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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