April 4th was a national day of "We Are One" rallies sponsored by the AFL-CIO and civil rights groups. The mid-MO rally was in Warrensburg with speakers from the UAW, AFT and MNEA as well as student leaders. Seems like it's time for Columbia to make some noise?
April 04, 2011
The Sedalia Democrat
WARRENSBURG — More than 50 students, union workers and members of the public turned out in support of workers’ rights and public education during a midday rally Monday on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.
The event was part of a national day of action sponsored by union organizers to commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis while lending his support to striking sanitation workers. The national event was organized in response to debates over federal and state budget cuts to social and education programs and the recent fight over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and other states.
Steve Ciafullo, one of the event’s organizers and an assistant professor of academic enrichment at UCM, cited King’s “I’ve been to the mountain top” speech during remarks and called efforts to roll back collective bargaining rights “a hostile corporate takeover of our democracy.”
“Forty-three years ago today, Dr. King was assassinated while standing with sanitation workers in Memphis who were striking for collective bargaining rights,” Ciafullo said. “Today the struggle for these rights is still going on.”
Ciafullo said the issues are being pushed because of state and federal budget deficits, but “what we really have is a priority deficit.”
The UCM “Reclaiming the Dream” rally also featured students and union representatives, including Scott Ciafullo, president of American Federation of Teachers-Missouri, which represents about 4,500 teachers and staff statewide, and Jeff Manning, president of the United Auto Workers Local 31, which represents about 3,500 workers at the Fairfax General Motors plant.
Scott Ciafullo and Manning called recent battles in Wisconsin and Ohio to roll back collective bargaining rights for public workers an example of a Republican-led “war on the middle class.”
“We will never have the money the Republican Party has to push their issues, but we have the manpower and the people,” Manning said. “We can’t let the richest 3 percent of the people take away the rights organized labor has been building for 100 years.”
Manning cited a range of legislative issues in Missouri, including a stalled right-to-work bill, attempts to roll back voter-approved minimum wage increases, and attempts to weaken child labor laws as the most extreme examples of policies that “do real harm to working people and their families.”
Derek Wiseman, president of the UCM Student Government Association, told the crowd that college campuses were “ground zero” in the fight for higher education funding and singled out Republican 4th District Rep. Vicky Harztler; state Sen. Dave Pearce, R-Warrensburg; and state Rep. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, for promoting cuts to the federal Pell Grant program and reduced funding for Access Missouri — a need-based tuition support program for in-state students.
“More than 40 percent of UCM students rely on Pell Grants to help pay for school,” Wiseman said. “The cuts they have proposed are being made under the guise of a budget crisis, but they are making these cuts on the backs of the poor, students and the middle class.”
Wiseman said the “reason we are in a crisis is because our elected representatives keep cutting programs so they can give more to the wealthiest people.”
“They talk about shared sacrifice, but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice for a situation they created,” Wiseman said.
Student organizer Ryan Todd told the group, “I was raised in a union family and I know what a difference unions have made.”
“We have to use today as the first step. You should go out and tell your friends about the issues and have conversations and get people talking about what is going on. The issues are too important for us to just stand by and let this happen,” Todd said.
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