Martin Luther King's Neglected Legacy: Economic Justice

Next Monday, January 15, is Martin Luther King's birthday, a national holiday celebrating the life and legacy of the great civil rights and human rights leader. Sadly, much of the attention will be focused on his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, words that did not reflect Dr. King's temperament at the time of his death five years later.

Usually overlooked by liberals and conservatives alike is Dr. King's fight for economic justice for poor Americans, especially for poor people of color. In his final book, "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community," King lamented over the nation's growing economic divide. It was the reason for his planned Poor People's Campaign in the nation's capitol.

Dr. King understood that civil rights meant more than the right to vote or buy a house in any neighborhood. When he was assassinated in Memphis, he was lending his support to a strike by city garbage collectors who were fighting for decent wages and benefits, similar to the struggle we see today in our city among private security guards. King knew that without economic justice, poor people of color would never reach the level playing field that he always saw as the final achievement of the civil rights movement.

Workers tethered
to low-pay jobs

Today, we see more and more evidence of an economic playing field tilting away from low-wage workers. While real wages for the rich have skyrocketed in the last decade, those for the middle class have stagnated and wages for low-income workers have actually declined. The end of the year bonuses awarded employees of the top five Wall Street firms -- an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion -- stand in stark contrast to the increase in New York State's minimum wage from $6.75 to $7.15 an hour that took effect on January 1.

Today, many jobs being created are low-wage, with no benefits or opportunities for career advancement. An example is the health service industry. This is a fast growing sector of the city's economy and a place where many low-income Black and Latino New Yorkers have found work. But while the number of health care jobs is increasing, its share of wages has been declining. The New York Times recently reported that, in the first quarter of 2006, health care and social services accounted for 11.3 percent of Manhattan's jobs, but only 4 percent of its wages.

Dehumanizing Workers

Along with wages that keep workers in poverty, there persists a workplace culture that dehumanizes low-wage jobholders. In the forefront of current bad actors is Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer of low-wage workers.

Wal-Mart is starting to move its more than one million hourly workers -- many of them part timers -- from a system of predictable shifts to a schedule based on shopper traffic. Wal-Mart says this will cut costs. That may not be the case. More likely, this flexible scheduling was instituted to meet demand, as in the airline industry. The idea of flexible scheduling is already starting to spread to other retailers.

What sort of family life could you have if you knew that your work schedule might interrupt quality time with your children or spouse? This could be a nightmare for single working mothers -- who comprise a fair share of Wal-Mart's hourly employees.

These are people already getting poorly paid -- with little or no benefits (a Wal-Mart memo was uncovered that stated that its hourly workers should get health insurance by applying for Medicaid). Now they will have to hold themselves available for "flexible" schedule changes on the job. These tactics, once more, point up the need for strong, aggressive unions.

Workers on Welfare

What would Dr. King think today, when the richest nation on earth enters a new century with no end of poverty in sight and low-wage workers being ground down by corporations and ignored by government? In 1968, King was supporting strikers -- most of them poor Blacks -- who insisted that the city of Memphis recognize their union and negotiate in good faith with them. They were paid so little that 40 percent of them qualified for welfare.

The strikers held out for 65 days before King's assassination pressured the city to meet their demands. This victory inspired other low-wage workers to organize and fight for decent wages and working conditions.

For many Americans, Martin Luther King is remembered today mostly for a singular speech that framed the nation's racial blind spot. But near the end of his life, Dr. King grew restless with the nation's growing economic divide and challenged us to take up the fight for the dispossessed. That's the legacy we should be honoring next Monday.

From the New York Amsterdam News
January 11 - 17, 2007