Some states shame themselves by targeting their public workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2011/04/02/20110402public-workers-pitts03.html

by Leonard Pitts Jr. - Apr. 2, 2011 05:04 PM

Once upon a long time ago, a tired man faced an audience of public workers. They were on a wildcat strike, demanding the right to bargain collectively and to have the city for which they worked automatically deduct union dues from their paychecks. The city's conservative mayor had flatly refused these demands.

"You are doing many things here in this struggle," the tired man assured them.

"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor."

Too often, he said, folks looked down on people like them, people who did menial or unglamorous work.

But he encouraged them not to bemoan their humble state. "All labor has dignity," he said.

On Monday, it will be 43 years since that man was shot from ambush and killed in Memphis, Tenn. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last public actions were in defense of labor and union rights.

One wonders, then, what he would say of Wisconsin.

Or Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Florida or any of the other places where, like a contagion, the move to weaken or effectively outlaw unions has spread.

FULL story at link.

[MadMaddie]

1. The irony that this battle is occurring during this anniversary

cannot be ignored.

If he would have lived I think we might not be having this conversation again....and again....