Week of Local Labor Activities

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)There’s lots to do this week in the local labor movement, starting with today’s Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-DC) picket at the Capital Grille in Friendship Heights. ROC-DC will be there with restaurant workers and community members to hold Capital Grille “accountable for their culture of discrimination and wage/hour violations.” On Wednesday, the AFL-CIO is hosting a celebration of the launch of Dissent magazine’s Winter Issue all about “American Workers in an Age of Austerity.” Featured is a discussion of “Labor, the Left, and the US Political Situation” by historian and Dissent co-editor Michael Kazin, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson and Executive Director of American Rights at Work Kimberly Freeman Broan. On Thursday the annual “What Would Martin Do?” Forum at Howard University showcases a discussion of how Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. might approach today’s critical policy issues. Speakers include Dr. William Spriggs, Assistant Secretary of Policy at the US Dept. of Labor, Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, Advisor for LGBT Policy and Racial Justice at the Center for American Progress, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, and Steve York, award-winning documentary filmmaker. The week culminates with the fun-filled 20th annual “Bowling for Gold” Union Bowling Tournament to raise money for the Community Services Agency’s Emergency Assistance Fund.