ATLANTA—Hundreds of mostly Black trade unionists from across the country packed the Hyatt Regency downtown Thursday as the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) opened its 55th International Convention with a sober assessment: The labor movement is under its most severe attack in a generation, and no one is coming to save them but themselves.
At this year’s convention, the CBTU is dedicating itself to building its own political roadmap that is rooted in the understanding that labor rights and civil rights are one fight. And, according to the workers here, they are not waiting for permission.
“Workers today are facing some of the worst conditions imaginable,” CBTU President Rev. Terrence L. Melvin declared from the main stage. “The rising cost of living has priced many out of obtaining basic necessities. Health care has become unavailable for millions. The price of gas has bled many of our bank accounts. Yet somehow there is always enough money to enrich the richest few.”
Melvin said the Trump administration is “demolishing unions with the stroke of a pen and a deaf ear to the workers”—a reference to executive orders that have shredded union contracts and canceled bargaining rights for more than a million public service workers.
“Now is not the time to bend,” he said. “Now is not the time to forget the obstacles we have hurdled and the victories we have achieved. Instead, we need to lean on those victories to help pave the way for new accomplishments.”
‘This country has never been great’
Melvin devoted a significant portion of his keynote to attacking the white nationalist framing of the MAGA movement.
“This country has never been ‘great,’” he said. “It wasn’t great under Jim Crow and it wasn’t great even under Barack Obama. Because they were planning to bring us right back down to where they wanted us to be—and hell no, I am not going back.”
He pointed specifically to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map and effectively gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—the primary legal tool for challenging racist voter discrimination.
“The MAGA movement put a dagger right to the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” Melvin said.
He noted that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry declared a “state of emergency” before the primary elections—not because of floods or power outages, but because, in Melvin’s words mocking Landry, “‘I need to stop these Negroes from having seats and I need to redistrict.’”
Despite the ruling, Melvin sees a political opening. “In order to dilute our votes in our districts, they are putting us in some of the white majority districts,” he said. “But guess what? What MAGA does not understand is that some [working-class white voters] don’t like MAGA anymore.
“Some of the former MAGA folks are now saying, ‘You said you weren’t going to war and now you started three,’ and ‘You were going to release the Epstein files but you’re still holding onto them.’ These former MAGA voters are either not going to vote or they’re going to vote the other way. So, we say, dilute your ass off, because we’re all coming after you!”
Labor rights as civil rights
“Freedom is justice beyond just the union halls and workplaces,” he said. That means defending voting rights is not a separate struggle from defending collective bargaining rights; they are two sides of the same coin.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), drove the point home from the convention floor. “The CBTU has been onto something since 1972 that the rest of the labor movement is just now catching up to,” he said. “It’s that labor rights and civil rights are not separate issues but are one and the same.”
The 2026 midterms
With the November midterms looming, Melvin made clear that CBTU is not waiting for the Democratic Party establishment to lead the opposition.
“The Democrats have not called us about anything,” he said. “They haven’t called us about the war. They haven’t called us about DOGE. They haven’t called us about the budget, and so on, unless they want us to vote for them.”
His response drew sustained applause. Targeting the Democratic National Committee and corporate leadership, Melvin emphasized the independent role that organized labor must play in electoral politics. He said “when we get in power, don’t call them about a damn thing. They can stay home, I don’t care. CBTU and Black workers will put their own roadmap together for 2027 and 2029.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler was unable to attend in person but sent a video address. She announced a labor-led voter protection operation for the 2026 midterms in response to threats that ICE agents could be deployed at polling locations to suppress voter turnout.
“What we’ve seen this past year, the past few weeks alone, are the most heinous attacks in a generation on working people, and especially against Black workers in this country,” Shuler said.
“Gutting our federal workforce, firing tens of thousands of Black women who were doing the critical jobs, the ones our communities count on. Rolling back DEI and anti-discrimination programs that were making all of us better.”
Shuler called the Louisiana Supreme Court decision “an attack on Black workers, Black communities, and every worker in this country.”
In response, she said, “We’re going to mobilize in communities that don’t always turn out to vote in the midterms because labor has the trust that no one else has. And come Nov. 3rd, we’re gonna have the largest voter protection operation the labor movement has ever done.”
Shuler added a note of caution about over-reliance on elections. “We know that an election isn’t going to change everything we need to in this country. But that’s where we start. Rejecting this division and authoritarianism, and starting to rally people around a better vision for the future.”
The challenge of voter disillusionment
The Black Opposition Project, a coalition of labor and movement organizations including SEIU, presented polling data highlighting both the challenges and opportunities in the 2026 midterms.
Two main issues motivate Black voters, the data showed: economic justice and racial justice. But younger Black workers expressed deep disillusionment, with one focus-group participant saying, “DEI and voting rights didn’t get me a job.”
They said that finding points to the need for more political education among young workers and Black youth. He also noted that the slogan “defend democracy” polls poorly because, as many Black voters put it, “What democracy is there to defend?”
To combat disillusionment, Melvin emphasized that labor education programs are essential to building the labor movement, developing consciousness, and winning power. He pointed to the Ontario Chapter of CBTU, which just launched an Education branch, as a positive example of what can be built.
“Labor education will help get us out of the mess we’re in,” Melvin said. “We need a new plan. We’re not going back to 2024 or 2020. We need a new plan that has [the labor movement] front and center of everything going on in this country.
“As long as we organize, educate and reach workers where they are, we’re still in the game,” he said. “That’s why CBTU is finalizing our gameplan in our best interests and our approach this election cycle.”
The convention also took a clear stand against the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which the CBTU called illegal and unjust. Melvin noted that rising gas prices, driven by the war, are putting extraordinary strain on working families while enriching defense contractors.
The convention continues through Sunday.
Eric Brooks contributed material for this story.
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