Florida Seniors Speak Out Against Voter Suppression
 |
Laura Markwardt, senior communications associate at the Alliance for Retired Americans, sends us this.
Hundreds of Florida seniors and others turned out for a rally in Tampa Friday against voter suppression. The rally was followed by a hearing inside the courthouse about the new law chaired by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin who came to investigate whether the state law denies voters their constitutional rights. Durbin is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.
Recent changes in Florida’s election rules will have a dramatic impact on Florida’s seniors and other voters. The new law passed in the Florida legislature cuts early voting from 14 days to seven days before the election, which hurts many seniors who vote early because they are physically unable to stand in a long line or make it to the polls on Election Day. Limiting the ability to vote early will indeed impact Florida’s seniors and will disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinos, working families and young voters.
Florida Alliance for Retired Americans President Tony Fransetta spoke at the rally about his concerns about voter suppression saying,
The law is an effort to limit voter turnout – and it shouldn’t stand.
In addition to his senior peers, who will be severely impacted by the new law, Fransetta, a retired Read the rest of this entry »
Holt Baker: Collective Action Key Tool to Building King’s Dream into Reality
 |
Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legendary 1963 Washington, D.C, “I Have a Dream” speech. But what most don’t know, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said at the AFL-CIO’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference in Detroit, is that “the seeds of Dr. King’s dream were sown first,” in the Motor City.
First in the speech he gave in June in Detroit, and later in his more widely known speech in Washington, Dr. King described his dream, the dream that one day the white sons of former slave owners and the black sons of those who had been enslaved would live together as brothers, judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their characters.
Yet we know that Dr. King’s dream was not merely a dream about friendship, not some story about two people communing across a great economic divide. His dream was about true equality—economic, political and social justice.
During yesterday’s opening ceremony, Holt Baker reminded the more than 550 labor and civil rights activists and leaders that King knew that “a chief tool for freedom and progress for all people was collective action”:
whether as a labor union in the workplace or as nonviolent civil disobedience in the shared spaces of this country…whether at a lunch counter or in a park near Wall Street.
She also noted the long partnership by the union movement and the civil rights movement and his close relationship with the UAW. But although the AFL-CIO endorsed the principles behind the March on Washington, the federation did not endorse the march itself. Read the rest of this entry »
AFL-CIO’s King Observance Focuses on Economic, Social Justice
 |
In Detroit—a historic crossroads for both the labor and civil rights movements—more than 550 activists and leaders of those movements will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the AFL-CIO’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference.
The Jan. 12-16 observance will serve as an opportunity to recommit to working toward King’s cornerstone goals of economic and social justice. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says union, civil rights and community activists can honor King’s legacy by:
Redoubling our efforts to make real his prophecy our time—his message of justice for all, his message that the American Dream is for all of us.
The conference opens tonight and includes an awards presentation to civil rights veteran and lawmaker Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). Conyers, who has been in office since 1964, is one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Video, Website Highlight AFSCME’s 75th Anniversary
|
|
AFSCME is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a special website, a brand new video on the union’s history and a yearlong series of events.
The video features key moments in AFSCME’s history, including the union’s organizing campaigns, struggles to protect Social Security and pass affordable health care for all and the current battle to save and rebuild America’s working middle class.
The online exhibit at 75.afscme.org traces the union’s history from its origins as the Wisconsin State Employees Association to its charter with the AFL-CIO as AFSCME in 1936. It examines AFSCME’s fights in the 1930s and 40s to win collective bargaining rights and strong civil service laws, its strong involvement in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
The exhibit also highlights the prominent role of women in AFSCME’s growth, the union’s fight for pay equity, child care health care, strong Social Security and today’s current fight for workers’ rights in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states where the extreme right wing has mounted attacks. Read the rest of this entry »
Voices from Immigrant Alabama: Scared Workers, Conflicted Families
More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
DREAMer activist Victor Palafox took a delegation of national labor leaders and community and faith activists on a tour of a trailer park in Pelham, Ala., about 15 minutes from Birmingham, to give them a taste of how Alabama’s H.B. 56, which is one of the most punishing anti-immigrant state laws in America, hurts typical working people.
“My name is Pedro,” said one young man who spoke to the delegation in a community center in the park.
I don’t speak English very well because I’ve spent my time working. I work for a cleaning company. Ever since the law, my employer has used derogatory language and threatened not to pay me. I can’t leave. I have to work to feed my family.
People were nervous to come forward to talk to the delegation for fear that the news coverage Read the rest of this entry »
Alabama Deli Owner, Businesses Stand Strong for Immigrant Rights
 |
More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law instantly intimidated the nine Latino employees of Max’s Delicatessen, owned by Steve Dubrinsky, who says:
They are good solid people, and I don’t like how they feel right now.
Dubrinsky also quickly adds:
They’re all here legally.
His qualifying statement has become obligatory for everyone in Alabama these days who mentions an employee, friend or family member who’s Latino.
Dubrinsky wants that to change. Today, he hosted a group of local business owners to meet with African American union and civil rights leaders from as far away as Michigan and Washington, D.C., to enable owners to talk about Read the rest of this entry »
Equity Honors Jones with Paul Robeson Award
 |
James Earl Jones is the recipient of the 2011 Actors’ Equity (AEA) Paul Robeson Award. The annual award honors performers who best exemplify the principles the legendary actor, singer, author and activist lived by.
Jones, who is currently starring in a London West End production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” says in a statement that he briefly met Robeson three times, including once when he had the chance to hear him sing.
I was standing in the back of the concert hall and can describe the experience best by saying it was as if my soul was being rocked. It was the first time I understood what human magnetism was. Mr. Robeson was blessed with many endowments—among them the scholarship and athleticism of his youth, and the activist commitment that followed his fame as a performer.
Robeson Display Traces Singer’s Fight for Equality and Unions
 |
Paul Robeson, once the premier African American artist of the 20th century, is well known as a scholar, athlete, actor and activist. Less well known is his long commitment to the union movement and his belief that the achievement of full equality for African Americans and other people of color is inextricably linked with the full equality of America’s working men and women.
Now you can learn more about Robeson’s commitment to unions and equality at the Labor Arts‘ new virtual museum exhibit of ”Old Man River: Paul Robeson and the NMU.” According to the exhibit:
Symbolic of Robeson’s devotion to the labor movement is his close connection with the National Maritime Union (NMU), which emerged from a failed effort by dissident members of the International Seamen’s Union in 1936 to improve the poor working conditions of sailors on merchant ships of the time, and the racial discrimination that was practiced on American vessels.
Martin Luther King Jr., Friend of Labor
This is an excerpt of a cross-post from the American Constitution Society Blog by Angelia Wade, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO. The post coincided with the recent opening of the King National Memorial.
When he was assassinated in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis lending his support to striking garbage sanitation workers who were seeking to have their union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), recognized so they could negotiate a contract that raised their standard of living.
Dr. King’s support of the labor movement as a pathway to better jobs and justice did not just begin in 1968. Throughout much of his life, he advocated as much for economic equality as he did for racial equality. He once stated that it did no good for a man to eat at an integrated lunch counter if that same man could not afford to buy a hamburger at the establishment.
Dr. King said the labor movement was a key vehicle for people of color to gain economic equality. He often extolled the benefits and successes of organized labor. In October 1965, in an address to the Illinois AFL-CIO, he said many forget that it was the labor movement that
AFL-CIO, King Center Symposium on Jobs and Justice Set for Aug. 26
 |
The AFL-CIO and the King Center is hosting a national symposium on jobs, justice and the American Dream on Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C.
We will live webcast the two featured panels of notable civil rights activists, worker-activists, elected leaders, academics and young people. We’ll let you know the webcast URL next week.
You can participate in this historic symposium by submitting a question for the panelists. Just click here to ask your question. Panelists will select from among the questions submitted.
