For the month of May 2023, KOOP’s Community Council lifts up and celebrates causes, media, and local connections to workers’ rights and the labor movement! May Day, or International Workers’ Day, brings awareness to equal pay, job safety, job security, paid sick leave, child care for workers, and other workers’ rights-related issues.
We also want to honor the profound influence of Civil Rights leader, Harry Belafonte, who passed away on April 25, 2023 at 97 years wise. Belafonte benefitted the workers’ rights movement by uniting Kenyan trade unionism with the organizing work of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). His efforts helped Kenyan students gain important labor, governmental, and nation-building skills as Kenya moved toward independence from Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.
To learn more about labor organizing and the workers’ rights movement in Texas, you can support Good Work Austin, TX AFL-CIO, the Workers’ Defense Project, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Austin Labor Council, and the Equal Justice Center.