NORTH CAROLINA NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
114 WEST PARRISH STREET, SECOND FLOOR ▪ DURHAM, NC 27701
919/682-4700 ▪ 919/682-4711▪ EXECDIRNAACPNC@GMAIL.COM
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
President
Amina J. Turner
Executive Director
For More information: Call 919- 682-4700; or 919-394-8137
Press Release
March 24, 2009
BARBER STATEMENT at HOPE Coalition News Conference
Fifty years ago, in 1959, there were no black representatives in this legislature. The civil rights movement to end Jim Crow was poised to dismantle many laws and customs that were the accepted patterns in North Carolina. This all-white legislature, was determined to hold back this Movement. It passed a draconian, anti-labor, and anti-civil rights law, called General Statute 95-98, making it illegal for people to talk together across the table about working conditions in any public job. Now remember, at that time, public employment as garbage collectors, cooks, housekeepers, groundskeepers, and other menial work among the best jobs my grandparents could get.
Forty years ago, in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. flew to Memphis twice, to help the garbage collectors who were striking to gain collective bargaining rights with the City of Memphis because Memphis had no organized process for its public employees to unionize and collectively bargain.
Today, in 2009, as the worst economic crisis in our lifetime deepens, the Governor Perdue and many of our friends in the legislature, are focused on their two constitutional duties: first, to provide necessary state and local government services to our people; and second to find the funds to pay for these services. But, let us step back for a minute from examining our State’s money legers. Let us ask the question: Who provides these necessary services? Police and fire services. Emergency ambulance services. Teachers. Mental health workers. Nurses. Building and maintaining our roads. Staffing our prison system. These are live people, like you and me. They have families and mortgages. Many of them are only a paycheck from poverty.
These dedicated public servants are the glue that holds our communities together. Who knows better how to maintain and improve employee morale during a time of more demand for government services than our dedicated employees? Gov. Perdue, Senate President Basnight, House Leader Hackney-Doesn’t it make good sense to sit down across the table from our public servants and get their ideas about how to get the most out of every tax dollar we spend? Doesn’t it make sense to get their input about how to spread any sacrifice around, so it does not fall unfairly on the least of these?
Thousands who hold public jobs are in jeopardy of lay-offs. Their families are already being hounded by bill-collectors and mortgage companies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics official unemployment was 9.7% for North Carolina in February 2009. Although the data for Black and White unemployment rates in North Carolina for last month are not yet available, we know that national figures were 8.2% for white workers, and 13.8% for Black Workers. Since N.C. was almost 2 percentage points worse than the national average, we know that more than one out of seven Black workers is out of work now, and that number is rising.
We know that when people lose jobs, or can’t find work, they turn on themselves and their families. Suicides, clinical depression and domestic violence will increase. The season of hope we just experienced will rapidly turn into a season of desperation.
But, there is a bright light of hope. If state and local government workers had the same rights as private workers to sit across the table from agency managers and jointly address this crisis as reasonable people, we believe the resulting collective thinking about how to reduce costs would be fairer. If reasonable people discuss a common problem, we believe they will figure out how to spread the pain evenly. If our dedicated public servants are consulted with respect, we believe there will be hundreds of creative ideas for improving efficiency. In short, if we repeal Jim Crow 95-98, and the disrespect it shows for the ideas and integrity of our public workforce, we believe we could engage the vast army of public employees in a massive reconstruction effort to get North Carolina moving again.
This is a reform that costs pennies to implement. Only Virginia and North Carolina prohibit their public employees from sitting across the table and proposing collective solutions to difficult policy and workplace issues. The 48 other states encourage their employees to be involved in decision-making. The 48 other states have learned that the more involved their employees are, the fewer grievances and problems. The more respect they show their public employees, the higher their productivity. The 48 other states have learned that mutual respect between management and employees results in less sick time, and lower costs. Restoring Contract Rights to State and Local Public Employees is a major step toward One North Carolina-and it saves us millions.
More important than saving money, I believe, is the human principle of love. If we treat our public employees with respect, if we encourage them to get collectively involved in addressing the greatest economic and social crisis our state has faced since the Great Depression, if we open the gates for their ideas, their enthusiasm, and their love for the State, I firmly believe this crisis can transfigure itself into a period of great development for all North Carolinians. If we evenly and fairly balance the sacrifices that must be made, I firmly believe that we will look back on 2009 as a period when strong leaders, like our President, understood that leadership is empowering the people to take up the challenges of our time, carrying our state on all of our backs into a new era of equal development for all.
We will be back in these halls tomorrow, at our annual People of All Colors Lobbying Day. We will be pressing on all 14 points of our comprehensive People’s Agenda. But there is no issue more important to our people today, as the recession deepens, than having the right to sit down across the table with public administrators, who are being paid with our taxpayer’s money, and discuss openly what can be done to get our state through this crisis, and to move it toward the One North Carolina we know it can be.
The immediate Repeal of Jim Crow 95-98 is the fastest, most effective, the fairest, AND THE CHEAPEST way to make sure the shock of possible layoffs and cut-backs is distributed fairly and non-racistly throughout the public workforce.
HUNDREDS CONVERGE ON NC GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR UNITY LEGISLATIVE DAY
Wednesday, March 25th The HKonJ coalition of 85 partner organizations throughout North Carolina will continue its 4th Annual People of Color Justice and Unity Legislative Day. Hundreds of North Carolinians will remind their legislators of their 14 Point People’s Agenda and ask them to support bills that speak to a myriad of issues that impact the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
The day kicks off at 9 a.m. in the Jones Street Legislative Auditorium as Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and the People of Color leadership brief the news media and grass-roots lobbyists on the work these citizen advocates will undertake during the Unity Legislative Day. The theme for the Day will be “Don’t Balance the Budget on the Backs of the Poor.”
The media is invited to return at 12:15 in front of the Legislative Building for a report about how the elected state officials responded to this citizen army of volunteer lobbyists.
“We are not back at the legislature, just to go through the same drill each year,” Rev. Barber asserted. “The legislators know that we are not going anywhere until they address our Agenda. The real news from today,” he said, “is what kind of response the people’s representatives make to us when we ask them to respond to the cries of the poor, the hungry, the jobless, those about to lose their jobs, those in prison and the young people who have never been successfully engaged in school, are tracked into the streets and then sent to prison. This is the real news. And we will report it at 12:15 p.m. on exactly the same spot we gather every year at the people’s Legislative Building.”
At the 12:15 news conference, Rev. Barber will announce plans for a delegation to Washington D.C. to meet with several members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation. After a Thursday morning breakfast at the NAACP’s Washington Bureau, the delegation is scheduled to meet with representatives from several federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Education, to develop new lines of communication with them.
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