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Labor
Leaders
Rally
for
Solidarity
& Jobs
at
Annual
Breakfast
By Karen
Hudson
Samuels
DETROIT
(Tell Us
Det) -
Organized
labor is
frustrated
by
mounting
attacks
against
collective
bargaining
and is
calling
upon its
membership
to send
leaders
in
Washington
a
message,
make job
creation
a
priority,
now.
At
Saturday’s
Freedom
Institute’s
Labor
Leader
Breakfast,
UAW
President
Bob
King,
Mark
Gaffney,
President
of the
Michigan
AFL-CIO
and U.S.
Congressman
John
Conyers
all
sounded
the
alarm
that the
future
of labor
is under
assault
and as a
result,
social
justice
is
slipping
away.
Children,
25,000
in
Michigan
will be
taken
off
welfare;
a
reality
Bob King
said
should
make
people
angry.
He said
the
solidarity
of labor
to leave
no one
behind
is
needed
to
rebuild
America
and the
middle
class.
Conyers
announced
plans to
hold a
protest
rally
for jobs
in the
nation’s
capital
on
September
20th. He
said
it’s
time to
“Make
him do
it now”
speaking
of the
need to
push the
President
Obama to
action.
Conyers
said he
is not
knocking
the
President,
just
letting
him know
the
urgency
is real.
Over 200
national
labor
leaders
from the
UAW,
AFL-CIO,
Teamsters,
American
Federation
of
Teachers,
AFSCME
and the
Detroit
Federation
of
Teachers
gathered
for the
breakfast
to hear
a
keynote
address
from a
sixth
generation
coal
miner.
Cecil
Roberts,
President
of the
United
Mine
Workers
of
America
may have
seemed
an
unlikely
choice
to
inspire
labor
leaders
from the
nation’s
industrial
and
manufacturing
core –
and in
an urban
center.
That
notion
was put
to rest
early
on, as
Roberts
delivered
a
rousing
speech,
part
Baptist
preacher,
labor
leader
and
civil
rights
activist.
He
recalled
the
words of
Dr.
Martin
Luther
King,
“If you
don’t
have
something,
you
would
die for,
you do
have a
life
worth
living”.
The
struggles
of past
were
recalled
by
Roberts
who said
religious,
labor
and
civil
rights
leaders
joined
forces
throughout
the
civil
rights
movement.
Given
that
history
Roberts
said
“We’ve
come too
far to
turn
back
now...
the
labor
and
civil
rights
movement
have
always
been and
need to
always
stay
tied
together.”
One
story
told by
Roberts,
was a
lesson
few were
aware
of.
Ezekiel
was an
African
American
from
West
Virginia
back in
the
1930’s
and 40’s
who
suffered
the
consequences
of Jim
Crow. He
went to
work in
a coal
mine and
joined
the
United
Mine
Workers
union
and when
Ezekiel
went
underground
Roberts
said Jim
Crow was
left
behind.
The
union
contract
said
everyone
was
equal in
the
mines
regardless
of race,
religious
or
national
origin.
Because
of that
United
Mine
Workers
of
America
contract,
Roberts
said
Ezekiel
was able
to make
a good
living,
raise a
family.
Ezekiel
went on
to open
his own
coal
mine
becoming
the
first
African
American
in
southern
West
Virginia
to own a
mine.
And when
he died,
Roberts
said
Ezekiel’s
widow
received
a
pension
from the
United
Mine
Workers
of
America.
The
audience
was on
its feel
in a
thunderous
ovation
when
Roberts
asked
James,
the son
of
Ezekiel
to
stand;
the son
is now a
high
ranking
official
in the
United
Mine
Workers
of
America.
The
problems
facing
labor
today
really
started
thirty
years
ago
Roberts
said
with the
destruction
of air
traffic
controllers
union,
“We
should
have
stood
up”.
Roberts
went on
with a
warning
about
those
argue
against
big
government.
“Who
will
build
our
bridges,
make
sure our
drinking
water is
clean,
and
provide
safety?
If we
keep
cutting
government
we will
not have
a
democracy
we
recognize.”
Jobs,
jobs,
jobs, is
what
Washington
needs to
focus on
Roberts
said,
it’s the
debate
that
should
have
taken
precedent
over the
battle
over
raising
the debt
ceiling.
At the
conclusion
of his
speech
Cecil
Roberts
was
honored
with the
“Pushing
on Ball
Higher
award
presented
by event
organizer
Reverend
Wendell
Anthony.
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