The chilling effect of denials of our democratic freedoms curtails political debate within the U.S., limits the ability of all citizens to make democratic choices for the future of our country, and thereby undermines our livelihoods and living standards.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:
- Opposes any change in the federal criminal code that would undermine our basic rights to organize, strike, protest, demonstrate and otherwise defend the interests of working people, specifically including changes designed to make picket-line activity subject to federal prosecution;
- Urges all locals to actively defend the right to protest against government and corporate policies which hurt working people by working with and supporting organizations such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BRDC), the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF - formerly the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation), and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG);
- Calls on public-sector locals to investigate and aggressively challenge any restrictions on their members' civil liberties written into state law or municipal ordinances;
- Demands that Congress outlaw political spying and disruption by the FBI and other federal agencies, repeal the FISA amendment act, repeal or let sunset regressive parts of the Patriot Act, and pass legislation to rollback the worst excesses of the Bush regime by barring the use of secret evidence and restricting the use of the state secrets privilege and National Security Letters;
- Supports local initiatives to refuse compliance with the Patriot Act and encourages local governments to pass laws based on the First Amendments Rights and Police Standards Act of 2004 enacted in Washington, DC, which recognizes demonstrations as critical to free speech and vital to democracy, and thus emphasizes negotiation and communication and prohibits preemptive arrests;
- Opposes President Obama's preventive detention proposal and Justice Department policies that allow for closed hearings, secret evidence, refusal to name those detained, elimination of attorney-client privilege, and long detentions without bond without any specific articulated reason;
- Calls for legislation to prohibit random or blanket drug testing in the workplace as well as legislation to ban telephone and internet monitoring of employees and to further restrict the use of lie detectors in employment;
- Supports legislation to abolish preventive detention and re-establish the right to bail and the concept of "innocent until proven guilty;"
- Supports legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act and opposes efforts to intimidate or bar the press and other news media from reporting on government activities;
- Supports repeal of McCarthy-era "speech crimes" laws, including the Smith Act and the Subversive Activities Control Act and opposes exclusion of foreigners based on political beliefs or memberships;
- Supports the abolition of the death penalty and supports the bill introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) to abolish the death penalty at the federal level (SB650);
- Calls on Congress to immediately restore the collective-bargaining rights of Homeland Security workers.