On Friday, January 14, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor honored Alvin Turner and Baxter Leach at our annual MLK Jr. Labor Breakfast. Turner and Leach are two former rank-and-file AFSCME Memphis sanitation workers and veterans of the historic 1968 Memphis sanitation strike where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. They were presented awards by two of our rank-and-file Los Angeles sanitation workers and member of the Teamsters Local 396, Maurice Thomas and Derek Gentry.
At the Breakfast, civil rights leader Reverend James Lawson spoke about the Memphis strike as one of its leaders and its relevance today as a call for economic justice. NFL Players Association leader and former NFL football player Nolan Harrison spoke about a potential NFL players’ lockout in 2011. California Attorney General Kamala Harris provided final remarks on the legacy of Dr. King to more than 500 LA County union members.
On Monday, MLK Jr. Day, hundreds of LA teachers, firefighters, home care workers, grocery workers, hotel workers, truck drivers, sanitation workers, city, county, and state workers, construction workers, and more marched with Alvin Turner and Baxter Leach in the annual Kingdom Day Parade. LA Labor was also joined by U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
