Uniting labor and community
24th annual Black Workers For Justice banquet
By
Monica Moorehead
Raleigh, N.C.
Published Apr 15, 2007 10:10 PM
The Black Workers For Justice held its 24th annual Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. Support for Labor banquet April 7 at the North
Carolina Association of Educators Hall in Raleigh.
Raleigh city workers receive self-determination award from Nathanette Mayo April 7.
WW photo: Monica Moorehead
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Several hundred people, young and old, representing community
organizations and political groups, attended the event in
solidarity with the crucial work that BWFJ, along with its ally,
UE Local 150, carries out to organize the Black, Latin@ and women
workers in the public sector who face low wages and intolerable
working conditions.
North Carolina adheres to right-to-work laws and ranks at the
bottom as the least unionized state in the country. Right-to-work
prohibits state and local governments from entering into
collective bargaining agreements with workers. This is known as
General Statute 95-98, which was signed into law during the 1950s
during the height of racist segregation in the South. Virginia is
the only other state with the same anti-worker, anti-union
statute.
The banquet affords the opportunity for BWFJ to reinforce its
goals and also to recognize the work that labor and community
activists have carried out over the past 12 months to meet those
goals. This year’s event was no exception. Rukiya Dillahunt
was the Directress of Ceremony during the banquet program.
BWJF leader Ashanki Binta spoke on the International Justice
Workers’ Campaign to defeat General Statute 95-98. Keynote
speaker Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina
State NAACP, gave a fiery talk about the need for unity and
solidarity in the struggle against war, injustice and racism.
Nathanette Mayo from BWFJ presented the Abner Berry
Self-Determination Awards. The purpose of these awards is to
“recognize and honor people whose dedication and sacrifice
to the struggle for workers’ rights and to the
self-determination of the African-American people has been
significant.”
Berry, who died in 1987, was a Black active member of the
Communist Party USA from the mid-1930s until the late 1950s. He
was the editor of the Harlem edition of the CPUSA’s
publication, The Daily Worker. He was also a founding member of
the BWFJ in 1981.
Two of this year’s Berry awards went to the United Food and
Commercial Workers union for its efforts to organize 5,500 mainly
immigrant workers at the Smithfield Packing Plant located in Tar
Heel, N.C. These exploited workers walked off the job last fall
in protest of anti-union tactics by the bosses.
Smithfield is the world’s largest hog processing plant,
where 32,000 hogs are slaughtered daily. This amounts to 2,000 an
hour, 33 per minute or one hog every two seconds. These workers
suffer high rates of injuries including cuts, maiming and
repetitive-motion pain, and are denied workers’
compensation. These workers, the majority of them Latin@ and
Black, face systematic racism from white bosses.
Another Berry award went to the Raleigh City Workers of the N.C.
Public Service Workers Union, UE 150.
Last September, 50 workers from the Raleigh sanitation department
carried out a wildcat strike in protest of long working hours,
low pay and other grievances against the city. Due to this
action, over half of the city workers have joined the union and
garnered much community support. Another important victory is
that these workers have forced the mayor of Raleigh to
“meet and confer” with them—a big step forward
to breaking down the restrictive barriers to union organizing,
particularly the General Statute 95-98 law.
Other speakers included Shafeah M’Bali, co-editor of
Justice Speaks, the BWFJ publication; National Vice-Chair of BWFJ
Angaza Laughinghouse; and Ajamu Dillahunt, a BWFJ steering
committee member. The Fruit of Labor Ensemble provided cultural
entertainment.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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