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Monday, January 18, 2021

NYC Educator: MLK and Making America Union Again

NYC Educator: MLK and Making America Union Again
MLK and Making America Union Again




MLK is famous for his life and work, and words of insincere reverence regularly escape the lips of people who'd have opposed him absolutely when he was alive. One thing a lot of people seem to forget about him was that he was passionately pro-union and pro-labor. In fact, at the time of his assassination in Memphis, he happened to be there to support a sanitation workers' strike

MLK was calling "right to work" a false slogan as early as 1961.  What people like Donald Trump call right to work is nothing more than the right to shirk union dues, thereby weakening union in favor of bosses. No one needs a right to work enforced. Our union keeps no one from working and never has. We don't select people for UFT. We simply support and protect everyone who joins. 

That's something in union concept and practice that's missing from the tapestry of modern American life. What Dr. King fought for now comes up as Black Lives Matter. Some people answer that with that American flag with a blue stripe, calling it Blue Lives Matter. What that says, to me at least, is Black Lives Don't Matter, the clarion call of racism in this country since its inception. 

In union, we don't discriminate. I get health care, you get health care, and we all get health care. I get retirement benefits and so do all of us. Who you are doesn't enter into it. Our retirement benefits are now better than those of most Americans. Those same politicians who support the white supremacists would take them away from us (and them) in a heartbeat. Mitch McConnell opposed the HEROES act saying states should go bankrupt. He said some states wasted their money on things like, yes, retirement CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: MLK and Making America Union Again