Defend Our Civil Liberties

UE has warned for years that when the government claims the power to surveil, detain, and deport people without due process, it can and will use that power against innocent people, particularly those who speak out against government policies, and especially those who represent a credible power base, such as the labor movement. We saw this during the McCarthy period in the 1940s and 50s when the combined forces of the federal government, big business, and their business-union co-conspirators nearly destroyed UE and progressive trade unionism.

The second Trump administration has exacerbated existing threats and violations of civil liberties in the U.S. and sought to systematically erode the civil liberties of the American working class.

Working people are upset at the corruption and inaction of their own government. The rising prices of food and gas continue to outpace housing costs and inflation—all while the U.S. government starts and prolongs wars around the globe. Rather than providing material solutions to these crises, the Trump Administration has instead sought to redirect anger against our broken system toward our fellow workers, scapegoating immigrants and other vulnerable groups and grossly violating their civil rights.

The wielding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in raids and crackdowns is not about immigration—it is about power. These raids are a systematization of violence and fear to protect the interests of the ruling class. The Trump administration has vastly increased the ICE budget in order to create a private secret police, shielded from any legal accountability, who kidnap people off the streets while wearing masks and refusing to identify themselves.

Large demonstrations have been held across the country calling for ICE out of their cities. President of SEIU California David Huerta was snatched from the street in a violent sweep in Los Angeles and, in a dramatic escalation, the National Guard and the U.S. military were deployed in June 2025 in a desperate attempt to intimidate people out of exercising their First Amendment rights. The National Guard has now been deployed to Washington, DC, targeting the entire population of the city, demonstrating that once the government feels like it can use this type of force against immigrants, it has a free hand to do it against anyone, with multiple cities, including Chicago, now threatened as well

Over the past two years, thousands of students on hundreds of campuses across the country built solidarity encampments, walked out of graduation ceremonies, and went on hunger strikes to demand a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Palestine. Participants in these movements have been met with intimidation, both from their university administrators and the federal government, threatening academic expulsion, withholding of degrees, and legal action. For example, UE Locals 150 and 300 had members suspended for exercising their freedom of speech by attending a Palestine protest. As in the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi, Leqaa Kordia, those exercising their First Amendment rights have been abducted by federal agents and illegally detained in ICE facilities.

These retaliatory actions on college campuses are also a blatant attempt to weaken the U.S. labor movement. Grant Miner, a graduate worker at Columbia University and the President of UAW Local 2710, was expelled for his activism and solidarity with the encampments. Even in the face of flagrant and systematized repression, students have bravely continued to speak out, and graduate workers across the nation continue to fight for recognition and bravely use their voices to demand fair contracts. As we enter several arduous years of political and economic struggle, sustained organizing and unionization efforts will be critical to strengthen the ability for students to stand for their beliefs.

The danger of the current moment is exacerbated by new technologies. Government powers of domestic surveillance have long been deployed against labor, especially militant trade unions like UE. In recent years, the dangerous alliance between domestic surveillance agencies and Silicon Valley has only expanded the tools available for suppressing organizing workers. Artificial intelligence (AI) sits at the center of these new instruments, representing a dramatic growth in surveillance capabilities and dangerous threat to labor power and job security. Opaque conglomerates, in partnership with the federal government yet lacking any public accountability, now design this “transformative” technology with an eye towards the suppression of progressive labor power.

Bosses try to instill fear in workers during union organizing campaigns—that is the kind of fear that the government is trying to spread across society as a whole. Corporations trying to defend their profit margins have been behind a number of these civil liberties abuses. Big business has pushed for laws to criminalize those who protest them or expose their misconduct. They hire private mercenary firms, modern day successors to the Pinkertons, who work with law enforcement to stamp out protests.

The question of capital punishment is historically of great concern to union members. On numerous occasions our government has framed and executed labor leaders, including the Haymarket martyrs, Industrial Workers of the World leader Joe Hill, immigrant labor activists Sacco and Vanzetti, and the coal miners known as the Molly Maguires. Tom Mooney, who spoke to an early UE convention, and the legendary Big Bill Haywood, were spared the death penalty only after massive campaigns to save them.

The chilling effect of denials of our democratic freedoms and civil liberties curbs progress in the U.S., limits the ability of all workers to make democratic choices for the future of our country, and thereby undermines our livelihoods, living standards, and working conditions. Without robust and proactive defense of our civil liberties, we risk the continuation of our broken system that puts profits over workers. It is clear that the fight to protect and regain civil liberties must continue regardless of which party controls the White House.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 79^th UE CONVENTION:

1. Opposes any change in the law that would further undermine our right to defend the interests of working people, specifically including changes designed to make picket-line activity subject to federal prosecution or would undermine working people’s ability to form a union and exercise their rights to collectively bargain;
2. Urges all locals and members to support organizations such as Defending Rights & Dissent, the National Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and Amnesty International;
3. Demands Congress investigate revelations of political spying and disruption by the FBI and other federal agencies and pass legislation definitively outlawing these practices;
4. Opposes any laws designed to limit the right to protest or further militarize domestic law enforcement;
5. Demands the end of use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists;
6. Calls for legislation to protect our civil liberties in the workplace, including:
   1. Prohibiting random or blanket drug testing in the workplace;
   2. Banning telephone, internet, and AI monitoring of employees;
   3. Further restricting the use of lie detectors, cameras, GPS, AI, and other surveillance technologies in employment;
   4. Full respect of the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals;
   5. Creating policy that re-thinks and re-imagines how we can use technologies to benefit all working people, not just the billionaire class.
   6. Reject the use of AI in the use of technologies for the purpose of surveillance and control;
   7. Opposing preventive detention 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;
7. Demands Congress reform the process for placing groups on terrorist lists to ensure that they have sufficient notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond to charges;
8. Supports constitutional reform seeking to nullify the Citizens United decision, putting an end to unlimited financial influence of the billionaire class in our country’s democracy;
9. Supports legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, supports strong whistleblower protection legislation, and opposes efforts to intimidate or bar the press and other news media from reporting on government activities;
10. Supports repeal of McCarthy-era “speech crime” laws, including the Smith Act and the Subversive Activities Control Act, and opposes exclusion of immigrants or refugees based on political beliefs or memberships;
11. Supports the abolition of the death penalty and an end to mass incarceration.