(The bloody police crackdown on Selma-to-Montgomery marchers on March 7, 1965)
A labor struggle is brewing in Selma, Ala., as President
Obama, former presidents, Civil Rights Era-veterans, journalists (including Labor South), activists and regular
folks gather there this weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the bloody first march across Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Workers at the Renosol Seating plant in Selma, a supplier of
the Hyundai plant in Montgomery 50 miles to the east, say their low-wage jobs
have only gotten them potentially life-debilitating illnesses ranging from
asthma to cancer.
“This is a big week in Selma,” said Kim King, a seating
plant worker in a press release from the United Auto Workers, “but we think
it’s also important to lift up the voices of those of us living and working in
Selma today. … I am inspired by the history of my town leading the voter and
civil rights movement. Today my co-workers and I stand as leaders in fighting
for dignity at work.”
King said workers at her 90-employee factory typically earn
$8 an hour and even after 10 years seniority only make as much as $12 an hour.
Yet many experience “terrible breathing problems” as a result of exposure to
chemicals such as toluene diisocyanate, also known as TDI, which is used in
producing the foam inside car seats.
An NBC News study, conducted by Yale University’s
Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program, showed that most employees
tested by last July had been exposed to the chemical, which can cause asthma.
Workers filed complaints with the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration.
Last August OSHA announced it planned to inspect every auto parts plant across
the Deep South states of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia as a result of high
rates of injuries and safety issues. The inspections will take roughly a year.
According to statements by officials with the Lear Group,
which owns Renosol, to Alabama Media Group blogger Erin Edgemon, the company
conducted its own study and concluded the “Selma plant is safe for our
employees.”
“We know we have the
power to improve pay and conditions at our workplace,” King said. “I am
standing with my co-workers in Selma ready to fight.”
King is a member of Seating Workers United, an organization
supported by the UAW. She and a handful of other workers at the plant hope to
be able to organize into a union there to represent their interests before
management.
“America needs good jobs and when we come together we have
the power to make our jobs and our lives better,” says the Seating Workers
United web site. “Through unity we have the power to win.”
A half century ago this Saturday (March 7), Selma became the
focal point of the Civil Rights Movement as peaceful marchers attempted to
cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march to Montgomery and were brutally
attacked by club-wielding policemen who beat marchers and sprayed them with
tear gas.
A second effort--with federal protection--on March 25, 1965,
was successful as Martin Luther King Jr. and others led an estimated 25,000
protesters across the bridge in the march. The Selma-to-Montgomery march became
a catalyst to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
These events have been depicted in the recent Oscar-winning
movie Selma.
Common, the rap artist who co-wrote the Oscar-winning song
“Glory” from the movie, has been active in the labor movement and a vocal
supporter of the right of workers at the giant Nissan plant in Canton, Miss.,
to join the UAW if they choose. The Grammy Award-winning artist performed at a
sold-out concert on behalf of the Nissan workers at Jackson State University in
Jackson, Miss., last year.
In related news, workers at the Faurecia SA automotive
seating plant in Cleveland, Miss., have protested their low wages, poor working
conditions, and the hiring of temporary workers at their plant. They also have
expressed the desire for an election to determine whether they can join the
UAW.
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