Marvin Bing, a member of the AFL-CIO Special Committee on Labor-Community Partnerships, sends us this report on a meeting of AFL-CIO constituency groups in Phoenix.

AFL-CIO constituency groups kicked off the “We Are One Moving America Forward” symposium late last week with a series of great speeches by William Lucy, Ben Jealous, George Gresham, Danny Ortega and Judith Browne-Dianis. A resounding theme: “We can’t let the 1 percent trick us into believing we are different—We are the 99 percent, we are one and if we don’t work together on issues that bring us together, we will fall together.” We are the people who fight for working families, we are the people who fight to protect our students, children, seniors and families. We are the labor movement and together with the community we are unbeatable.

Constituency members include: The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), Pride At Work (PAW), Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA).

Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, closed the panel, “Organizing in Our Communities: How African Americans and Latinos Have Strength in Unity,” by saying:

We are losing jobs, We are losing teachers, we are losing rights. The 1 percent are dividing families, pitting the middle-class families verses poor families using fear, intimidation tactics—but we have beat them back time and time again through coalition building, determination and a strong presence from rank and file union members and community residents all over this country. We need to send a strong message to the Koch Brothers and ALEC that we still embrace equality and togetherness and we will fight them every step of the way to ensure the gains we have fought for working families are not reversed.

Panelists included: Petee Talley, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO; Randy Parraz, co-founder and president of Citizens for a Better Arizona; Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona; the Rev. Dr. Lewis E. Logan, co-coordinator of the Black-Brown Clergy Coalition; LaToia Jones, senior associate of Human Rights and Community Relations at AFT.

Talley talked about Ohio and the campaign that repealed S.B. 5, as well as the early stages of the movement and the lack of diversity. She also highlighted the fact that when S.B. 5 was first introduced, it appeared to be race neutral, but then after extensive research and polling, it became clear that the people it would most hurt were low income and African American. She started organizing around the idea that it was going to be harder to mobilize communities of color and poorer neighborhoods if the coalition only focused on the effects of S.B. 5 on firefighters and police—noting that in communities of color, we have a long road to travel when it comes to police-community relations. She also highlighted the fact that in many of these neighborhoods, unemployment is double than that of more middle-class neighborhoods and non-communities of color. She talked about how she started to engage non-labor allies and put together a community-based coalition to start phone banking, petition gathering, hosting tele-town hall meetings in each community to get them engaged in the process and to educate them on how this law hurts them. She ended by noting that on Election Day, exit polls showed that 61 percent of voters voted “No,” but a staggering 93 percent of African Americans voted “No” on Issue 2, which repealed S.B. 5. It was quite evident that when we go beyond our front doors, the power of coalition-building and community-labor partnerships are what makes the union movement even stronger.

Jones from AFT gave a synopsis of AFT training and organizing to enable its local unions around the country to build community coalitons.

We have to be willing to have the honest conversations, understanding that not all African Americans and Latinos share the same sentiments toward each other, but when we find common ground we should tune in to it and start from there.

While it may be difficult to combine forces, she said, we must be open to other groups if we are going to grow beyond our traditional labor venues. She gave the example of a Florida AFT local that began planning ts community engagement a year ago, and because of the work beyond its members, the local was able to increase membership by 1,000. She hit home the message that our members are a part of a much larger community and we should embrace that community and be there when the community needs us—not just going to the community when we need them.

Falcon from Promise Arizona talked about S.B. 1070 and how the community came together. When S.B. 1070 was introduced, immigrant families went into hiding. “Living in fear, is living in death,” she said, and when labor came together with the community, we stopped running and hiding, and we started fighting back. She talked about how Gov. Jan Brewer deployed 500 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to hunt down those “looking Mexican or Latino” and raided houses, churches and communities. She described the formation of “One Arizona,” a coalition of young people, clergy, labor and community groups that wanted to take a stand. She even pointed out that middle- aged Republican women were upset about the bill and started to organize Republicans to join the coalition. Falcon shared how One Arizona was the infrastructure needed to build a long-term, sustainable coalition toward a new Arizona, bringing together the largest, loudest and progressive coalition that Arizona has ever seen. They engaged people that have never been engaged in the political process before and organized Republicans as well as Independents. She ended on the fact that on Election Day, when state Senate Leader Russell Pierce was ousted, 300 volunteers were active and engaged and that they have the infrastructure needed to make Arizona a state for democracy and freedom.

Logan spoke about how in Los Angeles and California, clergy is stepping up efforts to bridge the gap between African Americans and Latinos, and he described his formation of the Black-Brown Clergy Coalition. He talked about how, in forming the group, he pulled together clergy who never had worked with each other and didn’t know much about each other’s culture. He talked about how in order to get past our prejudices and cultural histories we need to have honest conversations with each other and get out anything that we perceived to be true or false. He talked about how he worked to break down barriers that our different histories provided and came to the realization that our present and our futures are combined and we need to embrace each other as brothers and sisters—or both our cultures would continue to be used, abused and pitted against each other.

The panel ended with questions and comments from the audience and the panel received a standing ovation. The overall sound was that together labor and community will form an unbeatable force, and we can continue to win on the heels of victories in Wisconsin, Arizona and Ohio.