Rally honors MLK’s labor legacy in Philadephia

WW photo: Joseph Piette

Occupy Philly activists, union officials and workers organized a successful march and rally on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 16, in Philadelphia. The activities emphasized King’s involvement in the fight for “economic justice and dignity for all” and honored his legacy of support for the working class.

John Johnson Jr., president of Transport Workers Union Local 234, spoke at the 30th Street train station where the rush-hour march began. He talked about the millions of jobs that could be created by repairing the nation’s infrastructure.

Occupy Philly distributed a chant list to march participants, which featured this quote by King on the back: “Something is wrong with capitalism as it now stands in the United States. We are not interested in being integrated into this value structure. A radical redistribution of power must take place.”

Gwen Ivey, Philadelphia Area Local President of the American Postal Workers Union, criticized a 2006 congressional act for causing the huge deficits in post office budgets and threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs. Outside the 30th Street post office, Ivey linked postal workers fighting this crisis to all those who are confronting a “system that puts profit before people.”

Hundreds of participants then filled the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 hall. The diverse, standing-room-only crowd heard D.C. 33 President Pete Matthews and Father Isaac Miller, retired rector of the historic Episcopal Church of the Advocate, lead off the program.

Co-chairs were Jim Moran, founder of Philadelphia Area Project for Occupational Safety and Health, and Kamillah Fairchild, representing the Occupy Philly Labor Working Group.

The evening’s highlight was the electrifying speech given by Anthony Monteiro, Temple University professor and community activist. He argued that if the Reconstruction period had not been sabotaged by Northern industrialists and Southern plantation owners, “There would have been no need for Martin Luther King to be in Memphis in 1968, where he was assassinated, because the South would not have been the preserve of the union-busters and the cold-blooded white supremacists.”

To enthusiastic applause, Monteiro stressed, “Both sides in this presidential farce are going to talk about how they are going to create jobs. They’re not going to create jobs. The system we live under is unsustainable.” His talk ended with a call to support political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The meeting was a show of unity of some of the most active members in the Philadelphia labor movement. Speakers included Ron Blount, president of the United Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania; Colin Flory, Service Employees health care organizer; and Cory Ballard and Valerie Owes, UNITE HERE organizers.

Also addressing the group were Audra Traynham, Media Mobilizing Project and SEIU Local 32BJ; Henry Nicholas, president of National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFSCME; Eileen Duffy, school nurse, organizer of the 440 Campaign against layoffs and member of Philadelphia Federation of Teachers; and Mike Davis, Communication Workers Local 13000, Eastern Region Vice President.

Euware X. Osayande ended the evening with a poem from his book, “Whose America?” His call to fight against racism and all forms of bigotry ended with the poem’s stirring words: “Watch us make it free.”