Never saw print:
"Memphis saves 500 jobs MLK backed" June 22, 2011|Associated Press
MEMPHIS — Memphis’s 500 sanitation workers, including some who marched with Martin Luther King during a historic 1968 strike, scored a victory yesterday when the City Council passed a budget without privatizing solid waste collection, which could have cut the city work force in half.
It was rear-guard win as usual, but I'll take anything we can get.
Dozens of sanitation workers aired strong opposition to a proposal by Councilor Kent Conrad that would have saved the city $25 million by outsourcing trash collection and other services to private companies.
The city has been working to overcome a $60 million budget deficit. Mayor AC Wharton Jr.’s $67.7 million budget proposal delivered this week to the council had no mention of privatization and the council did not add it during a lengthy meeting and debate....
During the meeting, more than a dozen sanitation workers referenced King, who on April 4, 1968, was assassinated while in Memphis to support black sanitation workers striking for better pay and working conditions.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: King-Sized Insult
Sanitation workers have said they were blindsided by the idea because the city never mentioned it during contract talks in April.
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Also see: King For a Day
