Labor Quotes of the Day: Voices from Attica

9/12/2018

We have two labor quotes today, the first from the manifesto of demands by prisoners who took control of the New York State’s Attica Correctional Facility from September 9-13, 1971 (see History, below), and the second from Jerry Wurf, president of the correction officers’ union.

In their manifesto, the Attica prisoners said:
"In our peaceful efforts to assemble in dissent as provided under this nation’s U.S. Constitution, we are in turn murdered, brutalized, and framed on various criminal charges because we seek the rights and privileges of all American People."

And Jerry Wurf, president of AFSCME, the correction officers’ union, called for more “secure and humane penal facilities” rather than the “decaying relics of penal theories discarded long ago.”