BALTIMORE - The American Federation of Government Employees will honor the work of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a workers’ rights solidarity event April 4 at BWI Airport. The day also will double as an event to support AFGE as the exclusive union representative at TSA. AFGE will be joined by U.S. Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO President Fred Mason, NAACP Maryland State Conference President Gerald Stansbury and representatives from Senator Barbara Mikulski’s office, the American Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers of America, International Association of Machinists, United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE HERE.

“Across the country, some lawmakers are attempting to crush the progress workers have made in their fight for economic justice,” AFGE National President John Gage said. “On April 4, AFGE is joining the rest of the labor movement in Baltimore and across the country to demand an end to the dismantling of vital services and the attack on collective bargaining rights.”

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers who were trying to form a union. Beginning with worship services over the April 1 weekend, and continuing through the week of April 4, unions, people of faith, civil and human rights activists, students and other progressive allies will host a range of community- and workplace-focused actions.

In addition to honoring the work of Dr. King, attendees will voice their support for AFGE as the only union at TSA. In February 2010 AFGE filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority for exclusive union representation at TSA, and that election currently is being held March 9-April 19.

AFGE is the only union to represent TSOs since the agency’s inception, and currently has more than 12,000 dues-paying members in 40 AFGE TSA Locals across the country. With more than 265,000 dues-paying members in more than 75 federal and D.C. government agencies, AFGE is the single largest federal employee union in the country.