Union Perspectives

The fight for a living wage goes on. On March 18, 1968, days before his murder, Martin Luther King Jr, told striking workers it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and getting part-time income. King is remembered as the outstanding leader of the Civil Rights movement before his assassination had moved to arguing that just wages were essential for a just society. King considered poverty wages not only immoral, but also criminal. In fact, even Adam Smith, one of the fathers of capitalism, believed workers should earn wages that must at least be sufficient to maintain the worker otherwise it would be impossible for them to bring up their families. During Smith’s day it was assumed that children should have a parent at home—mother to care for them. Smith, a Scottish philosopher in the 1770-80s and is deemed the "father of modern economics," seemed also to ponder the meaning of subsistent and low wages that ought to allow credible people who are working in th...