OMAHA—Workers at Black & Pink National, an Omaha-based non-profit working toward prison abolition, have announced they are forming a union under the Denver NewsGuild (TNG-CWA L37074). The Black & Pink Union stands to be the largest trans & queer abolitionist union in the country.
On Wednesday, a majority of employees including staff throughout the organization delivered the union mission statement to leadership. The workers are organizing to address major challenges at the company, including understaffing and high turnover. They will continue to mobilize to win voluntary recognition from the company.
“We refuse to let those of us most vulnerable to systems of oppression be left behind,” reads their mission statement. “As Mariame Kaba writes, ‘Everything worthwhile is done with other people.’ We stand together in union solidarity so that we may create the abolitionist world of our dreams.”
Black & Pink National was founded in 2005 as a volunteer alliance of trans and queer people across prison walls, dedicated to demolishing those walls through advocacy, support and organizing. The organization is now one of the largest abolitionist nonprofits in the nation, truly unique in its combination of liberatory vision and material resources, advocacy and direct service.