On 28 August 2013 the United States commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March for jobs and freedom. Here we look back at the group of Black workers who came together with the community and Martin Luther King Jr to demand basic rights at work and their achievements and relevance to trade unionists today.
In the 1960s, good job opportunities were scarce for Black men. The sanitation work on offer was dangerous and backbreaking. Workers carried 50-gallon drums of rubbish on their heads as moisture leaked all over them from holes in the tubs. They were often racially abused and risked being fired on a whim. Salaries were so low that many men working in this field had to claim benefits to subsidise their pay.
On 1 February 1968 two Memphis sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, climbed into the back of a rubbish truck to get out of the rain because there was no room for them in the front. The two men were killed when the hydraulic ram was accidentally triggered.
The death of the two men aggravated long-running unresolved grievances and galvanised the movement for change. Two weeks later the Memphis sanitation and public employees took strike action demanding health and safety on the job, a living wage and the right to belong to a recognised trade union. The council leader mayor Loeb ignored workers’ demands and strongly opposed union organisation.
Despite being given an ultimatum to return to work immediately, the mounting negative press and heavyhanded police reactions on marches, the 1,200 Black sanitation workers remained on strike.
The weeks that followed saw 1,000 workers attend a council meeting and the staging of a mock funeral at the town hall, when several strikers and supporters were rrested. By the end of February marches, mass meetings, city-wide strikes, night vigils, pickets and sit-ins were happening daily.
Several failed attempts to reach a resolution followed, but the campaign changed when the workers began to receive increasing support from the wider Black community. Black churches raised money for the strikers and established food and clothing banks. The campaign moved from a struggle for better working conditions to a fight for dignity, decency and equality. A campaign leader saw the mayor’s unwillingness to recognise the workers’ union as racism and that part of this racism was the “idea that a man is not a man”.
The “I Am a Man” slogan became the rallying cry for the strikers and the men wore these signs as they marched. Fifty-one days after the workers first went on strike history was made when Martin Luther King, who had lent his support to the workers, addressed a rally and delivered his “I have a dream” speech. The next day he was assassinated. Extreme reactions ensued with riots in several cities. Eventually the involvement of the secretary of labour saw an agreement reached. It included union recognition allowing for formal arrangements for collective bargaining and negotiation on pay, terms and conditions. The strike was over.
The lessons and legacy of the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis and the power of the strong alliance between organised trade union members and community groups continues to inform and inspire workers in their struggle to gain a voice at work. To learn more about these historic events you can watch the DVD At the River I Stand. Why not ask your branch to organise a screening for Black History Month or as part of a recruitment event?
