(The following appeared on the New York Times website on April 4, 2011.)
NEW YORK — Labor unions and civil rights groups held hundreds of rallies and teach-ins on Monday to defend collective bargaining and to tie it to the cause the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fighting for in the days before his death exactly 43 years ago.
The sponsors of the “We Are One” rallies, held in all 50 states, repeatedly noted that when Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, he was planning to march with 1,300 striking sanitation workers.
The rallies and 175 teach-ins were organized largely to protest the Republican-led efforts in Wisconsin and Ohio to curb bargaining for public employees. The rallies sought to build on the union protests in those states and to warn labor’s adversaries in state capitals and Washington that unions remain an important force. The rallies’ sponsors also said they wanted to protest federal and state budget cuts that they said were hurting the most vulnerable Americans.
The full story is on the New York Times website.