We Are One

This April 4, Amnesty International joins the We Are One day of solidarity in support of labor rights. Under international law, all workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively. These rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, as well as conventions adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO).  As a signatory to these treaties, the United States has an obligation to respect and promote these rights.


April 4 marks the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in Memphis where he had gone to support sanitation workers seeking collective bargaining rights. Everyone knows the end of the speech he gave the night before, you know-- "I have been to the mountaintop" "I've seen the promised land" "I might not get there with you" etc-- but do you remember what comes before that?-- “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. . . . All labor has dignity.”

As a refresher, here's a short AFSCME video about the sanitation workers' strike:



As it happens a collection (All Labor Has Dignity) of Dr. King's speeches on labor was just released this year.  The Atlantic interviews editor Michael Honey:

In a 1968 speech, King asks: "What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?" Had he started to feel that race reform was doomed without economic reform, and vice versa?

He did say that the civil rights that we'd attained from Brown vs. Board of Education to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were a remarkable change, but after that he really did emphasize economic issues. The urban areas were exploding all across the country. There were riots, police brutality, and National Guard occupation of black communities. The fact was, in the urban areas, civil rights didn't do anything to change the economic situation for the mass of working class people. Those were people that should have had jobs and union wages, who should have been advancing themselves. Instead, factories were shutting down. Jobs were being shipped overseas. The urban areas were being stripped of all economic activities. It was like stranding the millions of people who'd migrated to the cities for jobs. So, without an economic program—yes, that's what he was saying—the civil rights we've gained won't be meaningful for most people.

Here's Prof. Honey giving a talk on the significance of the King speeches (I advise skipping ahead to the 30 minute mark for the most substantive discussion).




Honey, notes for a Memphis newspaper the similarities between the historic strike and our present labor struggle,

"The two things Gov. (Scott) Walker took away from public employees in Wisconsin were collective bargaining rights and union dues collection," Honey said. "Those were the exact two points around which the Memphis strike revolved. Mayor (Henry) Loeb absolutely refused to engage in collective bargaining. He said, 'You can have a union ... we just won't bargain with it,' which means your union is useless. And secondly, 'We'll never deduct dues from your wages.' He knew that was crucial for this group of workers because they were so poor that, if it wasn't deducted from their wages, it was really hard to get the dues money from them. Translating that to today," said Honey, "if your union can't bargain for you, why would you pay dues? It's totally an anti-union strategy on his (Walker's) part, and it was the same thing King was fighting in Memphis."

Another interesting look at the Memphis sanitation workers comes from the "I am a Man" project in Memphis where you can find a DVD and curriculum guide, or you can view oral histories from workers and others who were a part of this historic movement.

Moving from this historic coupling of union organizing with the language of rights to the present day, consider this tribute video for the workers of Wisconsin.



Be sure to visit the We Are One website to find We Are One events near you (and if you live in Wisconsin, exercise your right to vote on Tuesday!)

Shirt

How about starting off April's National Poetry Month with Robert Pinsky's homage to the seamstresses of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (and garment workers everywhere), "Shirt."

Read the poem here.  More info and analysis here.  Another collection of Triangle Fire by poet Mary Fell here.

Audio of Pinksy reading the poem from the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition's Open Archive.

More on the Triangle Centennial

Time for a round-up of some of the coverage of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Centennial:

NPR's On the Media interviews David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, about the newspaper coverage of the fire and how he role of journalism in carrying forward the reforms the event spawned:



The New York Times has nice collection of stories related to the anniversary including a feature which will let you browse newspaper coverage from 1911.

You can watch last week's program from the New York Triangle Fire Centennial at the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition site.  The speakers start about 20 minutes in to Part 2.  They include Secretary of Labor (and my former Congresswoman) Hilda Solis, Senator Charles Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg, Danny Glover, assorted union leaders, a descendant of one of the victims of the fire and a firefighter salute.  As a fan of street theater, I loved the "shirtwaist" banners flying over the heads of the attendees.

WNYC also has a report on the memorial program and a number of other stories, many featuring descendants of those who were killed or survived the fire. My favorite is their audio archive collection which features sound clips of a survivor, a WPA dramatization of the fire from 1938, and excerpts from the 50th anniversary in 1961 where Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary of Labor and fire eyewitness Frances Perkins spoke.

March Centennials: Women's Day and the Triangle Fire

This March 8, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.  For more on the history of this day honoring women see this timeline.  I've had labor unions on the brain, and was trying to think if we had read any books about unions and labor rights in the past and of course what immediately came to mind was David Von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire That Changed America which tells the story of the fire that took 146 lives, mostly of young immigrant women workers, and galvanized a movement for social justice.  As it happens, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire also happened in 1911, the same year, in fact just a week after, the first Women's Day. Learning more about the Triangle fire and the labor and women's rights movement associated with it, would be a great way to remember Women's Day this year.

As part of the commemoration of the Triangle tragedy, two documentaries about the fire are worth checking out.  The LAT recommends you watch both.  PBS American Experience offers Triangle Fire which has already aired and can be viewed online (or via Netflix streaming). Author David Von Drehle appears in the film. The PBS website features a map, photo gallery, biographies and other primary resources great for teachers and an excellent list of web resources for more information. (This Cornell site and Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition are especially worthy of exploration).  HBO's documentary is airing later this month. Here's the trailer:



Don't forget to check in with Amnesty's Human Rights Now blog this week for action suggestions to honor International Women's Day and visit the IWD website to learn more about other events celebrating the day.

We've Got Our Eyes on You

Back last December when we were discussing Pete Seeger, I mentioned that I'd be looking for opportunities to share more of his songs.  You may remember that I am now in Wisconsin, and you may have heard about our little polite disagreement with our Governor over the matter of collective bargaining rights (which, let me just remind you are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Now the rallies and marches I've attended so far haven't featured any singing, possibly influenced somewhat by frigid temps and whipping winds, but I have noted reports of Solidarity Forever, breaking out under the Capitol dome. Surely Pete would have something to say about this? You bet!

"Maybe the Republican governor, he's done us a favor by bringing the problem to national attention," the 91-year-old Seeger said in a telephone interview from his New York home. "It shows the whole country how much we need unions. We may end up thanking him."

It seems he sang a few songs on behalf of the Wisconsin unions, though its not clear which ones, but I've chosen, "We've Got Our Eyes on You" which is less familiar than some of his other union songs, but the lyrics of this song addressed to lawmakers seemed the most appropriate for our situation today. Sing it!



You can find this rarity on the boxed set Songs For Political Action: Folkmusic, Topical Songs And The American Left 1926-1953.  Many of his other union songs are collected on If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope & Struggle.