Thread: Athens, GA Marchers urge boycotts, Hispanic activism

Marchers urge boycotts, Hispanic activism
Labor Day workers' rights rally
Story Photos - Click to Enlarge
A group of about 100 people marched Monday from the University of Georgia Arch to City Hall to rally for more workers' rights.
Trevor Frey / Staff Protesters walk down Hancock Street on Monday during a Labor Day rally for workers¹ rights.
Trevor Frey / Staff
Monday, September 3, 2007
Like they did in the 1960s, activists still are marching, still singing and still giving speeches in support of civil rights.

But it's not for blacks anymore. It's for Hispanics.

Participants in a Labor Day parade and rally that attracted about 100 people to downtown Athens drew parallels between the Jim Crow laws that kept blacks down for decades and the low wages and immigration crackdowns facing Hispanics today.

"My Hispanic friends tell me they are the new slaves," said Linda Lloyd, the black director of the Economic Justice Coalition, a group that pressures businesses and institutions like the University of Georgia to pay employees more money.



Lawyer Fred Smith Jr. recited Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Minutes later, Humberto Mendoza compared illegal immigrants who fight deportation to Rosa Parks.

"If the law brings justice, then the law is right," Mendoza said. "If the law is not just, we must resist the law."

A labor union organizer railed against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for what he called abuses of suspected illegal immigrants.

The United Food and Commercial Workers - a union that represents mostly Hispanic workers at two Athens poultry plants - follows ICE agents with cameras when the union is tipped off to raids and soon will file a lawsuit against the agency, UFCW immigration consultant Darlo Rendon said. "This march is great, but we need to start marching in Washington, D.C.," Rendon said. "Martin Luther King taught us we have to fight for what we want. The next step is to quit picking their crops."

Speakers also took aim at a variety of other familiar targets, including Wal-Mart and UGA. History professor Pamela Voekel scolded an unnamed university administrator who recently told the Banner-Herald that UGA can't afford to subsidize child care for low-income employees. The administrator, most likely Vice President for Public Affairs Tom Jackson, makes $250,000 a year, Voekel said.

"That man, shame on him," she said.

Instead of shopping at stores like Wal-Mart, consumers should be willing to pay a little more to support companies that offer a living wage, said Patty Freeman-Lynde. She praised two Athens employers - the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens and Power Partners Inc., a local company that bought a transformer manufacturer that was set to close in 2003, saving 400 jobs - for offering good pay and benefits.

Freeman-Lynde touted a new Web site, www.workerfriendly.org, where the names of employers that meet certain wage and benefit criteria will be posted. "The buck stops here with us as consumers," she said.



Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 090407

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/090 ... 4046.shtml

But it's not for blacks anymore. It's for Hispanics.

And what are the rest of the people who are white and asian etc. doing the exact same jobs for the exact same thing? Chopped liver? It's not like we have a golden goose laying golden eggs in secret. Who...Who? Remember us?

Actually, it's not for Hispanics, it's for Hispanic illegal aliens.

We do not need illegal ALIENS picking our crops! There are plenty of LEGAL IMMIGRANTS and people from all over the world who have applied and have been waiting to come to the United State LEGALLY! I am sure you would not have to wait long as these deserving people would jump at the chance to work and live in the United States legally. I also bet Americans would work if they paid minimum wage. So Mexico here's half the peace sign BACKWARDS!