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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2005For Southern labor the dream is still 'We Shall Overcome'Memphis, Tenn.-- We shall overcome! How many of you believe that "We shall overcome"? When women and Blacks were given the right to vote, did they overcome? No. When Black children and white children could go to the same schools, did that get us over? We still have not overcome. The question I’m going to ask is, "How do we overcome?" I don’t believe we will ever overcome where we can sit down and relax and take it easy. We’ll never get there until we get off of this earth. We must learn how to fight. Dr. Martin Luther King advocated nonviolence. I agree. Our scripture tells us, if he hits you on one cheek, show him the other. But that’s real hard to do. But that is how we deal with oppression. We have to fight. But not necessarily with knives and guns. There are some laws to protect us but they are not complete. My job is labor, organized labor. I’m the president of my local, Local 282 of the United Furniture Workers Union, and I have been in organized labor close to 30 years. I have been organizing, negotiating, and arbitrating, and am still at it. The employers were oppressing the workers back then. They passed a law that all workers have the right to organize. It’s illegal for your employer to even ask you if you support a union. But they put the fear of God in the workers. The labor law is just as weak as a drop of water. In Mississippi, just across the state line, I represent the concrete workers at MMC--Mississippi Materials Concrete. The men pour concrete in the wind, rain, and cold. Would you believe those men voted in my union in 1997. Since 1997 I have met with MMC 86 times. We have not reached the first contract yet. We had the first election to vote the union in. We have had two decertification elections since then. But these men are saying: "We will die and go to hell before we vote the union out." The law says the company must negotiate in good faith, but what the company puts on the table is that the union must waive all of its rights during the life of the contract, that the company can make rules and do whatever they want. They will not even agree to add the word "reasonable" to rules. They wanted to say: "We have the right to make rules." I said, "Well, if you are not willing to add the word ‘reasonable,’ then you could make a rule that said these men got to wear dresses." Those workers are better off without a contract than they would be if the company got that language. Further down in Mississippi is Sears Logistics. They would only agree to a one-year contract. And do you know they refuse to agree to a dues check-off? The labor law says they don’t have to. Long ago Martin Luther King Jr., came to Memphis to support the sanitation workers. He was killed here trying to get the city of Memphis to recognize the workers’ right to organize. Because under the labor law, those workers could not vote for a union like the private sector could. After he was killed and the rioting went on all over the U.S., finally the city of Memphis said, "Okay, we’ll recognize your union." Now there is a hospital here in Memphis called The Med. The nurses want to organize. One of the same men that refused the sanitation workers the right to organize is the Director of the Board of The Med. Do you know that he won’t agree to let the nurses organize? I can deal with that a little better than this: there is a college here named LeMoyne-Owen. It’s a Black college. Do you know they refused to recognize the right of the professors to organize? That sends me up the wall, because Martin Luther King came here and was killed fighting the people who refused to give the workers the right to organize. That case is up in Washington, D.C., because the Labor Board said they’ve got to recognize the professors’ union. LeMoyne-Owen hired the most anti-union law-busting firm in Memphis--and I’ve dealt with them down through the years--to represent them. In our churches we give donations to LeMoyne-Owen College. I told my pastor that as long as they refuse to recognize the union, they’ll never get another penny of mine. I keep talking about oppression. We have not overcome. So keep on fighting, not with guns and knives, but keep fighting with love, keep fighting with this pen and pencil, keep filing charges. Sometimes you will win in court; you lose more than you win, but sometimes you win. But I can tell you one thing, if you’re not into fighting you’ll never win. --Ida Leachman, President of Local 282 * * * The text above is from Ida Leachman’s talk at the Southern Human Rights Organizing Conference in December. |
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