PEP, April 2015: Dr. King on Right to Work

Public Employee Press

Dr. King on Right to Work

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work.' It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights...

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the concept of "Right to Work"

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s intent to achieve economic and social justice gained greatest momentum when he aligned with labor unions for dignity, jobs and better wages for everyone.

Conservatives bent on maintaining the status quo of economic and racial apartheid through Jim Crow and segregation, named their cause "right to work."

King exposed right to work as anti-union, anti-worker, anti-woman and anti-family. He saw pay equity, voting rights and civil rights as great equalizers that would lift millions from poverty with the dignity earned through livable wages.

King pressed America to live up to its constitutional promises, and in 1963 organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. One of the demands was a $2 minimum wage to improve the lives and spending power of some 40-60 million Americans then living in poverty.

Afterward, King continued to expound on a guaranteed basic income to loosen poverty's vise, working with labor unions to achieve that. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, during an AFSCME campaign in support of black Sanitation workers who went on strike after the mayor of Memphis, Tenn., refused to recognize their union and prohibited dues collection and equal pay.

Now more than ever the guaranteed ability to earn livable wages, to have access to education and opportunities, to earn equal pay for equal work, and to join a union are needed to lift working families and benefit all of society. Dr. King's legacy teaches us that the answers are reachable by sheer will and moral imperative.