In honor of Martin Luther King Day

Teamster Nation is off in honor of Martin Luther King Day, celebrating Dr. King's unparalleled legacy of fighting for racial and economic justice.

We will resume blogging tomorrow at our new home on www.Teamster.org/blog.

Teamsters echo Martin Luther King's call for change

Joint Council 28 Black Teamsters United at the MLK Day march in Seattle

Dr. Martin Luther King is honored today for his leadership in the civil rights movement, but often overlooked was his fight for a fundamental change in America's economic system. In a 1967 speech at Riverside Baptist Church he said, 

But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.

Today it is increasingly obvious that our system is rigged for the wealthy and against everyone else. Unions are at the vanguard of the battle to restructure that edifice to benefit working men and women.

On Jan. 20, Teamsters all over the country echoed Dr. King's call for change. To give just two examples, Joint Council 28 Black Teamsters United marched, as they do every year, at the MLK Day rally and march in Seattle. And Teamsters from Local 728 marched in Atlanta's annual Martin Luther King Day parade.

Local 728 Teamsters march in Atlanta

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, writing in Alternet, argue Dr. King would have embraced the fight against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which of course the Teamsters are deeply engaged in):  

...the Trans-Pacific Partnership ... will destroy sovereignty, placing governments, even down to the local level, at the service of transnational corporations. Leaked Wikileaks documents from the TPP reveal that the US is the most extreme nation advocating for corporate power and neoliberal economies. 

This week, the EU announced that it will delay negotiation of a key section, the Investor State Dispute Settlement, of the Atlantic version of the TPP known as TAFTA. They are concerned that giving corporations the power to sue governments for loss of expected profits will undermine their laws to protect the health of people and the planet and are seeking greater public input. Contrast that with a case that is going forward in Mora County, NM in which Shell Oil is suing a community over its fracking ban. If Shell is able to sue a community for loss of expected profits, that community would never be able to afford that and would have to change its law; and other communities will be afraid to enact laws in the public interest or to protect the planet. 

Momentum is building to stop the TPP. Organizations from across the spectrum and across the continent are working together to stop the President from being given authority to Fast Track the TPP through Congress and to unite in a day of action. Visit StopFastTrack.org to join the Ten Days of Action to Stop Fast Track which culminates in a day of protest on January 31.

Bill Gates is no Martin Luther King. Actually, he's the antithesis.

1. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated while supporting a sanitation workers' strike in Memphis.
2. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates owns the biggest stake in Republic/Allied Waste, a national waste disposal company.
3. Gates and Republic Services are doing the same thing to sanitation workers as the City of Memphis was doing to them in 1968.

Teamsters represent thousands of Republic/Allied Waste workers.

On Jan. 21, Teamsters from Atlanta and Memphis -- along with two sanitation workers from the 1968 strike -- marched in the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Day parade in Atlanta. They were protesting Republic's treatment of its employees. The company has locked out workers, reneged on contracts and tolerated dangerous working conditions.

Read more here.

Walker criticized to his face at MLK Day event

Dr. Margaret Rozga criticizes Wisconsin Job-killer Gov. Scott Walker at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event -- right in front of Walker. The Cap Times tells us she was receiving an award on behalf of her father, Father James Groppi.

Walker has tried to suppress the votes of his political opponents, curtail collective bargaining rights and loosen environmental regulation. Rozga says those aren't in the tradition of Martin Luther King. Notice Walker doesn't clap.

We think she also gets in a dig at Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan when she says,

You do not get assassinated for being a photo-op do-gooder.

Ryan famously washed clean dishes at an Ohio soup kitchen for news photographers when he was running for vice president.

Today's Teamster News 01.21.13

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther's King's Legacy by Challenging So-Called Right-to-Work Laws  SEIU   ...More than 50 years after Dr. King warned of being "fooled by false slogans" such as "right-to-work," working people are facing a string of coordinated, corporate-backed attacks -- including a push for so-called "right-to-work" laws...
Congress Hasn't Averted the Real Fiscal Cliff  Huffington Post   ...the $559.8 billion in the total trade deficit for 2011 represents a loss of 7,277,400 jobs. This explains why we have had a virtually jobless recovery since the end of the recession and why the unemployment rate has stayed high for so long...
Mr. Fisher Goes to Washington  Economic Populist   ...Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher (said) …  large financial institutions considered “too big to fail" …exact an unfair tax upon the American people. Moreover, they interfere with the transmission of monetary policy and inhibit the advancement of our nation’s economic prosperity...
Is Italy the next domino?  Macro Business   ...With a slowing economy, the idea that taxing the private sector more appears to be the same mistake that has been made in other nations...
Overcharging of batteries likely culprit in Boeing 787 fires, aviation and battery experts say  Associated Press   ...It’s likely that fires on two Boeing 787 Dreamliners were caused by overcharging lithium ion batteries, aviation safety and battery experts said Friday, pointing to developments in the investigation of the Boeing incidents as well as a battery fire in a business jet more than a year ago...
Prison Reform, Kasich Style: More Drugs, More Crime and More Costs to Local Government  Plunderbund   ... there has been a “spike in criminal activity near a recently privatized Ohio prison...”

Teamsters, veterans of '68 sanitation strike to march on MLK Day in Atlanta

Alvin Turner and Baxter Leach will return to Atlanta Monday for the first time since 1968, when they attended Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral.

The two men will ride from Memphis, where they worked as sanitation workers and participated in the 1968 strike that led to King's death.

Turner and Leach will take part in the annual Martin Luther King Day March in to demand that Republic Services/Allied Waste treat its workers with equality and justice as King did decades earlier. Sanitation workers in Dekalb County who are forming their union will also participate.

According to a Teamsters Union advisory:

The waste workers and their allies are honoring King’s legacy of defending workers’ livelihoods. They are also reminding people that the dream of economic and social justice must be fought every day.  

Republic/Allied Waste is attacking its workers’ livelihoods across the country, forcing them into poverty and to work in unsafe conditions. Teamsters employed by the company are standing up to demand that the company stop its attacks now. 

Waste workers and their allies, including two workers from the 1968 strike, Baxter Leach and Alvin Turner, will meet at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Peachtree and Baker streets, followed by a 1:30 p.m. news conference.

Be there if you can.

Hey Bill Gates, MLK has a message for you

Bill Gates could use a history lesson from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gates, who co-founded Microsoft, is now the majority shareholder of Republic/Allied Waste.

Gates says he wants to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty through his charitable organization, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And yet he's endangering communities and pushing his employees toward poverty through his stewardship of Republic/Allied Waste.

Perhaps Gates' confusion stems from his ignorance of history. He did, after all, drop out of Harvard. So he may not be aware that Dr. King was assassinated during the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. He may not know that Dr. King died fighting the same kind of injustice that's being perpetrated on Republic/Allied Waste workers and their communities.

Republic is trying to destroy Teamsters pensions across the country. In Bridgeton, Mo., Republic is endangering the community by refusing to clean up a burning landfill that's close to two illegal nuclear waste dump sites.

Republic Services Teamsters are fighting back against the company's abuse of its workers and their communities. They'll attend an EPA hearing about the burning landfill in Missouri tomorrow night. On Monday, they'll march in MLK Day parades in Seattle and Atlanta.

Six months before he was assassinated, Dr. King told the Illinois AFL-CIO convention that the labor movement (not the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) was the primary force that lifted people from poverty:

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.

We suggest Bill Gates watch the excellent one-hour documentary above. It's about the Memphis sanitation workers' strike.

And then we suggest he examine his conscience.

MLK's dream

Dr. King at Teamsters Local 522, shortly before he was assassinated.

"I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream—a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality. That is the dream..."
--AFL-CIO Convention, December 1961

MLK's dream still inspires Teamsters today

James R. Hoffa hands Martin Luther King a check for $25,000.

On the night before he died, Martin Luther King gave a speech about the dignity of labor. It still rings true.


He was in Memphis, Tenn., supporting sanitation workers' rights to respect and a decent wage. He said:

Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.

Dr. King's spirit lives on, especially in the hearts of 32,000 Teamsters solid waste workers who've been able to better their lives with a Teamsters contract. And it lives on in the workers who today are fighting the growing attacks from corporations that want to lower wages through right-to-work (for LESS) laws. Dr. King had this to say about "right to work:"

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped." 

Dr. King believed that the civil rights movement and the labor movement together would have the greatest impact in the struggle for human dignity. The Teamsters shared that view. Early Teamsters leaders were strongly against separate unions for African-Americans. In 1919 the union adopted the slogan, "Equal Pay for Equal Work," signaling their strong support for all their members.

Teamsters General President James R. Hoffa opposed segregation and chose to forfeit prospective members because of it. "We don't need 'em," he said. "Their way is not the Teamster way."  

Teamsters in 1961 gave food and clothing to African-American families who were punished for registering to vote in the 1960 presidential election. Teamsters marched with Dr. King in Chicago in 1966.

In 1963, scores of Teamsters joined the historic March on Washington. Buses carrying Teamsters arrived from near and far, some driving through the night to join the activities on time. Locals that were especially involved included Locals 810 and 239 of New York City, Local 875 of Flushing, New York, Local 20 of Toledo, Local 688 of St. Louis and Local 743 of Chicago. 

In 1968 Teamsters leaders and rank-and-file members marched in Dr. King's funeral procession.

Today, the Teamsters are honoring the memory of Dr. King both in words and in the battle to lift up workers to a better life.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa had this to say:

Even in death, Martin Luther King Jr. continues to inspire and guide us. His legacy lives on in every union member, every labor activist, and every American who has stood up in the name of justice, equality, peace and compassion.

VIDEO: The shameful attack on public employees, Memphis 1968

This is what sanitation workers in Memphis went through to get the right to bargain collectively. Dr. Martin Luther King was killed in the effort.