Time for a General Strike: MLK and the 1968 fight for collective bargaining by Memphis sanitation workers
BusinessMar 10, 2011Sanitation workers engaged in a general strike demanding the right to collectively bargain in Memphis, 1968.
At a solidarity rally for the rights of public workers in Wisconsin and working people throughout the United States one could see a green and white AFSCME sign which said, “It’s about Freedom” This can only be a reminder of the 1968 fight for collective bargaining by the sanitation workers in Memphis Tennessee. As one speaker outside the Capitol reminded the audience, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis at the side of striking sanitation workers who were standing up for racial equality, collective bargaining rights and economic justice in 1968. In his appearance on March 17, 1968 before the workers, King spoke not exclusively of the need for higher wages for sanitation workers, which he did, but he also spoke directly to the striking sanitation worker’s demand for the right to collectively bargain. “I am a man”, was the slogan of the day and the demand for human recognition by the workers in Memphis. ”All labor is dignified”, were