INDIAN WORKERS START
‘HUNGER STRIKE FOR JUSTICE’
Indian workers launched a hunger strike Wednesday morning to demand the US and Indian governments investigate worker exploitation faced by guest workers in the Gulf Coast. Supporters chanted “Inquilab, zindabad” ("long live revolution") while workers opened the water-only hunger strike with silent prayers and ceremonial first drinks of water. “We have let the US and Indian governments know our demands but they have only given us words, not actions,” said Sony Sulekha, one of the hunger strikers. “We stand here to say that until we have victory, the strike will continue.” The workers – former employees of marine construction company Signal International, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman – walked off the job in March and began a truth-action tour to protest and expose Signal’s human trafficking violations and worker abuse through President Bush's H2B visa guest worker program (DC Jobs with Justice Corner: Indian Workers to Stage Hunger Strike in DC 5/8/08 UC). Speaking through a translator, workers detailed the situation they faced while working for Signal, including being forced to pay Signal $1,050 a month to live 24 to a trailer. “We came to the US for the promise of the American Dream, but instead we were put in a camp and treated like slaves,” said former Signal worker Sabulal Vigayan. When Vigayan and some of his co-workers organized, Signal sent armed guards into the camp and locked them up. Hundreds of workers walked off the job in protest and Vigayan and the other organizers were eventually released, but Signal continued to intimidate and threaten workers. “We escaped Signal’s labor camps and went straight to the Department of Justice and yet we are being treated like criminals, living under the threat of deportation every day,” said Muruganantham Kandhasami. Dozens of additional workers are expected to join the hunger strike at the end of May if the workers’ demands – which include allowing the workers to stay in the US and participate in a Department of Justice investigation of Signal; Congressional hearings into abuses of Gulf Coast workers under the guest worker program; and Indian government action to protect future Indian workers – are not met. Click here to find out how you can support the workers’ struggle and here to urge your Congress members to hold hearings on Signal International and to grant asylum to the workers.
- report/photo by Andy Richards

WORKERS TARGET
VERIZON’S POOR SERVICE THURSDAY
Verizon workers and DC residents will hit the streets of downtown DC early Thursday morning to demand the DC Public Service Commission (PSC) hold Verizon accountable for its poor service and refusal to invest in DC. The rally is taking place outside a closed PSC hearing on a recent settlement between Verizon and DC officials that the Connect-DC Coalition calls a “substandard agreement with false solutions to serious quality of service complaints.” “In the last 3 years Verizon has closed most of its service centers in the District and moved a third of its jobs out of the city,” says DC Jobs with Justice organizer Ruth Castel-Branco. “And now, instead of making a real investment in infrastructure and staffing, Verizon has decided to scape-goat its workers for its service problems.” Click here to tell PSC officials to hold Verizon accountable for its poor service.

LABOR UPDATES
Hundreds of MontCo Workers Protest Rollbacks of  Pay Raises: Over 300 county workers “packed a [Montgomery] County Council hearing room” to protest attempts by Councilmembers Phil Andrews and Duchy Trachtenberg to revoke promised pay increases for thousands of County workers, reported C. Benjamin Ford in Friday’s Gazette. “The suggestion that county workers should volunteer to pare down contractually established pay increases not only ignores the financial realities of living and working in one of the most expensive areas in the country, it also undermines the collective bargaining process,” said MCGEO/UFCW Local 1994 President Gino Renne in a letter to the editor in Saturday’s Washington Post. The dispute comes as labor’s influence continues to grow in the County. “Over the past two decades, the influence of the unions representing public employees in the county has grown dramatically,” reported Ann E. Marimow in Sunday’s Washington Post. Government officials “say Montgomery's bargaining system -- along with labor's political clout -- gives workers as strong a voice, if not stronger, than taxpayers in budget talks.” Still Time to Join CLUW Team to Beat Cervical Cancer: This Friday is the deadline to sign up for the Coalition of Labor Union Women team for this year’s “Walk to Beat the Clock” against cervical cancer on Saturday, May 17. “Although [it] is too late to be counted for the grant, [union members] can still sign up online until 5P on Friday, May 16,” reports Carolyn Jacobson of CLUW. Members of any union, including men, can join the CLUW team. Click here to register.

RECENTLY ARCHIVED STORIES
LABOR UPDATES (5/8/08); SATURDAY FINAL CHANCE TO JOIN CLUW WALK TEAM; TODAY'S LABOR CHORUS CD DRAWING WINNERS; DC JOBS WITH JUSTICE CORNER: INDIAN WORKERS TO STAGE HUNGER STRIKE IN DC; MONTCO WORKERS DEMAND COUNTY HONOR CONTRACTS; "STAMP OUT HUNGER" SATURDAY; FBI RAIDS OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROTECTING FEDERAL WORKERS CIVIL RIGHTS; FLIGHT ATTENDANTS HOLD UNION VOTE AT DELTA; LABOR UPDATES (5/9/08); LABOR ON THE MOVE: LIPSETT NEW SEIU 32BJ POLITICAL DIRECTOR; FREE LABOR CHORUS CD DRAWING; COUNCIL DIRECTORY UPDATED & ONLINE; Read these and other UNION CITY! stories dating back to December 2006 in our searchable online archives.

Metro Washington (DC) Council AFL-CIO

MD/DC STATE FED BEGINS
WALKS FOR ’08 ELECTIONS
The Maryland State/DC State AFL-CIO will host a labor walk on Saturday, May 17 at 9A to gear up for the 2008 elections. “This year, we can make a significant change in the direction of our country,” says the Maryland State/DC State AFL-CIO. For more info or to volunteer, contact Denise Riley, 443-995-6860.

COUNCIL DELEGATE MEETING MONDAY
Get the latest local labor news at this month’s Metro Council delegate meeting on Monday, May 19 at 6:30P. This month’s meeting will include updates on the DC City Council noise bill, the recent Prince George’s County District 4 elections, the DC Labor Filmfest, and the Labor Night at the Nats, reports on upcoming local union actions, and more!

A BETTER
WEBSITE IN 50 MINUTES
Find out how to update your website automatically with new content at the May 21 “Labor Websites 101: A Better Website in 50 Minutes.” Michael Whitney of American Rights at Work will lead a lunchtime roundtable on “RSS Feeds” in the first of a new series of free noontime sessions on how to pump up your website, organized by the Metro Washington Council and International Labor Communications Association. “RSS feeds are a way to display real-time updated news from other sources on  your site--and to make sure your updated web content is seen by others,” says Mariya Strauss of ILCA. Whitney will discuss how this simple yet powerful tool can work for your union site. FREE but space is limited and pre-registration is required. Click here to register.

DC JOBS WITH JUSTICE CORNER
Day Laborers Find Support, Strategize at JwJ National Conference: Since January, DC Jobs with Justice (JwJ) () has been actively supporting the development of the Union de Trabajadores – a worker-led organization of day laborers in DC – to build worker unity, advocate for their rights, and create positive relationships in the community they work. Earlier this month, three members of the Union attended the National Jobs with Justice conference in Providence, Rhode Island where they shared experiences and struggles with union locals, organizations and workers centers. "As day laborers, we need a lot of character to work in the face of uncertainty, poverty and despair," says Jorge Ortiz of the Union de Trabajadores. “People who hire us know our legal status and know that most of us are not aware of our labor rights or do not know where to look for support.” Ortiz – who was part of the DC delegation to the JwJ National Conference – shared and learned strategies for organizing the unorganized and leadership development with low-wage and non-union workers at one of the conference’s low-wage workers organizing forums. “At the National Conference, I found out that we are not alone," says Ortiz. "We got the support of American brothers with experience in the struggle for dignity of working people from all over the United States. Now I know we have friends who support us; now I know there is hope.”
- report by Pedro Cruz, DC Jobs with Justice Day Laborer Organizer

LABOR HISTORY (5/15-5/18)
The first labor bank opens in Washington, D.C., launched by officers of the Machinists. The Locomotive Engineers opened a bank in Cleveland later that year (5/15/1920); Death of IWW song writer T-Bone Slim, New York City (5/15/1942); Minneapolis general strike backs Teamsters, who are striking most of the city’s trucking companies (5/16/1934); U.S. Supreme Court issues Mackay decision, which permits the permanent replacement of striking workers. The decision had little impact until Ronald Regan’s replacement of striking air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1981, a move that signalled antiunion private sector employers that it was OK to do likewise (5/16/1938); Black labor leader and peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and first black on the AFL-CIO executive board, and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington (5/16/1979); First women’s anti-slavery conference, Philadelphia (5/17/1838); Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools (5/17/1954); Amalgamated Meat Cutters union organizers launch a campaign in the nation’s packinghouses, a campaign that was to bring representation to 100,000 workers over the following two years (5/18/1917); Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), dies in exile in the Soviet Union (5/18/1928); Oklahoma jury finds for the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood, orders Kerr-McGee Nuclear Company to pay $505,000 in actual damages, $10 million in punitive damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s plutonium contamination (5/18/1979); More info & ammo for unionists is available online from Union Communication Services.

2008 EVENING
WITH LABOR PHOTOS