Monthly Archives: July 2016

On July 18, the UFCW published an open letter in The New York Times calling for a national summit on justice in America.

The letter, which was submitted before the deaths of three police officers in Baton Rouge on Sunday morning, pleads with our nation’s elected officials, civil rights leaders, police and justice officials to jointly address the division and violence we are witnessing. It also asks our nation’s broadcast and cable networks to air this discussion in prime time to help unite the country.

“Even before yesterday’s horrific killings, our hope was that this open letter would encourage Americans to come together and face what divides us,” said UFCW International President Marc Perrone. “For the sake of all our children, we must believe in a better America. We cannot continue to allow hate to determine who we are and who we can be.”

Excerpts from the letter are below:

“As a diverse union family with over 1.3 million members, such a national summit would give our members and all Americans the chance to hear directly from our national and state elected leaders, civil rights officials, Black Lives Matter movement leaders, local and state police officials, as well as representatives from labor, media, and corporate America.

“It would provide an opportunity to listen to difficult truths, to hear the sincerity of fears and concerns so many feel, and to understand the changes that we must make.

“To help focus our nation’s awareness, we believe that all our nation’s major cable and broadcast channels should all agree to televise this national summit in prime time. By simulcasting this summit across all major networks, the call for change would echo across this nation like never before.”

The full letter is available here.

Last week, UFCW International President Marc Perrone issued the following statement in response to the horrific shootings in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas:

“We once again wake up to the realization that there is hate, indifference, and injustice dividing and taking the lives of Americans. The needless deaths of two fathers, one shot selling CDs, the other reaching for his wallet, are the latest tragic examples that African Americans face not only injustice, but death at the hands of those sworn to protect justice.

“The events in Dallas, and the murder of five police officers who were protecting the rights of all us to speak out against such injustice not only fills us with heartbreak, it leads us to question the very direction of this nation.

“All of us who lead, in labor and out, every elected and community leader, our presidential candidates, must now face a stark choice – we will either come together to solve these problems that have led to these senseless deaths, or we will see our great nation torn apart by those who hate and wish to divide us.

“We cannot accept the status quo. We must do better.

“Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the five officers in Dallas, are our most recent victims. We must act in their memory and the memories of the countless other victims before them who fell to similar tragedies. The time has come for more than moments of silence. The time has come for real action.

“Let us stop burying our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, friends and neighbors, and begin to confront the problem we face head on. For the sake of the children and families who needlessly lost the ones they love, for the communities and the nation that has been scarred by these unspeakable acts of violence, the time is now for us to put our political divisions aside, and act.”