Bernie Sanders And Nina Turner Lead RALLY Demanding Workers RIGHTS To Unionize; Where's Clinton?

Bernie Sanders And Nina Turner Lead RALLY Demanding Workers RIGHTS To Unionize; Where's Clinton?

Bernie Sanders and Nina Turner. Bernie Sanders Demanding Workers Rights. Bernie Sanders Rally. Nina Turner Rally. While President Donald Trump was tweeting from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, former presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was doing something Trump had promised to do throughout his campaign: advocating for workers. On Saturday, Sanders and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a Democrat, led hundreds of workers in a "March on Mississippi" in Canton, Miss., to demand that Nissan grant factory employees the right to hold a union vote free from fear or intimidation. Also taking part in the march were NAACP president Cornell Williams Brooks, Sierra Club president Aaron Mair, and the actor Danny Glover. The march culminated in the delivery of a letter to Nissan officials "demanding the company halt its ongoing harassment of African-American workers who are organizing to form a union," the coalition of rights advocates behind the march, known as the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan (MAFFAN), wrote in a statement. Nissan has come under so much fire for its labor abuses of its Mississippi employees that politicians in France, where Nissan's corporate partner Renault is headquartered, released a series of videos expressing their solidarity with the Canton workers' fights for union rights. "It's empowering to see so many leaders, both here and abroad, offering their support to us as we speak out against Nissan’s attacks on our civil rights at the plant," said Nissan employee Morris Mock, who works on the paint line at the Canton plant. "I have two daughters, and I want them to grow up in a community where they will have a real shot at a good future and a decent living. That's why I'm going to keep fighting for good jobs at Nissan's plant, no matter what it takes." Actor Danny Glover explained why the Nissan fight is important for workers all across America: "So long as we have a haven for oppressive work conditions such as Mississippi, workers are not safe anywhere in the country, because businesses and companies can seek refuge in a state like Mississippi and escape providing proper work conditions for workers throughout this country." "What corporations understand is if they stop workers in Mississippi from forming a union, they can keep wages down in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania," tweeted Sanders. "It is time for justice for working people," he told a gathering of workers: "We cannot save this planet on the back of a degraded labor," said the Sierra Club's Mair during the rally. "What you are fighting for is a righteous fight," Turner told the Nissan workers. "You are not asking for too much." "If Mississippi Nissan workers succeed, it will send a powerful message in the south and across this country that working people are prepared to fight for justice and for a fair share of the economic pie," Sanders wrote in a Medium article published after the march. Participants, journalists, and supporters posted photos and videos from the day's action under the hashtags #MarchonMississippi and #DoBetterNissan: Kevin Harkins, a Nissan worker in favor of unionizing, straggled behind a pack of hundreds of people, many wearing the same red T-shirt as they marched across the interstate toward the Canton Nissan plant. "It's just simple things they could fix," Harkins said of the company he's worked for 13 years. "We work there every day all day, and it has an effect on your body after so many years. It's certain things — days off — small things like that they could change but they don't. They make promises that they never change." But on Saturday, Harkins attended the March on Mississippi organized by the United Auto Workers to call attention to alleged intimidation faced by union supporters at the plant. He pushed 60 pounds between his two toddlers for almost two miles on his sunny, 70 degree day off — to make a statement.

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