(Source: International Brotherhood of Teamsters press release, January 21, 2013)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Teamsters across the country are paying tribute to the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who devoted his life to the movement for social and economic justice.
King changed the American landscape for minority groups, workers, and the poor in his quest to end the scourge of racial injustice and segregation in our society. He was an unwavering supporter of the labor movement and ultimately gave his life fighting for the rights of working people.
“On this holiday, and everyday, the Teamsters honor the principles that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for as we march humbly in his footsteps,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “Dr. King knew that civil rights and workers’ rights are fundamentally bound together. We can’t fight for the rights and dignity of workers without combating racism and all forms of discrimination.”
The Teamsters proudly stood with King in 1961, donating more than $25,000 to King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and sending supplies to civil rights activists marching in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama.
The struggle for King did not end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. He launched the “Poor People’s Campaign” as the second phase of the civil rights movement in 1966, demanding living wages for people of all races. Two years later, King was assassinated in Memphis where he was marching in solidarity with 1,300 union sanitation workers on strike.
Last year, Teamster sanitation workers at Republic Services/Allied Waste fought in the very best tradition of King, demanding a share of the company’s success and invoking the spirit of King with the iconic statement, “I am a man.”
“Dr. King was an American hero and a champion for workers everywhere,” said Al Mixon, International Vice President and President of the Teamsters National Black Caucus. “As workers face an onslaught of attacks by politicians and groups pushing right-to-work-for-less laws, we have to remember King’s own words about these kinds of attacks. He called right to work a fraud that provides no rights and no work, a law designed to destroy collective bargaining rights.”
“King would be by our side fighting against the war on workers if he were alive today,” said Hoffa. “We work everyday to preserve and advance the rights of all American workers — I can think of no better way to keep King’s dream alive today.”