Black Lives Matter at Work

MADISON
25
Freedom Struggle and Fiscal Policy
Michael Billeaux, Teaching Assistants’ Association
The Teaching Assistants' Association, AFT 3220, the labor union for
graduate employees at the UW-Madison, understands that raising the
demand for Black freedom is a crucial component of reviving the labor
movement in general. The TAA fights to defend and improve the wages
and working conditions of vastly underpaid and often abused graduate
workers—indeed, for the last 3 years, we have waged a campaign for
increased pay and paid parental leave—but we have always understood
that the labor movement can't grow if unions focus on bread-and-butter
demands to the exclusion of broader issues of oppression.
This informed our decision to support Madison's YGB Coalition. In their
fight against an $8 million proposal to renovate the Dane County jail, the
YGB had already drawn the connection between the Black freedom
struggle and fiscal policy, so we wanted to connect our struggle against
Walker's austerity budget and the privatization of the UW to the
demands of YGB. To that end, when the TAA organized a rally against the
proposed restructuring of the UW and the $300 million cut, the TAA and
other campus unions wanted YGB to help build the rally and lead its
messaging. Seeking to build support for the Black freedom struggle
within the labor movement, the TAA delegation to this year's convention
of the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions proposed a referendum
(passed unanimously) committing participating locals to develop
strategies for winning support for the Black Lives Matter movement
within their respective parent unions and central labor councils.