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NEWS & LETTERS, April - May 2008Memphis sanitation workers 40 years laterMemphis, Tenn.--Beneath a sea of umbrellas, 3,000 marchers commemorated the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968. The racially mixed, mostly Black crowd filled the streets between the AFSCME union hall, named after King, and the Lorraine Motel where he was killed, which is now the National Civil Rights Museum. The marchers, many of them workers, came from all across the country, including many from Memphis. Dr. King was here in 1968 to support the striking sanitation workers, who won recognition after his death shamed the city's government, business, and media elite who had attacked both King and the workers viciously. Two days before the march, a group of sanitation workers and their supporters gathered in front of City Hall to get the word out that their struggle was far from over. They were back again for the anniversary march. One told his story to News & Letters: What brings me to this march commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr., 40 years after his death is respect, respect for Dr. King. We have not come far enough since his death. We're making progress, but it's small progress. If he could see where we are today, I don't think he'd be pleased. Instead of going forward when he died, it looks like we stopped any progress or movement. It's hard to get it back. We're not where he would expect us to be today. We need to be standing together more, supporting and respecting each other. I'm a sanitation worker. Conditions have not changed all that much. We still don't get the respect that's due; we're still not making the money; and instead of the City improving conditions, they're trying to make them worse. The City is taking away some of our basic rights, including on working conditions. They want us to do things that are hazardous, like climbing up into the back of garbage trucks and cleaning out hazardous waste with no equipment. They will fire you for not doing those types of things. The supervisor might say you did something, but not prove that you did it. They are firing people for little or nothing. It's wrong. Conditions are just not right. We have no protective clothes for hazardous waste. Behind the blade in the garbage truck leaves a lot of mess. We just climb up there in our street clothes, or what you're working in everyday, and clean this mess out. All kinds of stuff is in there. That mess has been in the garbage trucks for months! You know, when you empty a waste can, you don't know what you're emptying from there. They relieved one of us from duty for not cleaning out a hazardous site. Because he wouldn't get up there and clean out the garbage behind that blade, they relieved him of duty, pending firing him. We managed to get one guy back to work; another was suspended for a couple of days; they fired a woman who supposedly threatened some guy and even the guy himself said it was not true. But by them not liking her, they fired her anyway. We're working on trying to get her back to work. It's a mess. And we still don't have a pension after all these years. Just about everybody in city government has a pension except sanitation and public works. And they don't think we should have one. That's wrong, we all deserve a pension. We've had people work here 20 years, retiring after 30, 35 years, with nothing but their savings. And as high as prices are today, you don't have time to be saving much. It's bad. |
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