Spring Break
Union leader speaks about workers rights, civil rights
Jack Willems
Issue date: 2/5/07 Section: News
"The company does not give you anything, the company has to offer competitive wages because of unions," Roberts said. "If unions disappear, you will watch wages drop and pensions disappear."
The civil rights movement faced hardship similar to labor unions, Roberts said. Randolph introduced Martin Luther King when King gave his "I have a dream" speech, Roberts said. Randolph had proposed a march on Washington, D.C. in the 1930s, Roberts said. Also, when the UMWA went on strike against Pittston Co. in 1989, civil rights leaders came to support them.
Today, 36 million people in America live in poverty and 47 million are without health insurance, Roberts said.
"We can't figure out how to get water to people on a bridge in New Orleans," he said. "People in New Orleans are being told to get behind people in Iraq."
Union membership is dropping because many industrial jobs are being outsourced and technology has reduced the need for manpower, Roberts said. Furthermore, 20,000 people a year are fired for trying to join a union, he said. When a strike occurs, companies hire replacements to break the strike, he said.
One of the country's priorities should be creating national healthcare so that American companies can be competitive with other countries overseas, Roberts said. The government already pays for its officials' healthcare, so government funded healthcare should work, Roberts said.
"We need more common folks contributing and not so many geniuses," he said.
In order to help Wal-Mart workers organize, people need to stop shopping there, Roberts said. Wal-Mart not only pays its workers very little, they also harm small businesses, he said.
"They dictate to everybody," he said. "They dictate to sellers and they dictate to employees."
While all speakers are given a donation by the school, Roberts refused his, said Cyndi Nance, Dean of the Law School. Nance met Roberts at the AFL-CIO Congress when she went as a delegate in 2005. She was so impressed with him that she decided to invite him to speak at the UA.
The civil rights movement faced hardship similar to labor unions, Roberts said. Randolph introduced Martin Luther King when King gave his "I have a dream" speech, Roberts said. Randolph had proposed a march on Washington, D.C. in the 1930s, Roberts said. Also, when the UMWA went on strike against Pittston Co. in 1989, civil rights leaders came to support them.
Today, 36 million people in America live in poverty and 47 million are without health insurance, Roberts said.
"We can't figure out how to get water to people on a bridge in New Orleans," he said. "People in New Orleans are being told to get behind people in Iraq."
Union membership is dropping because many industrial jobs are being outsourced and technology has reduced the need for manpower, Roberts said. Furthermore, 20,000 people a year are fired for trying to join a union, he said. When a strike occurs, companies hire replacements to break the strike, he said.
One of the country's priorities should be creating national healthcare so that American companies can be competitive with other countries overseas, Roberts said. The government already pays for its officials' healthcare, so government funded healthcare should work, Roberts said.
"We need more common folks contributing and not so many geniuses," he said.
In order to help Wal-Mart workers organize, people need to stop shopping there, Roberts said. Wal-Mart not only pays its workers very little, they also harm small businesses, he said.
"They dictate to everybody," he said. "They dictate to sellers and they dictate to employees."
While all speakers are given a donation by the school, Roberts refused his, said Cyndi Nance, Dean of the Law School. Nance met Roberts at the AFL-CIO Congress when she went as a delegate in 2005. She was so impressed with him that she decided to invite him to speak at the UA.
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