Mumia Writes to Duluth Workers
2001 2001-10The page as the paper published it (Wayback Machine) →
From the paper's own web edition, recovered from the Internet Archive: the text as the paper put it online, not machine-read. The printed issue of October 2001 is not held.
Regarding organizing hotel employees, I am fully in support of such a necessary effort. I think it's both noble and necessary; I salute the brave people who are working to organize several hotels in Duluth, under HERE Local 99. I know it's not easy, but it is necessary.
We live in a time of unmitigated hostility towards labor; but this is the hostility of the ill-willed and the ill-informed. The quickly fading 40-hour work week, the two-week vacation, workman's comp., the laws against vile conditions and child labor, all of these things are the result of workers' unionizing, and fighting for the rights of labor. They weren't the benevolent gifts of business!
Without a true national labor press, or an openly militant labor party, some of that hostility will always remain. But the struggle remains! Wishing you every victory! Your brother,
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Member of the UAW (National Writers Union)
Ona Move! Organize!