
          'Time to Revitalize' Southern Labor
          By Trifiro, Paul         McLennanPaul McLennan and Trifiro, VickiVicki Trifiro
          Vol. 10, No. 3, 1988, pp. 15-16
          
          For William Winpisinger, the message to corporate America from the
5,000 workers gathered in an Atlanta parking lot on April 30 wee to
remind corporate America that "workers are mad as hell."
          Winpisinger, president of the International Association of
Machinists, wee master of ceremonies of a spirited "Jobs with Justice"
rally that coincided with the conclusion of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference's "Martin Luther King Memorial March for Jobs
with Justice," which had set out from Memphis on April 4 and traveled
through Mississippi and Alabama before ending in Atlanta.
          Airline workers and janitors, taxi drivers and electrical workers,
homeless workers and community organizers--all rubbed shoulders and
lifted their voices in labor songs led by folksingers Peter, Paul and
Mary. SCLC's Dr. Joseph Lowery spoke, as did Texas agriculture
commissioner Jim Hightower, Bernice King (daughter of Martin Luther
King Jr.), and Maxine Green of the National Tenants
Association. Testimony about today's economic climate was given by
workers and homeless people.
          Calling attention to the conditions of workers in the 1980s and
fighting current attacks on workers' rights is the mission of the Jobs
for Justice national campaign. The coalition demands the following:
               the right to a decent standard of living rather than wage cuts
and the elimination of jobs with decent wages;the right to job security rather than growing insecurity in an
economy that ses two million jobs permanently lost to plant
and facilities closures every year; and,the right to organize a union and bargain collectively, which
underpins all other worker rights.
          Jobs with Justice wee launched July 29, 1987, in Miami when more
than 11,000 workers attended the biggest labor rally in Florida
history. In an emotion-filled moment, the Miami Beach Convention
Center rocked with chants of "Jobs with Justice!" The thousands
present recited and signed the Jobs with Justice pledge: "During
the next year, 'I'll be there' at least five times for someone else's
fight as well as my own. If enough of us are there, well start
winning."
          In conjunction with the Miami rally, the House Education and Labor
Committee conducted a rare field hearing to get first-hand statements
about worker abuse. Workers, union representatives and community
leaders testified about the devastating effects on working people of
deregulation of the airline and communications industry and
subcontracting of public sector jobs.
          In November 1987, 8,000 rallied in Nashville in support of paper,
mine and electronic workers as well as in support of tenants'
rights. James Motlatsi, president of the National Union of Mineworkers
of South Africa, drew cheers from the Tennesee crowd when
he labeled as "destructive engagement" the Reagan administration's
refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa. A month later,
3,000 marched in Texas in support of a union contract fight for food
service and nursing home workers.
          "The strength of the Jobs with Justice campaign has been its
ability to mobilize union members to fight in the battles of other
workers--workers maybe not in their own union, and maybe in no union
at all--and to build coalitions not only among the labor movement but
between the labor movement and its natural allies in the broader
community--the churches, the civil rights and women's groups, the
tenants' unions and the farmers, and all the organizations who
understand that the defense of workers' rights is essential to their
own fight for social justice," said Howard Samuel, president of
the Industrial Union Department.
          In more than twenty U.S. cities, the Jobs with Justice movement is
taking root, building these bridges between labor and its natural
allies. In the South, the time has come again to revitalize such a
movement.
          Southern Labor Institute director Ken Johnson believes that "in
the deep South, the interests, concerns, and wellbeing of working men
and women have been kept silent and invisible by political and
economic leadership which promotes an environment of cheap land, low
taxes and low wages. Jobs with Justice represents a gigantic step for
those 

who understand that the South and indeed the nation's wellbeing
is best measured by how workers themselves benefit from economic
activity. Increasing worker participation in policy making and in the
workplace is vital to economic growth."
          Awareness grows that social justice and economic justice cannot
exist independently of one another. Jobs with Justice seeks to tear
down walls between groups who have common interests but who may not
have worked together before. In Atlanta, for example, this movement is
taking shape in support of the Service Employees International Union's
Justice for Janitors campaign and with the Teamsters' help for the
homeless.
          "Community-wide problems call for community-wide solutions,"
said Linda Riggins of SEIU Local 679.
          
            Paul McLennan is president of the Southern Labor Press
Association Vicki Trifiro is campaign director for the Public
Assistance Coalition.
          
        