AFSCME Information Highway

● Portrait of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the National Archives and Records Administration.
● MLK Biography (Biography Channel)
● Resources from The King Center, Atlanta, Georgia
● The Meaning of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday by Coretta Scott King
● Martin Luther King, Jr.Speaks About Service (Audio and Video of a 1968 sermon)
● Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial
● Chronology
● Biographical Outline of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
● Biographical Info of Coretta Scott King
● Martin Luther King Encyclopedia (via Stanford University)
● Digitized: Official March on Washington Program (via NARA)
This program listed the events scheduled at the Lincoln Memorial during the August 28, 1963.
● Listen and Read the Text Transcript: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" Address (via History and Politics Out Loud, Michigan State University)
● Additional Audio from HPOL
● The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University
● Search papers
● Bibliography
● Chronologies
Includes and interactive chronology.
● Frequently Requested Documents and Audio Clips
● NEW: Volume of King's Papers Forthcoming (Vol. 6)
● Martin Luther King, Jr. Newspaper Archive
Over 50,000 full text and full image newspaper articles about the life and work of Dr. King. Access to the database and its contents is free. Registration or subscription are not required to access the material.
● MLK Day Resources (via Infoplease.com)
Includes:
● History of the Holiday
● Biography of Martin Luther King
● Civil Disobedience
● King Assassination Conspiracy Theories
● The March on Washington
● Excerpt from the "I Have a Dream" Speech
● Martin Luther King Speeches
● Quotes from Martin Luther King
● Timelines: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights Movement (via Infoplease.com)
● Biographies: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King (via Gale)
● Voices of Civil Rights Online Exhibition (via Library of Congress)
The exhibition Voices of Civil Rights documents events during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This exhibition draws from the thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and photographs collected by the "Voices of Civil Rights" project, a collaborative effort of AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress, and marks the arrival of these materials in the Library's collection.
● Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers (via National Archives and Records Administration)
tion)
● We Shall Overcome, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement (via National Park Service)
Online exhibition.
● Full Image: National Day of Mourning for Martin Luther King, Jr. (via NARA)
Presidential Proclamation 3839 of April 5, 1968, by President Lyndon B. Johnson designating Sunday, April 7, 1968, as a day of national mourning for Martin Luther King, Jr., 04/05/1968 (Page 1 of 2); ARC Identifier: 299993; General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 1992; Record Group 11; National Archives.
● Nobel Peace Prize Materials (via NobelPrize.org)
● Presentation Speech Gunnar Jahn*, Chairman of the Nobel Committee, 1964
● MLK's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964
● Transcript of MLK's Nobel Lecture
December 11, 1964
● Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Selected Bibliography (via Chicago Public Library)
● Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement Resources (The Seattle Times)
● Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site (via National Park Service)
● CNN Student News One-Sheet: Martin Luther King Jr. (via CNN)

Posted by Info Center at 12:05 PM in Labor History | Permalink

Source: Michael Honey, Poverty & Race, Vol. 16 no. 2, March-April 2007

On February 12—Lincoln’s Birthday—Gillis and others on the sewer and drainage crew had had enough. They and nearly 1,300 black men in the Memphis Department of Public Works, giving no notice to anyone, went on strike. Little did they imagine that their decision would challenge generations of white supremacy in Memphis and have staggering consequences for the nation.

Posted by Info Center at 10:26 AM in AFSCME | Labor History | Permalink

Source: Jennifer L. Worley, Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 32 no. 1, March 2007
(subscription required)

This article analyzes the 1985 Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel strike and places it in the context of the declining American steel industry and deteriorating relationship between the steel companies and the United Steelworkers of America. Within the hostile 1980s economic and political climate, steelworkers at Wheeling-Pitt unleashed a repertoire of bargaining tactics that would help them achieve at least some of their demands while preventing the company's liquidation. Besides exploring the reasons why steelworkers struck a bankrupt company and how they secured their demands, the article demonstrates how the strike offered new strategies for negotiating with capital at a time when unions' options were severely limited.

Posted by Info Center at 4:52 PM in Collective Bargaining | Labor History | Strikes | Permalink

Source: Joseph Adler, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4

Of the approximately 20 million public employees in the United States, more than eight million are either members of or represented by labor unions—a penetration rate of just over 40 percent. What is remarkable about this phenomenal growth is that most of the expansion of union activity in government has occurred within the last 40 years, and almost mirrors the decline of union strength in the private sector.

The rise and fall of labor in the private sector is a backdrop to the growth of public sector collective bargaining. Explanations for the dramatic increase in government union activity can be explored from a number of different perspectives. Current public policy efforts to reform civil service and allow managers greater flexibility are seen by some researchers as having the potential to impact the ability of public sector unions to represent their members effectively.

Posted by Info Center at 10:37 AM in Future of Unions | Labor History | Public Sector | Permalink

Source: Joan E. Pynes and Brian Corley, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4

There is an unusual history of collective bargaining and deputy sheriffs in the state of Florida. While police officers have been allowed to unionize and collectively bargain since 1968, it has only been since 2003 that deputy sheriffs have been given that right. (Please note that despite the similarities in job duties, deputy sheriffs were not considered to be public employees for the purposes of collective bargaining.)

Posted by Info Center at 10:33 AM in Collective Bargaining | Labor History | Permalink

Source: Joseph A. McCartin, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1

August 3, 2006, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of an event that many in organized labor would prefer to forget. On that date in 1981, more than 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration. When 11,325 of them refused to heed a back-to-work order issued by President Ronald Reagan and end their illegal walkout within forty-eight hours, they were discharged and permanently replaced.

In the immediate aftermath of the PATCO strike, many commentators predicted it would mark a turning point in the history of U.S. labor relations. A quarter century later, the strike’s importance is even easier to grasp. Just as the infamous Homestead strike set the tone for labor-capital conflict at the end of the nineteenth century, the PATCO strike helped establish the pattern for labor relations in the late twentieth century. Since that ill-fated walkout, organized labor has been in a state of continuous decline.

Posted by Info Center at 4:03 PM in Labor History | Strikes | Permalink

Source: Marianne P. Brown, NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, Volume 16 no. 3, 2006

Organized labor has been largely responsible for the health and safety protections many U.S. workers take for granted. This article provides a brief history of labor's influence on California's health and safety policies—sometimes with ripple effects beyond its borders. Six cases where various successful strategies were used are examined. These gains were achieved with strong support from international health and safety staff, and, on some issues, support from the state labor federation. But in most cases local union staff involvement was key. Now that labor mobilizes to build its shrinking membership—with only 1 out of 12 workers in the private sector organized---resources are being re-directed toward organizing. Understandably, health and safety advocates have expressed concern that worker protections may suffer. Time will tell, but there is evidence that health and safety demands are front and center in a number of current and upcoming organizing campaigns. Now more than ever, it is in health and safety professionals' interest to tie their research and clinical work into these emerging campaigns.

Posted by Info Center at 5:20 PM in Health & Safety | Labor History | Laws/Legislation | Permalink