Rowan Co. moves forward together at Moral Monday (11/18)
Not one step back!
Moral Monday gatherings have popped up all over North Carolina since the legislature left Raleigh and the protest movement followed it home.
The next iteration of Moral Monday is going down in Rowan County this Monday, November 18th with support from union members in who live and work in the Piedmont, including autoworkers in Cleveland, NC.
What: Rowan County Moral Monday rally and march
When: Monday, November 18, 2013 beginning at 5:00 PM
Where: Gethsemane Baptist Church, 719 S. Caldwell St., Salisbury, NC 28144
Corey Hill, president of UAW 3520, which represents workers at the Freightliner plant in Cleveland, wants to sound the alarm about a provision in House Bill 4 adopted earlier this year that will force a jobless worker collecting unemployment benefits to take any job after ten weeks if it pays 120% of his or her benefit amount - or else be cut off.
In effect, Corey says the state legislature is helping to create a new, lower industry wage standard in Rowan County - and elsewhere - by encouraging employers to offer the lowest possible starting pay knowing that folks on unemployment benefits will be forced to take it or lose everything.
"We fight for good wages, good benefits, and worker protections," says Hill. "They [legislators] are trying to take away all of it. We make almost twice the average wage in Rowan County, but this law will make it even harder to negotiate for those good, middle-class wages."
"Instead of creating good jobs, they're creating desperate people, and we will all pay a price for their race-to-the-bottom agenda." -- Corey Hill
Join the Forward Together Moral Movement at the Rowan County Moral Monday on November 18th, which will begin with a rally and march followed by an internationally broadcast town hall. Click here to grab the flyer for more details.
Download the flyer for Rowan Co. Moral Monday
Photo taken by Yash Mori/Flickr/Creative Commons.