MLK Labor Council voted to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild from its ranks

On June 17, 2020 the Martin Luther King Labor Council voted at its virtual meeting on June 17 to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) from its ranks.

The more than 150-member coalition of unions voted 153 in favor to 77 against, with a delegate roll-call vote that garnered more than 45,000 delegates in favor of SPOG’s expulsion. 

“I ask the obvious question: if not now, when? Because we have been dealing with this for a long time,” Prawl said. “Racism is perversive in all society as sickness that infect the trade union movement, just as it does the facet of all life. Because union must be spokesperson for all the people who work for a living, and because we must be advanced of our social and economic program, we have no choice but to take the lead in eliminating this cause of racism from our land.”
– Gabriel Prawl, the first Black African American chapter President of the ILWU Local 152, at the meeting on June 17th.

Read more about SPOG’s removal here.