'09 Organizing & Golden Picket Winners

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

The local labor community will gather this Saturday to honor area labor leaders, activists and friends at the 33rd annual Evening With Labor. Tickets are still available: email kmckirch@dclabor.org This week Union City will highlight this year's award winners. Today, we feature Organizing Award winner IUOE Local 99 and Golden Picket Sign winner 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Maryland and DC. Representing 3,000 building engineers at hundreds of buildings across metro Washington, Local 99 constantly juggles multiple organizing campaigns across the region.  In 2009, Local 99 organized 15 new shops, from office buildings to WMATA to the Spanish Embassy to Gaylord National Resort - where they signed up 60 new members! -  to a nursing home and several federal government sites.  They have made organizing an integral part of their local. 1199SEIU organized and carried out tremendously creative and persistent streetheat actions to win a contract at VMT, a home healthcare agency where 125 workers two years ago voted to join 1199SEIU but still have no contract.  VMT owner Solanges Vivens sped off in her luxury car when 1199SEIU members showed up at her $1.3 million home in Northwest DC in November 2009 to demand a contract.  "I see part of my salary here," said Donnell Moore during a June demo at Vivens' house, "It's a beautiful house but it makes me feel terrible." Tomorrow: DC and MD COPE winners. - photo (right): members and staff of IUOE 99 demonstrate outside the USGS headquarters in Reston, VA in February 2009; photo (left): VMT Homecare workers rally in the District's Northwest in May 2009; photos by Adam Wright