DET NEWS: King exposed folly of right-to-work
Feb. 3, 2010
Ron Gettelfinger
The Detroit News
Sometimes it's all in what you call lt.
During the civil rights struggles in the 19505 and 1960s, many of those who wanted to deny voting and other basic rights to African-Americans in the South claimed they were not so much racists as they were for "states' rights."
States' rights had a nice ring to it. It fostered an image of independence from a big, overbearing government.. The reality, of course, was that it was code for denying African-Americans their rights as citizens, many times through threats and intimidation, beatings and even murder.
Martin Luther King Jr. and many other civil rights leaders, including the late United Auto Workers President Walter P. Reuther, helped Americans see through this ruse. It's appropriate, especially during Black History Month and in the 75th anniversary year of the UAW's founding, to understand that King spent a great deal of time and effort educating and helping Americans see the truth-about the plight of working people, regardless of color. `
"Our needs are identical with labor‘s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health. and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community," King said in a speech to the AFL-CIO in 1961. `
In the nearly half-century since, the overall economic picture for African-Americans has improved, in no small part because of the union movement.
While union membership means a voice on the job and far better wages and working conditions for ail, economic benefits are even more pronounced for African-Americans. According tothe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, African-American fuil-time workers earned $168 per week, or 29 percent, more than nonunion workers in 2009.
Accordingg to a 2008 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, African-American union members were about 16 percent more likely to have health insurance and 19 percent more likely to have a pension than their nonunion counterparts.
King knew the right of workers to bargain collectively and, if necessary, to strike was critical in countering economic inequality. He was supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers when he was assassinated in 1968. King also saw through another dangerous ruse: so-called right-to-work laws.
Like states' rights, the right to work has a nice ring to it. Who would be against the right to work? Certainly not unions.
But right-to-work laws are pushed by pro-business interests that care little about the economic interests of workers. Such laws are single-minded in their purpose: They are designed to keep unions out of the workplace.
Pushed by such anti-worker groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, 22 states now have such laws. Right-to-work states are concentrated in the South and West, where union membership is historically lower.
Proponents of right-to-work laws say "compulsory" union membership is wrong, but federal law already says no one can be forced to join a union. All right-to-work laws accomplish is guaranteeing working people will have the right to work for less.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly earnings in manufacturing were 12 percent higher in free bargaining states than they were in r'ht-to-work states in 2008. And workers in right-to-work states enjoy far less protection from being unjustly fired.
"Right to work for less" isn‘t catchy, but it‘s accurate for working people, especially for African-Americans, as King knew back in 1961.
"In our glorious ight for civil rights, we must. guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work? It provides no 'rights' and no ‘works,' King said. “Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining. We demand this fraud be stopped."
Ron Gettelfinger is president of the United Auto Workers. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.
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