Battle against ‘Right to Work’ goes back to King, civil rights movement

MINNEAPOLIS - The Legislature’s attempt to approve a “Right to Work” measure in Minnesota is just the latest in a string of anti-worker efforts going back to the days of the civil rights movement. Learn what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had to say about Right to Work and worker rights at a special program April 4.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke out often in support of worker rights. AFSCME Local 3800, which represents clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, is hosting a film screening and panel discussion to commemorate King on the anniversary of his assassination. Titled “Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights & Organized Labor: The Fight Against Right to Work Laws, Then and Now,” the program runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Bell Museum, 10 Church St. SE, Minneapolis. “At the River I Stand” (1993) documents King’s last two months and his work with the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in 1968. The film will be followed by a panel discussion on the fight against right to work, then and now. In 1961, Dr. King said, "In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." Panelists will be Rose Brewer, professor of African-American & African Studies, University of Minnesota; Joe Burns, author, Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power & Transform America; Peter Rachleff, professor of labor history, Macalester College; Eliot Seide, executive director, AFSCME Council 5; and Aaron Sojourner, labor economist, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Sponsors of the program include AFSCME Locals 3800 & 3937 and Graduate Student Workers United (GSWU-UAW).