United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 Joins Call for Resignation of Mayor Durkan
/FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2020
Press Contact:
Joe Mizrahi, jmizrahi@ufcw21.org,
(619) 955-2970
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 Joins Call for Resignation of Mayor Durkan
This weekend, Seattle residents once again experienced a massive deployment of chemical weapons from the Seattle Police Department, choking a city neighborhood during a respiratory virus pandemic.
“Many of our fellow UFCW 21 members who are essential workers have faced a choice between losing a paycheck or traveling to work during confusing curfews and consistent use of tear gas, pepper spray, and explosive devices in neighborhoods where we live and work,” said Seattle members of the UFCW 21 rank-and-file executive board Sam Dancy (QFC), Jeannette Randall (Safeway), Greg Brooks (PCC), and Amy Dayley Angell (QFC). “The distance between Mayor Durkan and the values of the membership of UFCW 21 is growing clearer each day.”
Unfortunately, it has become clear that Mayor Durkan is unable to enact the changes required to respond to community demands around the city’s budget and to protect working people from ongoing police violence. Our community’s constitutional rights and our safety is being compromised due to failed leadership.
A mayor who allows for the use of weapons of war against her own community cannot remain in office and cannot lead on the critical changes needed for public safety. We are joining the community call on Mayor Durkan to resign her position and allow the city to begin the meaningful process of seeking out community voices and listening to their calls for justice, without enacting added state violence. We need a mayor who can restore our right to peaceful assembly and free speech, which are bedrock values of the labor movement. The trust between our city and our mayor has been irrevocably broken.
We know that Mayor Durkan’s resignation will not solve the deep-seated systemic issues with policing in Seattle. As Seattle City Council member Teresa Mosqueda said earlier today, “a change in office without radical change in the institution that is policing is not transformational.” We will stand with our community and we will stand with Seattle City Council to demand this change.
UFCW 21 is working to build a powerful union that fights for economic, political and social justice in our workplaces and our communities. We represent over 46,000 workers in retail, grocery stores, health care, cannabis, and other industries in Washington State. More than 10,000 UFCW 21 members live or work in Seattle. Whenever workers are ready to form a union, give UFCW 21 a call.
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