Showing posts with label labor rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labor rights. Show all posts
Monday, October 3, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
MLK On Labor Rights
April 4th, 2011
Those who have used today to suggest that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was not a progressive or was unconcerned with the right to organize are just plain lying.
Those who have used today to suggest that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was not a progressive or was unconcerned with the right to organize are just plain lying.
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work.' It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped." -- speaking about right-to-work laws in 1961
Beckwatch - Smearing Dr. King Edition
April 4th, 2011
Gleen Beck says that Dr. King's fight really had nothing to do with the rights of labor.
Here's Beck (clip via Media Matters):
And here are some of Dr. King's own words:
"The limited reforms we have won have been at bargain rates for the power structure. There are no expenses involved, no taxes are required, for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels and other facilities. Even the more substantial reforms such as voting rights require neither monetary or psychological sacrifice. The real cost lies ahead. To enable the Negro to catch up, to repair the damage of centuries of denial and oppression means appropriations to create jobs and job training; it means the outlay of billions for decent housing and equal education." -- Teamsters and Allied Trade Councils, New York City, May 1967
"We look around every day and we see thousands and millions of people making inadequate wages. Not only do they work in our hospitals, they work in our hotels, they work in our laundries, they work in domestic service, they find themselves underemployed. You see, no labor is really menial unless you're not getting adequate wages. People are always talking about menial labor. But if you're getting a good (wage) as I know that through some unions they've brought it up...that isn't menial labor. What makes it menial is the income, the wages." -- Local 1199 Salute to Freedom, March 1968
"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."-- AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike, April 3, 1968
Gleen Beck says that Dr. King's fight really had nothing to do with the rights of labor.
Here's Beck (clip via Media Matters):
And here are some of Dr. King's own words:
"The limited reforms we have won have been at bargain rates for the power structure. There are no expenses involved, no taxes are required, for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels and other facilities. Even the more substantial reforms such as voting rights require neither monetary or psychological sacrifice. The real cost lies ahead. To enable the Negro to catch up, to repair the damage of centuries of denial and oppression means appropriations to create jobs and job training; it means the outlay of billions for decent housing and equal education." -- Teamsters and Allied Trade Councils, New York City, May 1967
"We look around every day and we see thousands and millions of people making inadequate wages. Not only do they work in our hospitals, they work in our hotels, they work in our laundries, they work in domestic service, they find themselves underemployed. You see, no labor is really menial unless you're not getting adequate wages. People are always talking about menial labor. But if you're getting a good (wage) as I know that through some unions they've brought it up...that isn't menial labor. What makes it menial is the income, the wages." -- Local 1199 Salute to Freedom, March 1968
"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."-- AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike, April 3, 1968
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