DeRay Mckesson, Black Lives Matter activist, leads push to dismantle police union contracts

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist has started a new effort to battle police unions’ political power by targeting union contracts and campaign contributions.

DeRay Mckesson, an activist who gained celebrity during the Ferguson, Missouri, protests of 2014, is leading the NixThe6 push to dismantle union contracts that have thwarted activists’ efforts to defund the police.

NixThe6 says that police unions have met privately with politicians to “rig the system” and is intent on developing an activist network and resources necessary to fight the labor groups. The group’s mantra refers to six obstacles to demolishing police unions’ power identified by the activists: police union contracts, police bill of rights laws, the unions’ influence over budgets, unions’ “buying political power,” closed-door negotiations and rehiring officers fired amid misconduct allegations.

“In many cities, police union contracts effectively place a stranglehold on city budgets by limiting the city’s ability to move money/reduce staff, automatically increasing personnel costs which comprise over 80% of the police budget, and placing restrictions on what department roles can be eliminated or reassigned to alternative responders,” the NixThe6 website says. “By introducing a focus on police union power and police union contracts, NixThe6 is a complementary effort that removes many of the systemic barriers that prevent cities from being able to cut police funding.”

NixThe6 did not respond to requests for comment.

The police unions have signaled they will not go down without a fight.

The Protect our Police PAC, an advocacy group formed in July aimed at electing candidates opposed to defunding police, raised $750,000 in its first three weeks. Former Philadelphia police officers formed the group with a five-figure investment from a local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police and quickly gained momentum.

Amid the civil unrest associated with anti-police protests nationwide, police unions have become a strong ally of President Trump and his reelection campaign. Vice President Mike Pence visited Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5 in Philadelphia last month where the co-chairmen of the POP PAC were on hand. In August, Mr. Trump was endorsed by a leading New York City Police Department union, the NYPD Benevolent Association.

Mr. Mckesson is working with Johnetta Elzie, another activist who gained a following during the Ferguson protests, and Samuel Singyawe, co-founder of Campaign Zero.

The NixThe6 effort is operating under the umbrella of the Campaign Zero platform, which is a hub for Black Lives Matter activists to share research and brainstorm solutions for eliminating police power. More than a dozen other members and research advisers hailing from such institutions as the University of Chicago and the University of Oxford are also listed on NixThe6’s website.

The Black Lives Matter activists are building a grassroots pressure campaign to achieve policing overhauls at the local level and drive pro-police candidates out of office.

The NixThe6 team has launched a campaign-contribution tracker that will reveal the politicians who took donations from police unions in the last five years. Collectively, the activists say they have reviewed police union contracts in nearly 600 cities, largely through public records requests.

Details about Campaign Zero’s plans and funding have received criticism since its earliest days in the aftermath of the 2014 Ferguson protests. Liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations first looked to Campaign Zero as the primary vehicle for turning Black Lives Matter activism into a lasting protest movement in 2015, according to BuzzFeed.