Ball is in your court, Richard Trumka.

Via Campus Reform:

The UC student-worker union wants the AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions, to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA).

A letter written by United Auto Workers Local 2865, the UC student-worker union, to the AFL-CIO claims that police officer unions inherently do not represent the interest of workers, and therefore the AFL-CIO must break ties with them.

“Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests of police as laborers,” the students write. “Instead, their ‘unionization’ allows police to masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the working-class.”

Though the students concede that police are technically workers and could be “subject to the same kinds of exploitation” other laborers allegedly face, they are also “the militarized, coercive arm of the state.”

Particularly, the students argue that cops uphold racist policies by “lobbying to oppose independent oversight by civilians and other governmental entities,” “[c]ampaigning for political actors who support limited police accountability,” and “[d]efending officers’ crimes of racist brutality in court.”