JOB AND FREEDOM In support of civ...

JOB AND FREEDOM

In support of civil rights and economic justice, thousands of black and white Americans from the civil rights motions church groups, and labor unions carried banners with the message "Job and Justice" in the great civil rights March upon Washington in 1963.

It was--and it remains--a explanation message for all Americans. Economic justice and civil rights are closely related.

Progres toward cloyed employment and progress in the civil rights arena are inextricably intertwined. As a nation, as a persons we must pursue both at the same time.

In this pursuit for full employment and social justice, the American labor motion and the civil rights motion share the same vision.

With many of the same interests and the same goals, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated labor organizations and the nation's major civil rights organizations can raise a powerful voice and wield a powerful influence for economic and social progress

Unfortunately, in spite of legal, political, social, and economic progres since 1963 many black Americans still experience heavy burdens of discrimination and grave economic status.

The Reagan Administration's economic and social policies help big business and help the rich. These Reagan policies are unfair to chiefly black workers and black families as well as being unfair to the "Middle America" majority.

And the Reagan Administration is continuing its direct attack upon civil rights provisions and enforcement.

As a end most black workers and greatest in number black families are worse not upon now than they were before the Reagan Administration took office.

Civil Rights

A beneficial job that pays a worker a suitable living wage continues to be the best way for black workers and their families to prompt into the economic and social mainstream of American life.

The AFL-CIO has a lengthy record of strong support for action in succession issues of economic and social justice, including replete employment and civil rights and equal employing opportunity. The strong Title VII equal trade opportunity section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 exists because of hardy support from the AFL-CIO and its affiliated organizations.

The federation has consistently and unwaveringly supported affirmative action to eliminate remaining barriers to equal access to work at jobss promotions and other employment opportunities.

The drive for civil rights and equal agency opportunity over the past 25 years has at no means eliminated discrimination--but it has produc substantial progres for a certain black workers and some black families.

Unfortunately, the Reagan Administration has been making war against the corpse of Civil Rights laws and programs begun in 1941 when President Franklin D Roosevelt signed the first of many fair employ practices requirements designed to bring black workers into a place of equality in our society.

The Reagan Administration continues to resist and weaken and undermine civil rights achievements of the past on failure to enforce the laws, from court action and administrative action, by the agency of budget cuts and politicization of civil rights agencies, at appointment of persons who do not believe in the mission of the civil rights agencies and by dint of failure to throw the prestige of the Presidency into the ongoing moral make an effort for equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, and the replete range of progress still to be achieved in the civil rights arena.

Federal agencies, including the U Civil Rights Commission, Equal pursuit Opportunity Commission, Office of Federal Contract Compliance, and the civil rights division of the Justice Department should have a commitment to their missions.

The Commission forward Civil Rights has been politicized an emasculated. It must be reverted to its rightful place as the civil rights watchdog for the nation. And the Reagan Administration's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights should be replaced with someone who believes in civil rights.

The Reagan Administration should stop its constant search for ways to weaken the nation's civil rights laws and, instead, should commit itself to enforcing these laws vigorously and effectively.

A program to achieve equal opportunity and social and economic justice should include strengthening understanding and communication at the national and local of the same heights between labor, civil rights and women's rights organizations.

Building bridges between labor, the black and Hispanic communities, and the women's motion helsp to assure, whenever possible, a united brow as the nation moves ahead upon issues of equality.

The A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and the Coalition for Labor Union Women play an essential part in building and strengthening the labor move as they increase the involvement of minorities and women in their unions and in their communities. To luckily stave off the onslaught against civil rights, women's rights and labor's rights, cooperation and coordination must exist between these communities.