Posted on 09/14/2010 2:02:39 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
It didn’t take much to convince Ken Casey, frontman for the Dropkick Murphys, to jump into one of the state’s most pitched labor battles.
“It seems like the right thing to do,” Casey said yesterday about the Boston band’s work with 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a controversial labor group that represents 35,000 Massachusetts nurses, nursing home assistants and at-home health aides.
Labor organizers say The Dropkicks’ shoutout to a Service Employees International Union local is the first time a music group has used a union campaign as a central theme in a video.
“It seems like a cruel irony that the very people who provide care for us sometimes cannot afford health care for their families,” Casey told the Pulse. So next week, right before the Sept. 21 Red Sox [team stats] game, the Dropkick Murphys and 1199 SEIU members will hand out free copies of the band’s new video - which illustrates the organizing campaign - to 10,000 members of Red Sox Nation.
Later, the band will host a party at McGreevey’s Irish Pub and Sports Bar on Boylston Street.
In a very punk rock way, the band is lending its voice to the SEIU affiliate’s push for higher wages and improved benefits, better working conditions and increased training opportunities for current and future members.
“I grew up in a union family, so the subject has always been near and dear to me,” said Casey, 41, a Milton native who spent some of his formative years at St. Mary’s of the Hills and Catholic Memorial High School.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Flogging Molly is better anyway.
I like the DKM ... heavy metal with bagpipes.
They did that song from The Departed (”I’m shipping off to Boston”), the Red Sox song (”Tessie”), and a pretty slick version of “When Johnny comes marching home”.
Don’t care much about their politics
SnakeDoc
The Clash was a lefty political band but there were a few songs I liked. I just never got into this band.
Nothing good from them after DO OR DIE!
The Clash were more talk and posture. Same as the MC5.
When will the Shanty Irish stop being tools for the dems? I guess about the same time as the plantation mentality blacks.
London Calling was my favorite album when I was a kid.
Still love it, even though I now know Joe Strummer was a bit out there.
Real McKenzies were a Canadian band with a Scottish singer.
Then you’ve got singers like Billy Bragg who are outright Communists.
...cause if there’s anything that union workers need...it’s higher pay (rolling eyes)
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