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As the third Monday in January, today marks our national observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a federal holiday. To honor his contributions to the United States and beyond, the first observation of MLK Jr. Day took place in 1986 making this the 25th anniversary. The supreme orator and civil rights leader whose political life made our country more honorable was slain by an assassin’s bullet on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was there to lend his support to striking African-American sanitation workers. He had been invited by local ministers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). It was in their name and in their struggle, that Dr. King delivered what would be his last speech. He spoke of “the mountaintop” that he had been to. He had mentioned that he himself may not get to the promised land, but that we as a people would arrive. Before arriving to a climactic and rousing conclusion Dr. King spoke to the heart of the struggle:
Memphis Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs — decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
It is with this history at the end of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life that makes Anaheim Disposal (a subsidiary of Republic Services Inc.) and its decision to not make this a paid day off for its workers too ironic. Monday is the designated trash pick up day in Anaheim and black, green, and brown trash cans owned by the city line its streets. While the arteries of the freeways of Orange County are not clogged today with commuters, the familiar noise of the garbage truck will make its presence known as it travels throughout Anaheim anyway.
For sanitation workers, the MLK Jr. Holiday is not a day of rest despite his martyrdom for their historical brethren in Memphis, Tennessee decades ago. Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving are the only holidays recognized by the corporation. In fact, only “three in ten employers (30 percent) will give all or most workers a paid holiday on Monday, January 17” according to the Bureau of National Affair’s most recent survey, so Republic Services finds itself in the not-so-moral majority.
In Orange County, the cities of Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Placentia, Villa Park and Yobra Linda all work with the company. They enjoy a monopoly over waste management services in Las Vegas. It was there that in late September of 2010, Republic Services Inc. settled a multi-million dollar age-discrimination lawsuit. Before that, the company fired undocumented workers employed for years just as they attempted to unionize themselves. It was only then, that their legal status suddenly became an issue of concern. Sin City indeed. Yes, that twin-headed creature Dr. King spoke of in Memphis, Tennessee the night before his death continues on with its rhetoric in our present moment…
And it’s no surprise that Anaheim sanitation workers labor today while the nation supposedly honors the memory of the man who died for the rights of others just like them.
So this federal holiday is a workday for the trash men……..
Do they at least get some type of extra pay?
I seriously doubt it.