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Although it\u2019s primarily an American holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day gives us an opportunity to honour one of the most important voices of the 20th<\/sup> century and a true friend to the labour movement.<\/p>\n As labour activists, you might be surprised to find out how passionate Dr. King was about labour unions. In fact, Dr. King strongly believed that the civil rights movement could help the labour movement \u2013 and vice-versa.<\/p>\n Dr. King contended that the forces opposed to organized labour were the same forces that opposed any semblance of equality for African Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe duality of interests of labour and Negroes makes any crisis which lacerates you, a crisis from which we bleed,\u201d said Dr. King in his 1961 address<\/a> to the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organizations.<\/p>\n “Negroes in the United States read the history of labour and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the goodwill and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us. They deplore our discontent, they resent our will to organize, so that we may guarantee that humanity will prevail and equality will be exacted\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dr. King didn\u2019t mince words. Labour and the equity-seeking African American community shared a common threat: the ultra-right wing. According to him, they threatened everything that was decent and fair about American life.<\/p>\n And among these right-wing threats, of course, was right-to-work legislation (yea, it\u2019s been around that long!).<\/p>\n