1968 Memphis Sanitation Strikers Inducted Into Labor Hall of Fame
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In an emotional ceremony, punctuated by several standing ovations, the U.S. Labor Department inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame 1,300 Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike the right to join a union and collective bargaining was Martin Luther King’s last campaign. King was killed in the midst of the strike.
This is the first time the Hall of Fame has inducted a group of workers. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the sanitation workers were “ordinary men who took an extraordinary stand for what is right.”
On April 4, Stand in Solidarity with Working People
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Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he was standing with sanitation workers demanding their dream of a better life. Today, the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a middle-class life are under attack as never before.
People across America—black, white, Latino and Asian American—are electrified by that same dream and are standing up for the right to join together for our common dreams.
Join us to make April 4, 2011, a day to stand in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for. It’s a day to show movement. A day to be creative, a day to show that “We Are One.”
Save the date. To learn more, click here.
Atlanta-Area Residents Demand Big Banks Help Struggling Homeowners
In Atlanta—one of the areas hardest hit by foreclosures—residents who are about to lose their homes today demanded that Big Banks like Wachovia/Wells Fargo reform their policies and protect homeowners on the brink of homelessness.(See video here.)
More than 200 people, including community groups, clergy and labor and government leaders, attended a hearing at an Atlanta church and listened to area residents about to lose their homes explain the Big Banks’ role in the foreclosure crisis. The hearing was sponsored by the Atlanta Fighting Foreclosure Coalition and the AFL-CIO.
In often moving testimony, several Atlanta residents told how they had worked hard to build a life for themselves and their families only to have their dream dashed by losing their homes to foreclosure.
One witness testified his bank told him he was so far behind on his mortgage that he would need to win the lottery to catch up. An Atlanta Legal Aid worker said all the biggest banks jumped in with both feet into the subprime mortgage business.
Award-Winning Author to Discuss King’s Quest for Economic Justice
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Michael Honey, award-winning author of Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign, will talk about the Memphis sanitation strike and King’s unfinished quest for economic justice and workers’ rights at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., March 17 at 7 p.m.
Going Down Jericho Road (available from The Union Shop OnlineTM in hardcover and paperback) won the prestigious 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. In the book, Honey, a professor at the University of Washington-Tacoma and president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, recounts the 1968 walkout of 1,300 sanitation workers, nearly all of them African American, in Memphis, Tenn. The workers were demanding recognition of their union (AFSCME), an agreement that the city would withhold union dues from workers’ paychecks, a small pay raise and improved safety standards.
