​Inspiring and helping sustain the metro-area labor movement for two decades, the DC Labor Chorus will celebrate it’s 20th anniversary with a concert this Saturday (see Calendar for details) at the Tommy Douglas Conference Center in Silver Spring. Founding director Elise Bryant will be the evening’s special honoree.

​None of us are free
None of us are free, if one of us are chained
None of us are free
It's a simple truth we all need, just to hear and to see
None of us are free, if one of us is chained
None of us are free

by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and Brenda Russell, performed here by the DC Labor Chorus.

​Click here to check out this week's edition of the award-winning Labor History Today podcast.


November 30
“Fighting Mary” Eliza McDowell, also known as the “Angel of the Stockyards,” born in Chicago. As a social worker she helped organize the first women’s local of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union in 1902 - 1854

Mother Jones died at the Burgess Farm in Adelphi, Md.; “I’m not a lady, I’m a hell-raiser!” - 1930

More than 12,000 members of the Insurance Agents Union strike in 35 states and Washington, D.C., against the Prudential Insurance Co. - 1951

Unionists and activists shut down World Trade Organization meeting, Seattle, Wash. - 1999

December 01
The Ford Motor Co. introduces the continuous moving assembly line which can produce a complete car every two-and-a-half hours - 1913
Kellogg cereal adopts 6-hour day - 1930

African-American Rosa Parks (above) refuses to go to the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus, fueling the growing civil rights movement's campaign to win desegregation and end the deep South's "Jim Crow" laws - 1955

December 02
The U.S. Senate votes 65-22 to condemn Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.” McCarthy was a rabid anti-Communist who falsely accused thousands of Americans, mostly people who supported labor, civil rights and other progressive causes, of being traitors - 1954

Court documents filed in Boston say Walmart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $40 million to 87,500 Massachusetts employees who claimed the retailer denied them rest and meal breaks, manipulated time cards and refused to pay overtime - 2009

"This deal is shady and no good," said Yahnae Barner, Vice President, 1199SEIU. Residents from across the District joined community leaders, elected officials, neighborhood commissioners and 1199SEIU and District of Columbia Nurses Association (DCNA) union leaders and members to voice their concerns Thursday at a press conference about the D.C. Council's potential deal with George Washington University Hospital (GWUH). Under the deal, GWUH, a Universal Health Services (UHS)-affiliated hospital, would operate a new 150-bed hospital to be built in Ward 8 of the District on the St. Elizabeths campus. Many community members are concerned about the proposal's lack of transparency. The D.C. Council and the Mayor are looking to circumvent the legal process - known as the Certificate of Need - where public hearings are required, and details of any agreement must be made public. "Good, quality union jobs are in jeopardy," added Edward Smith, DCNA Executive Director. Click here to hear coalition members discuss their concerns on Thursday’s “Your Rights At Work” on WPFW. See also George Washington University Opposes GW Hospital’s New Bed Tower (City Paper 11/29)