Eduardo is also a Route Coordinator for The Miami Route. He and Rev Barber do NC State Boycotts together.
---snip
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union accepted the NAACP’s involvement by softening its position on how the election should be conducted.
“We’re moving from saying, ‘We want this, and you want that,’ to saying, ‘We’re ready for a conversation,’” said union organizer Eduardo Pena of Lumberton. “If you get caught up in all the details when you haven’t sat down and talked, it’s not doing any good to any of the parties.”
--end snip
But then again... Eduardo has this route to stick up for....
Now to cut to the chase... Rev Wright and Bill Moyers are both United Church of Christ. United Church of Christ is going FOR gay marriage and against traditional marriage according to those at the synod where this was agreed upon.
So I guess its okay to have a union of pro-union workers and Illegal Immigrant Peddlers get together to force a privately owned company to go... UNION. Buy then again, John Edwards did his own campaigning at Smithfields, so I guess it really all boils down to Gay Marriage and Why Dems have got to push Universal Healthcare for illegals, polygamists, etc..
Some prophecy, Rev Barber.
lOOK FOR THE BOLD
In early January, 4,000 workers at the Tar Heel plant signed a petition requesting a paid holiday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is recognized as a state holiday in North Carolina. When they presented the petition to Smithfield Vice President Larry Johnson on January 9, he refused to accept it.
According to Smithfield worker Keith Ludlum, the company explained its refusal in part by noting that workers were recently allowed to vote on whether they could have a paid holiday for Martin Luther King Day or Easter. The workers chose Easter, but Ludlum said that the vote left a bad taste in his mouth.
"What we're telling the company," said Ludlum, "is they're asking us to choose between Jesus and Martin Luther King. We think they're both important and we should honor both of them."
Ludlum said that Tar Heel workers were "extremely upset" that Smithfield refused to even consider the petition. According to Ludlum, "It got a lot of workers saying they're not going to show up for work, or that they'll show up, get the line started, get some hogs killed and hanging, and then walk out."
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE
Campaigning around Martin Luther King Day allowed UFCW organizers to tackle one of their biggest obstacles: the divide between Tar Heel's Black and Latino workers. Last spring, when immigrants rallied across the country demanding fair immigration reform, many of Smithfield's Latino workers walked off the job in solidarity, while most Black workers remained at work.
Ludlum explained that the vote to choose between Easter and Martin Luther King Day reflected, and exploited, those divisions: "A majority of the workers at the plant were Latino and immigrant, they didn't know the history of Martin Luther King, but of course they know what Easter is."
To bridge the Black/Latino divide, Smithfield workers organized an educational campaign during the lead-up to Martin Luther King Day. Said Ludlum, "We've been passing out flyers in Spanish explaining the history of Dr. King, the fact that he fought for all people, that when he took the bullet he was supporting sanitation workers in Memphis who wanted to be treated with respect."
According to Eduardo Peña, who's been organizing in Tar Heel for more than four years, the educational work paid off. Said Peña: "We've got Latino workers here ready to walk out for the holiday. I hear them saying things like, 'People assume that we don't know who King was-his struggle was the same struggle we're going through now.'"
---end snip
Yep, that's how the left played it: Demanding workers choose between Jesus Christ and MLK.
Ah. Yes. The "prophetic minister" thingee....