Possibly the best speech on racism and the labor movement I've ever heard.
I'm not one for quoting dead philosophers, but back in the 1700s, Edmund Burke said: 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.' Well, there's no evil that's inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism -- and it's something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
It's our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.
We've seen how companies set worker against worker -- how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table and how we all end up losing.
But we've seen something else, too. We've seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.
That's why the CIO was created. That's why industrial unions were the first to stand up against lynching and segregation. People need to know that it was the Steel Workers Organizing Committee -- this union -- that was founded on the principal of organizing all workers without regard to race. That's why the labor movement -- imperfect as we are -- is the most integrated institution in American life.
BTW, the speaker is Rich Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO and former president of the United Mine Workers of America.
He's generally acknowledged to be one of the best speakers on behalf of labor and working people.
And He May Replace Sweeney... (Matt H - 10/2/2008 1:00:45 PM)
During next summer's AFL-CIO executive elections since Sweeney plans to retire.
He started in the mines and then went to law school.
Yeah, some of us have hoped for that since the beginning... (AnonymousIsAWoman - 10/3/2008 2:03:19 PM)
I believe I heard long ago that he was expected to be next in line. I've had the privelege of hearing him speak live - he really, really is good!
I'm not usually big on unions (Roland the HTG - 10/2/2008 3:20:25 PM)
But this is a great speech. There are voters in places more than just Pennsylvania steel towns who are starting to heed this message, folks in Southside who have always voted Republican but are tired of getting the same old results of lower wages and fewer jobs. These are the kinds of lunch-pail Democrats who will turn Virginia, and several other states, blue in 2008.
Sounds Like the Southside Needs More Unions (Matt H - 10/2/2008 4:05:49 PM)
Union workers earn better wages, have better benefits, have greater job security, and are some of the few remaining workers that still get pensions upon retirement.