"Ordinary workers took extraordinary stand, made history"

UDW's Executive Director Doug Moore (top row, right) with 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers, June 4 2011  See more photos.

Memphis sanitation strike was an important turning point in the fight for civil rights and workplace equality.

Guest Column, by U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, The Memphis Tenessee Commercial Appeal

On Saturday, in the historic American city where one of the world's civil rights legends waged his final campaign for justice, the local sanitation workers who marched at his side will be remembered for changing America.

The labor dispute that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis 43 years ago was officially about union recognition, livable wages, overtime pay, grievance procedures and race-neutral promotions and pensions.

But the iconic signs carried by the sanitation workers in 1968 –"I Am a Man"– spoke to an even more fundamental aspiration of African-American workers that was realized within these city limits: the yearning for respect.  Read full Op-Ed describing this event

Watch the induction part of the ceremony at:  http://www.dol.gov/dol/media/webcast/20110604-memphis/
 
Read Secretary Solis’s full remarks from the ceremony at:  http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/20110604_LHOF.htm