According to J.R. Fleming, a community organizer from the south side of Chicago, labor unions are “poverty-pimping racists.” I caught up with Fleming outside of the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago on Thursday during a big-labor organized protest against the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) 40th Anniversary Conference.
Fleming, who is the co-founder and chairman of the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Chicago, told Breitbart News, “The Unions are leading special interest groups and non-for-profits, this is called poverty pimping at its finest.”
Although ALEC has some messed up policies, they’ve got some okay policies, right? They’re trying to repeal minimum sentencing. Nobody is talking the good that they’re doing right? Everybody is focusing on the bad. And since we want to focus on the bad, lets talk about the bad in the movement.”
Let’s talk about how black men can not work in their community because of the racist unions. Let’s talk about how these cities is [sic] crumbling because how the union is gouging people. Let’s talk about real stuff.
Fleming went on to explain how the union and special interests are concerned about who marries who and support “undocumented people committing felony acts coming to America,” yet fail to show any concern about black Americans being able to get jobs, housing, and good education in their own communities. “I don’t see the unions talking about that, I don’t see anyone protesting ALEC talking about that,” Fleming said.
Fleming argued that there is no clearer example than looking to Detroit for the most devastating toll taken on black Americans at the hands of big labor.
“Look at the city of Detroit, the biggest example, the biggest hub of black unions, look what has happened to them, look at what’s happened to them black brothers, they’re not working, because they allowed the wrong people to represent their interests, and now the whole city is suffering,” he said.
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