Police acknowledge "doesn't seem to be much" basis for investigation
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The City of Grand Rapids often draws visitors from around the country for its arts, natural beauty, and thriving craft beer scene. But this week, it is earning the kind of attention that keeps visitors away: condemnation from as far as California and D.C. for its use of police to intimidate workers and students.
On Friday, the United Farm Workers (UFW) and The Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending Dissent Foundation (BORDC/DFF) strongly condemned Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss for using city police to intimidate students and workers and supporting union-busting by the Rapid - the city’s public transit system.
The UFW letter to Bliss expressed particular outrage that she had marched in the name of their founder the day before dispatching officers to harass activists.
“On behalf of the more than 10,000 members of the United Farm Workers, I am writing to express our deep disappointment in the breathtaking hypocrisy demonstrated by your administration this past week. On Thursday, March 17, you marched under our banner to commemorate the work of an American icon and our founder Cesar Chavez. The very next day, on Friday, March 18, you dispatched Grand Rapids police to the homes of student activists to intimidate them for organizing a January sit-in to support transit workers,” UFW President Arturo Rodriguez wrote in a letter to Mayor Bliss. “Union-busting and police intimidation of workers and activists has a dark history in our country, one that is especially painful for farm workers.”
This latest attempt to silence workers and community activists by Mayor Bliss is part of an ongoing, aggressive effort to muzzle anyone who speaks out against The Rapid’s theft of transit worker pensions, violations of the workers' First Amendment rights, a recent 16% fare hike, and a generous raise for the agency's CEO. Already, federal courts have issued rulings ordering The Rapid not to prohibit or interfere with the free speech rights of ATU Local 836 members working for the agency.
When asked about the police visits to the homes of students, Grand Rapids Police Sgt. Terry Dixon told The Grand Rapids Press that officers had closed the case, but that the department was "subsequently asked to reopen the case" almost two months after the incident. Sgt. Dixon goes on to admit that, "There doesn't seem to be much really to go on. We are standing down. There will be no charges sought."
In late January, community activists lead by the Grand Valley State University chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) staged a fare strike, encouraging riders to refuse to pay their bus fares in protest of the oppressive tactics being used by the Rapid, and engaged in a sit-in at a Rapid Board meeting.
“We honor the commitment of these students and workers to speak the truth, and deplore the tactics employed by the City and the transit agency to silence them,” says BORDC/DFF, a Washington, DC-based organization committed to defending the rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution in a statement.
“We know that the struggle for workers’ rights has always been closely connected with the struggle for the right to freedom of speech. The very right to form a union is protected under the freedom of association. Strikes and picket lines are amongst the most quintessential examples of expressive action our Bill of Rights is meant to protect. Yet for far too long federal, state, and local governments would go to great lengths to suppress these rights.”