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July 14, 2011 Dwight Kirk (202) 257-3966
Speakers Sound the Alarm at CBTU 40TH Anniversary Convention
About Attacks from Right-wing Groups and Politicians
The message passed smoothly and firmly like a relay baton from speaker to speaker, each one issuing an urgent message to CBTU members: The fight is on to halt the all-out assault on union members and minority voters in the workplace and at the ballot box.
It was a timely message that many delegates at CBTU’s 2011
Convention seemed primed to embrace. So when Arlene Holt-Baker, executive vice
president of the AFL-CIO stepped to the microphone, the ballroom quieted as folks
listened and watched her presentation intently.
Holt-Baker told the audience that the proliferation of
attacks on American workers is neither random nor a spontaneous rebellion by an
angry middle class. It is a nationally coordinated campaign waged by wealthy,
ultra-conservative foundations, think tanks, media personalities and
politicians who are intent on rolling back the power and gains made by workers
and minority voters over many decades.
Holt-Baker showed how this right-wing network funds groups like
the Tea Party and actively works against progressive issues like health care
reform, financial reforms on Wall Street, and key planks of the Civil Rights
Act. For example, in 2009 and 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent over
$276 million lobbying against this progressive agenda.
Now the public sector has become the flashpoint of the
right-wing network’s coordinated campaign. Legislation is being pushed to strip
workers of their collective bargaining rights and to give tax breaks to
corporations.
While battleground states like
She jolted the audience when she pointed out that 21% of all
black workers are public employees, compared with 16% of non-black workers. She
used that sober statistic to hammer the message that black workers, black
households, black communities, black organizations, black businesses, and black
churches have a huge stake in local efforts to save public sector jobs and
protect union rights.
Holt-Baker told the audience, “Standing together, we can
win, because we are ONE!” She encouraged CBTU members to make a personal
commitment to take concrete actions such as:
Holt-Baker and another convention speaker, Tony Harrison,
also dealt with the alarming proliferation of legislation being debated or
passed in statehouses across the country that could create mass
disenfranchisement of millions of minority voters in the 2012 elections.
Tactics such as strict voter ID, proof of citizenship for registration and
cutbacks to early voting are being pushed by the same groups and politicians
who are leading the assault on unions and public sector workers.
For example, strict photo ID requirements have been
introduced in well over half the states and passed in five states, including
The disenfranchising potential of requiring a photo ID to
vote strikes African Americans severely and disproportionately. A 2006
nationwide study of voting-age citizens by the
A coalition of national civil rights leaders has vowed to vigorously
challenge ID bills and other efforts to intimidate or disenfranchise millions
of minority voters. At a media event last month in
In a joint statement, the coalition declared, “National
civil rights organizations, through the coordinated efforts of Election
Protection, will work throughout the election cycle to collect evidence to
effectively challenge and improve bad legislation, work with election officials
to enact rules at the local level to expand access, and educate voters, poll
workers and election officials about proper implementation of myriad changes in
the voting landscape and to ensure that organized efforts to keep certain
voters from the polls are vigorously opposed.”
Tony Harrison, a veteran political operative who served as
outreach director for former House majority whip James Clyburn (D-SC), urged
CBTU members to protect the voting rights of their communities back home by
being actively involved in the upcoming redistricting cycle.
“Your voice and your participation in the redistricting
process are crucial to black folks not being shortchanged or marginalized when
the final plans are drawn up,”
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