Celebrating Black Liberation This Juneteenth

To Our OPEIU Family:

OPEIU is proud to celebrate Juneteenth!

On this day in 1865, the last Black Americans living in slavery were finally freed. We commemorate the millions of Black people brought to the Americas against their will over the course of centuries who, in unimaginably horrific conditions, built the country's wealth for white slaveowners. While the practice of enslaving Black people was made illegal with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, its consequences have never been fully addressed. As a result, severe economic disparities persist today.

The abolition of chattel slavery was the result of hundreds of years of slave resistance alongside tremendous solidarity from working people across the United States. That same solidarity is needed today if we are to uphold our nation's promise of being a place where people have the freedom to truly control their own labor. We must also continue the fight to eradicate slavery, as millions of Americans continue to work against their will in debt bondage, forced prison labor or blatant human trafficking.

We must be steadfast in opposing any system where workers are not compensated for their labor, do not have the power to negotiate their salaries or cannot leave their job at their own will. We also must stand up for full equality in our workplaces and our union, employment opportunities with living wages for all and legal reforms that uplift impoverished Black Americans rather than incarcerate them.

While keeping this in mind, let us spend today celebrating the central contribution of Black Americans to the United States, pay respect to their immeasurable sacrifices and consider lessons from their history of resistance that achieved this historic step in 1865, and continues to make tremendous progress for all workers.

Happy Juneteenth from OPEIU