April 4th, Part II: Workers Rights are Human Rights

"Workers rights are human rights!
Union rights are civil rights!"

At it's height, the march stretched all the way from the corner of Broad & Market Streets to City Hall at Green St

Reflecting on Monday's successful march and rally for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice (see Black NJ: POP remembers King by Uniting Labor & Community Forces) Lawrence Hamm, NJ state chairman of the People's Organization for Progress, noted, "this march was clearly smaller than the massive 2007 Peace & Justice Coalition event, but it certainly felt bigger, more significant…"

Larry went on to observe that the coalition of forces supporting and participating in the April 4th March & Rally for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice included a broader range of unions than came out in 2007.

Communication Workers of America-District 1 and CWA Local 1037 attended in significant numbers

The AFL-CIO together the National NAACP issued a call for "We Are One" rallies across the country for April 4, 2011 to show solidarity with the state workers under attack in Wisconsin. In Newark, NJ, Raleigh, NC and around the country labor and union leaders wisely united with existing events. This included POP's April 4th  rally, events of our sister organization, Black Workers for Justice, in Raleigh-Durham and many many other gatherings (click here to see photos from Raleigh).

This important development represents an acknowledgement of the intersection of labor struggle and community struggle, or as Larry Hamm put it, "Our unions fight for us while we're on the job. We get home in the evening and we are the community! We need community-based organizations to continue the struggle. These are natural allies, we must unite the two fronts of battle." 

Hundreds upon hundreds fill the plaza at North Carolina's Capital Building

We must build on this new unity. Community groups like POP are on the front lines every day. National organizations like the NAACP have lobbying clout and pull media response, and the labor movement can mobilize quickly. The struggle of public workers in Wisconsin (and New Jersey, North Carolina, and many other places in the US) is basically a conflict over simple democracy, but the campaign against right-wing forces is, in fact, a people's battle that we can't afford to lose…

Thanks to Ajamu of BWfJ in North Carolina, Jon of POP and Tom Dinges at the Star Ledger for photos (Click here to view more photos from the POP March & Rally in Newark).

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Black NJ: POP Remembers King By Uniting Labor and Community Forces

"This is, no doubt, the biggest march and rally Newark's seen since the People's Organization for Progress pulled together the Peace & Justice Coalition for the massive August 2007 protest," one long-time activist told me. That march had well over 1,ooo participants. Today's numbers, after a much briefer period of organizing, tapped right into a new current of struggle in the labor movement.

Only after the notorious attack on organized labor by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin (who has tried to style himself after our own Krispy Creme Christie of NJ), did the national AFL-CIO, many local and state feds, and local unions of government workers began calling for "We Are One" days of action for April 4.

This new spirit of labor struggle brought many union locals to the streets of Newark, and not just the public workers who are under attack by Walker, Christie, and other Koch-sponsored politicos around the country. While the largest union contingent was Communication Workers of America Local 1037, who organize state workers in New Jersey, and many other public-sector unions turned out members, IBEW 827, and three International Longshoremen's Association locals (ILA Local 1233 from Newark; ILA Local 1588 from Bayonne; and ILA Local 333, United Marine Division) were also represented. Both the Essex & Union County Chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Association had contingents present.

Honoring the April 4th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been a tradition for the People's Organization for Progress as well as sister-organizations like Black Workers for Justice for years (a follow-up Fire on the Mountain will feature photos and information from the BWfJ supported April 4 "We are One" march in the Raleigh-Durham area). The significant turnout from the labor movement shows promise of being the foundation of an important coalition to be concretized and built on. As POP chairman Lawrence Hamm observed, "Our unions fight for us while we're on the job. We get home in the evening and we are the community! We need community-based organizations to continue the struggle. These are natural allies, we must unite the two fronts of battle."

The actual number of participants was difficult to judge. One experienced community activist suggested that there were "well over 1,000 demonstrators" while another long-time organizer counted the march at 650. Because several union locals joined at different points along the line of march from Broad & Market to City Hall, and then on to Essex County College, while some participants left the march when they reached where they'd parked their cars, my judgment is that while the crowd may not have ever exceeded 700 at any given time, as many as a thousand demonstrators probably participated in the course of the afternoon and evening…

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Gov. Walker: About That National Guard Thing...

I was greatly jazzed to read the new statement from Iraq Veterans Against the War which declares: “We Are Public Workers Too!” and opens:

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) calls on all U.S. military service members to refuse and resist any mobilization against workers organizing to protect their basic rights. IVAW stands in solidarity with the multitude gathered in Madison, Wisconsin and many other cities to defend their unions. IVAW members across the Midwest are mobilizing to take part in the mass demonstration in Madison on Saturday in defense of unions and the right of public sector workers to collective bargaining.

It is, of course, Governor Scott Walker’s threat to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard to quell the storm of protest against his union-busting drive that makes the IVAW stance so important.

Those who thought this was probably idle bluster are probably reconsidering in light of the declaration today by the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association that the union supports the demonstrators and opposes any attempt to clear the Capitol building of its peaceful occupiers. Union executive director Jim Palmer added a call to members to join the occupation:

Law enforcement officers know the difference between right and wrong, and Governor Walker’s attempt to eliminate the collective voice of Wisconsin’s devoted public employees is wrong. That is why we have stood with our fellow employees each day and why we will be sleeping among them tonight.

The Wisconsin National Guard has been mobilized for strikebreaking duty in the past, notably in the bitter 1934 strike at the Kohler Company, one of the state’s largest industrial firms. 400 gunthugs were hired to break an AFL strike for union recognition and when their initial attacks killed two workers and injured scores more, they were met by militant and sometimes armed self-defense. As a former governor of Wisconsin, company president Walter J. Kohler, Sr. had no trouble getting a National Guard company deployed to “restore order”--resulting in the strike’s defeat.

But, as a retired postal worker, let me counter that bit of history with a more recent clash that Walker should contemplate before he makes good on his threat.

In 1970, employees of the United States Post Office Department were among the country’s poorer workers, paid so little that in large cities postal workers with families often applied for, and got, welfare to survive. Their unions were little more than fraternal organizations, with no right to bargain collectively or sign contracts.

At 12:01 on March 19 of that year, members of the Letter Carriers, following a vote in their local which rolled over objections from the longtime leadership, set up picket lines at facilities in the Bronx and Manhattan. Within a couple of days the strike had spread to other crafts, notably the clerks and mailhandlers, and to other major hubs, especially in the Northeast. The nation’s postal system started to grind to a halt.

In those pre-Internet, pre-direct deposit days, this had a massive impact on the economy. President Nixon got on teevee and ordered the strikers back to work. Some obeyed. Others walked out for the first time.

On March 25, Nixon took to the airwaves again to announce that he was mobilizing 25,000 National Guard (and even some elements of the Army and Marine Corps) in Operation Graphic Hand to get the mail flowing again. This turned out to be a massive failure.

In NYC, the epicenter of the strike, young troops--many deeply opposed to the war and part of the ‘60s “youthquake” (as Fortune Magazine termed it)--did show up at the designated postal facilities. Some of those mobilized were postal workers themselves, and they told the strikers what was going on inside--almost nothing. Better yet, when some officer came around to try and squeeze some work out of the Guardsmen, a sack of mail destined for, say, Huntsville, Alabama, would get a Juneau, Alaska destination tag slipped in its metal clip and be sent on its merry way.

Within days, things were even more fucked up than before. The government caved, and the US Postal Service was set up under the Postal Reorganization Act which recognized postal unions and permitted collective bargaining about wages, benefits, working conditions, health and safety and so on.

These are different times than 1970, to be sure, but Governor Walker might do well to reflect on the old saying: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it!

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