March, 24 2017, 09:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Anna Susman, anna.susman@berlinrosen.com, (646) 200-5285
Isabel Urbano, isabel.urbano@berlinrosen.com, (646) 680-0905
Fight for $15, Movement for Black Lives to Join Forces in Nationwide Protest to Fight Racism, Raise Pay
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: ‘Together, We Can Be Architects of Democracy’
MEMPHIS, TENN.
The Fight for $15 and the Movement for Black Lives will take to the streets nationwide April 4 - the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination - in a two-dozen-city "Fight Racism, Raise Pay" protest.
Thousands of underpaid workers, local racial justice activists, elected officials and clergy will hold rallies, marches, teach-ins, and other demonstrations to stress that the push for economic and racial justice remains as deeply linked today as when Dr. King was killed in 1968 supporting striking black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. The coast-to-coast protests will culminate in a march by thousands of workers, national civil rights leaders and politicians on the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis, where they'll hold a memorial at the site of Dr. King's assassination 49 years ago.
The "Fight Racism, Raise Pay" protests, planned for more than two-dozen cities from Atlanta to Milwaukee to Las Vegas, come as working Americans face an onslaught of attacks on their right to join together for higher pay and confront racist policies from the White House down to local police departments. Republican lawmakers in more than two-dozen states have introduced legislation aimed at cracking down on protestors like those in the Fight for $15 and the Movement for Black Lives.
The marchers will converge in Memphis weeks after a local Fight for $15 worker organization filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, charging its police department with widespread illegal surveillance and intimidation to stifle worker protest. Rallies on April 4 in Minneapolis, Detroit and Durham will condemn anti-protest legislation proposed by lawmakers in those states.
"We're joining together with the Movement for Black Lives because our two movements have a common bond in fighting the racism that keeps down people of color everywhere," said Latierika Blair, 23, who works at McDonald's in Memphis, Tenn., and is paid $7.35/hour. "McDonalds conspires with police to try to silence us when we speak out for higher pay. Corporations and politicians act to keep workers and black people from getting ahead in America. We should be investing in our people and communities. That's why we have to protest, and that's why we will keep speaking out together until we win."
The April 4 protests come as newly empowered corporate interests and right-wing politicians attempt to strip away the rights of workers to organize across the country. Union jobs in state and local government - which have historically provided a pathway to the middle class for workers of color - are under attack from corporate-backed politicians like Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has refused to bargain a contract with state employees for nearly two years in an effort to break their union. And people of color remain over-represented in low-paying industries like fast-food: more than half of black workers and nearly 60 percent of Latino workers are paid less than $15, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project.
"White supremacy and corporate greed have always been linked in America," said Chelsea Fuller of the Movement for Black Lives. "The fast-food workers who are going on strike for $15/hour and the right to a union are resisting the same institutional racism and oppression that fuels police violence across the country. We are stronger when we stand together, and so our movements are going to keep fighting back against the twin evils of racial and economic inequality that continue to hold back black and brown people."
The April 4 protests are the latest wave of defiance against reactionary attacks on working people, people of color, women and immigrants. Just weeks after the November 2016 election, thousands of workers in the Fight for $15 walked off the job from coast to coast and engaged in waves of civil disobedience. The walkouts marked the start of a new era of mass demonstration, including the Women's March and a rash of protests at the nation's airports following President Trump's announcement of an immigration ban from predominantly Muslim countries. The April 4 Fight for $15/Movement for Black Lives protests will kick off a wave of protests around the country in the following weeks, including demonstrations calling attention to immigrants' rights, climate change and tax policy that benefits the rich.
Dr. King saw a common bond between the labor and civil rights movements and believed that union rights were fundamental to achieving racial justice. As King said in 1961, "the two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy."
"Dr. King spent his final days standing with Memphis sanitation workers because he saw the deep link between the labor movement and the civil rights movement," said the Rev. William Barber II, founder of the social justice organization Repairers of the Breach. "Dr. King knew that if the racism and poverty are inextricably linked, our struggles to confront them must be inseparable as well. On April 4, we follow in Dr. King's footsteps to march on Memphis and take on the twin scourges of racial and economic inequality."
The April 4 actions will conclude with a national moment of silence at 6:01pm Central - the exact time of Dr. King's assassination - when Americans across the country will reflect on Dr. King's dream for racial and economic justice and how it connects to theirs.
Racial justice organizations participating in actions on April 4 include Black Lives Matter chapters in Los Angeles, Calif., Atlanta, Ga., Broward County, Fla., Hillsborough County, Fla., Chicago, Ill., and Flint, Mich.; NAACP chapters in Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and Las Vegas, Nev., and other groups including Black Youth Project 100 and Workers Center for Racial Justice in Chicago, and Dream Defenders in Tampa and Miami.
The Fight for $15 has built deep ties with civil rights groups and leaders across the country. U.S. Rep. John Lewis joined Atlanta fast-food workers on a strike line in August 2013, encouraging them to, "Keep walking, keep marching, keep talking, keep pushing." In the summer of 2014, the NAACP passed a resolution backing the Fight for $15; in the winter of 2015 Memphis sanitation workers who participated in the 1968 strike in Memphis, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, implored a gathering of fast-food workers at Dr. King's church in Atlanta to keep fighting for $15 and union rights; and faith leaders of all stripes have echoed the workers' moral argumentfor dignity on the job. Workers have developed deep ties with the Movement for Black Lives and marched alongside activists calling for racial justice from Ferguson, Mo. to Baton Rouge, La, to Milwaukee, Wisc.
The Fight for $15 has spurred wage hikes for 22 million underpaid workers, including more than 10 million who are on their way to $15/hour, by convincing everyone from voters to politicians to corporations to raise pay. Workers have taken what many viewed as an outlandish proposition - $15/hour- and made it the new labor standard in New York, California, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Home care workers in Massachusetts and Oregon won $15/hour statewide minimum wages and companies including Facebook, Aetna, Amalgamated Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Nationwide Insurance have raised pay to $15/hour or higher. Workers in nursing homes, public schools and hospitals have won $15/hour via collective bargaining. The movement was credited as one of the reasons wages for lower-paid workers grew faster than for upper-income workers last year, marking a significant break with the runaway wage growth captured by wealthy Americans over the past several decades.
"Every day workers of color across this country face deep-seated racism that would seem to be out of Dr. King's era, but is, sadly, still reality today," said Kendall Fells, national organizing director of the Fight for $15. "But workers and activists are standing up and speaking out, the way Dr. King would, to fight racism and raise wages, and we are not giving up until companies like McDonald's get the message that workers are worth more than minimum wage."
Fast food workers are coming together all over the country to fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. We work for corporations that are making tremendous profits, but do not pay employees enough to support our families and to cover basic needs like food, health care, rent and transportation.
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"It'd be a travesty for justices to delay matters further," said one legal expert.
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After about three hours of oral arguments Thursday on former President Donald Trump's immunity claims, legal experts and democracy defenders urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule swiftly, with just over six months until the November election.
Trump—the presumptive Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his 88 felony charges in four ongoing criminal cases—is arguing that presidential immunity should protect him from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Justices across the ideological spectrum didn't seem inclined to support Trump's broad immunity claims—which critics have said "reflect a misreading of constitutional text and history as well as this court's precedent." However, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) shared examples of what it would mean if they did.
"Trump could sell pardons, ambassadorships, and other official benefits to his wealthy donors, members of his clubs, or cronies who helped him commit other crimes," CREW warned. "Trump could sell nuclear codes and government secrets to help pay back crippling debts."
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After warning that a president could also order the occupation or closure of the Capitol or high court to prevent actions against him, CREW concluded that "the Supreme Court never should have taken this appeal up in the first place. They should rule quickly and shut these ludicrous claims down for good."
The organization was far from alone in demanding a quick decision from the nation's highest court.
"In the name of accountability, the court must not delay its decision," the Brennan Center for Justice said Thursday evening. "The Supreme Court's time is up. It needs to let the prosecution move forward. The court decided Bush v. Gore in three days—it should act with similar alacrity in deciding Trump v. U.S."
In Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 election, the high court issued a related stay on December 9, heard oral arguments on December 11, and issued a final decision on December 12.
On Thursday, the arguments "got away from the central question: Is a former president immune from criminal prosecution if he tried to overthrow a presidential election, using private means and the power of his office to do so?" the Brennan Center noted. "The answer is simple: No."
"It is not an 'official act' to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power or the Constitution, even if you conspire with other government officials to do it or use the Oval Office phone," the center said. "Trump's attorney was pushing the court to come up with a sea change in the law. That's unnecessary and a delay tactic that will hurt the pursuit of justice in this case."
In a departure from previous claims, Trump's attorney, D. John Sauer, "appeared to agree with Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, that there are some allegations in the indictment that do not involve 'official acts' of the president," NBC Newsreported, noting questions from liberal Justice Elena Kagan and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee.
Barrett summarized various allegations from the indictment and in three cases—involving dishonest election claims, false allegations of fraud, and fake electors—Sauer conceded that Trump's alleged conduct sounded private, suggesting that a more narrow case against the ex-president that excluded any potential official acts could proceed.
Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.\n\nIt'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.\n\nJustice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.\u2b07\ufe0f— (@)
According to NBC:
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer and a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School who filed a brief backing prosecutors, said Sauer's concessions highlight that Trump is "not immune for the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the indictment."
Ultimately, he said, the case will go to trial "absent some external intervention—like Trump ordering [the Justice Department] to drop the charges" after having won the election.
At the same time, Sauer's backtracking might have little consequence from an electoral perspective. Further delay in a trial, which Sauer is close to achieving, is a form of victory in itself.
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern pointed out that when Barrett similarly questioned Michael Dreeben, the U.S. Department of Justice lawyer arguing the case for Smith, it seemed like they "were trying to work out some compromise wherein the trial court could distinguish between official and unofficial acts, then instruct the jury not to impose criminal liability on the former."
"It was fascinating to watch Barrett nodding along as Dreeben pitched a compromise that would largely preserve Smith's January 6 prosecution but limit what the jury could hear, or at least consider," Stern added. "That, though, would take months to suss out in the trial court. More delays!"
Stern and other experts signaled that the decision likely comes down to Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals seemingly supporting the prosecution of Trump and the other four conservatives suggesting it is unconstitutional.
People for the American Way president Svante Myrick said in a statement that "today's argument brought both good and bad news. It was chilling to hear Donald Trump's lawyer say that staging a military coup could be considered part of a president's official duties."
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Stop the Money Pipeline co-director Alec Connon said: "To have any chance of reigning in the climate crisis, we must stop investing in fossil fuel expansion. Yet, Citibank is pumping billions of dollars into new coal, oil, and gas projects."
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