Honor New Orleans Sanitation Workers with Higher Wages, Better Conditions, Respect, Union Rights
By Sanashihla
Memphis and New Orleans are cities with rich traditions, culture and histories of resistance to oppression. Both cities have ports to the Mississippi river. Both cities have a high population of Black people suffering from poverty. Both cities have had workers who died from unsafe work environments, neglect, and abuse of power. It’s time for workers to rise and fight!
Time for all workers to stand up
On February 1, 1968 two Memphis based sanitation workers, Robert Walker and Echol Cole, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck.
On October 12, 2019 three New Orleans construction workers, Jose Ponce Arreola, Quinnyon Wimberly, and Anthony Magrette were killed during the collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel. Construction continued despite workers having voiced concerns about bent beams and flawed materials being used during construction.
Had the Hard Rock workers in New Orleans not been denied union rights, they could have forced the bosses to address the safety concerns or walked off the job without punishment and with pay.
However, due to the greed and disregard for the workers, the bosses and city officials in both cases put dedicated workers’ lives in jeopardy. The bosses know workers need paychecks, even under unsafe situations. They push the workers because they know that other business owners are pressing them for rent or charging them for food and all other necessities for daily survival. This puts workers in a bind.
History has lessons for us today
After almost two weeks of getting no response from the city about the 1968 death of the two Memphis based sanitation workers, 1,300 Black men from the Memphis Department of Public Works went on strike for improved safety standards and better wages.
The Memphis workers of 1968 had a union. And because they were organized and had learned the lessons of a previous strike, they were able to gain necessary support. The strike became not only part of the union struggle but the national fight for civil rights. Memphis sanitation workers were Black, and the bad conditions they faced were also a byproduct of racism.
The working class cannot and will not wait for anyone else to come save us
Workers in New Orleans face the same conditions. But most workers here do not have a union. In order to improve conditions, workers must get organized on all fronts! The business owners know that a union would have had the power to do something about the safety concerns expressed by the workers. A union could have saved lives. But they don’t care. We workers must care, get organized, and fight back!
Our power is our labor and organizing
From Memphis to New Orleans, the words of Dr. King’s very last speech should inspire us today: “The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee—the cry is always the same: We want to be free!”
Dr. King believed in the power of the people. He believed in the power of organizing, and the organizing of power. The real power is in our labor and what we decide to do or not do collectively with that labor! Dr. King emphasized, “we don’t have to live like we are forced to live[…]When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”