Posted by aburke on 01/17/2012

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This past weekend, Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) field coordinators Michael Mitchell and Rachel Bennett Steury attended the AFL-CIO's annual observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, in Detroit, Michigan.

Mitchell and Bennett Steury attended the conference with over 500 activists from all over the country.  They spoke with various attendees regarding a China currency bill currently pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, and urged voters to send support letters to their legislators.

The conference opened with an Alicia Keys remix featuring students from the Detroit Institute of Arts and Science, and included several speeches from prominent members of the labor community.

During the conference, Metropolitan Detroit Central Labor Council President Saundra Williams spoke about the people whom she sees as pavong the way for workers today.  She said “Crispus Attucks fell so Rosa Parks could sit. Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run. Barack Obama ran so that we could all fly."

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlen Holt Baker and Michigan State AFL-CIO President Karla Swift presented Congressman John Conyers Jr. with the Justice, Peace and Freedom award for his lifetime commitment to civil and human rights.   Mitchell and Bennet Steury thanked him for cosponsoring a China currency bill in Congress.   (Conyers began work just months after Martin Luther King’s assassination to pass a bill to have a national holiday honoring his birth.   Fifteen years later, his bill passed the House and the Senate and Ronald Regan signed it into law.)  

USW Vice-President Fred Redmond called attention to the lack of an industrial policy in the United States to promote manufacturing innovation and growth. He pointed out that in order for the U.S. to rebuild its middle class, step one is to address the loss of manufacturing jobs in the country and develop a clear industrial policy.

Click here to learn more about AFL-CIO’s 2012 Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday Observance in Detroit.