ecology-of-the-inhuman:

Minneapolis Bus Drivers Refuse to Transport George Floyd Protesters to Jail

Organized labor throughout the city is banding together in solidarity against police violence in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

Vice

In solidarity with protestors, union bus drivers in Minneapolis signed a petition and refused to transport police officers and arrested protestors to jail on Thursday, PayDay Report first reported and independently confirmed by Motherboard. At one bus garage in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday evening, some workers refused to drive buses that were being dispatched to transport police officers.

“We are willing to do what we can to ensure our labor is not used to help the Minneapolis Police Department shut down calls for justice,” the petition reads. “For example, I am a bus driver with ATU 1005, and I urged people to call MetroTransit and the Governor the second I heard our buses and members were being organized to make mass arrests hours before the protests escalated.”

On Thursday, the city of Minneapolis shut down its light rail and bus services out of concern for employee and rider safety.

More than 400 union workers, including Minneapolis postal workers, nurses, teachers, and hotel workers have signed the petition posted on the Facebook group Union Members for #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pledging not to aid the policing of the protests with their labor, according to Adam Birch, a Minneapolis bus driver who wrote the petition.

“I was on my route on Wednesday evening and there was a message that came over transit control asking for a bus to transport police officers,” Birch told Motherboard. “I interpreted this as Minneapolis police department preparing for mass arrests so when I had a moment on a layover, I created a post on Facebook saying that I’m a metro transit bus driver, and I don’t feel comfortable assisting the Minneapolis police department to make arrests. It got a lot of reaction, which was surprising so I created a petition.”