Honor King with Worker Freedom
From the AFL-CIO
The deaths of two Memphis sanitation workers, crushed by a trash compactor in 1968, sparked a six-week strike that ended with a union and better working conditions after the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was in Memphis to support the workers’ effort to win union representation.
Half a century later, sanitation workers with unions work under vastly improved conditions, even as work for nonunion, private sanitation companies remains deadly.
In 2016, 439 workers in sanitation, waste and remediation died on the job.
Malfunctioning trash compactors are still a leading cause of death.
Worker safety has been and remains a key concern of working people who want to organize to form or join a union on the job.
America’s labor unions want every worker to have the freedom to negotiate with co-workers so we can safely return to our family at the end of the day.
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