"When working people are under attack, what do we do?" asked Carl Goldman. "Stand up, fight back!" thundered back the crowd of nearly a thousand Saturday night at the 40th annual Evening with Labor.
The longtime organizer and AFSCME Council 26 Executive Director was named Trade Unionist of the Year to a standing ovation from an enthusiastic crowd clearly pumped up by the collapse of the GOP/Trump attempt to repeal Obamacare and Goldman urged them to continue the fight to defend federal workers. "Trump and the Congressional majority and their corporate backers are out to kill us and the rest of the labor movement," Goldman warned. Solidarity and resistance were the watchwords of the night, repeated by speaker after speaker, from Metro Washington Council president Jackie Jeter -- "Our fight is a bigger fight" -- to AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler -- "One word: 'unity'" -- as well as political leaders like Maryland U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. Check out photos of the event on our Facebook page at Metro Washington AFL-CIO. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1935, members of Gas House Workers’ Union Local 18799 began what was to become a 4-month recognition strike against the Laclede Gas Light Co. in St. Louis. The union later said the strike was the first ever against a public utility in the U.S. In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march of striking sanitation workers, members of AFSCME Local 1733, in Memphis, Tennessee. Violence during the march persuaded him to return the following week to Memphis, where he was assassinated. Today’s labor quote is by Martin Luther King Jr. “The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society." Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org.
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This is Chris Garlock, with the Metro Washington Labor Council’s round-up of local labor news, updates and history.
Nearly two hundred emergency medical services professionals at American Medical Response voted overwhelmingly last week to join AFSCME District Council 20. “We want to make sure we have adequate rest between shifts so that public safety is not compromised," said EMT Daniel Hoock. Other issues included scheduling, fatigue, training, equipment, and employee turnover; more than 70 percent voted in favor of unionizing. “I can’t further my education because of scheduling.” said EMT Mosiah Grayton. “We never know when we’ll get off work. I can’t afford to go down to part time because I’ll lose my benefits.” The union plans to begin bargaining for a first contract as soon as possible. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1904, Mother Jones was ordered to leave Colorado, where state authorities accused her of “stirring up” striking coal miners. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that undocumented workers do not have the same rights as Americans when they are wrongly fired. Today’s labor quote is by Mother Jones “The first thing is to raise hell,” says I. “That’s always the first thing to do when you’re faced with an injustice and you feel powerless. That’s what I do in my fight for the working class.” Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org. If your voice held no power, they wouldn’t try to silence you.
A critical voice like Dr. Michelle Washington’s or AFGE Local 2028 President Kathleen Dahl’s was so powerful the status quo wanted to shut it down. Without their courage, more veterans would have died from a severe shortage of mental healthcare providers and the Legionnaires outbreak that VA employees exposed. They spoke out, and their union, AFGE, stood behind them and fought for their right to do their jobs serving veterans. But that’s about to change if certain members of Congress get their way. The Official Time Reform Act of 2017 would severely restrict workplace rights for federal workers, and would financially penalize union reps who volunteer to help their coworkers. This means whistleblowers and other frontline employees may not get the protection they need when they try to do their jobs, and the American people, including veterans, will suffer. The bill is just the latest attempt by some politicians in Congress to attack federal workers and their unions. The bill passed in a House committee earlier this month, but it will have to pass both the full House and Senate to become law and you can be sure the labor movement will continue to oppose this strongly. Here’s today's labor history: On March 25, 1894, populist Jacob Coxey led the first “Poor People’s March” on Washington, in which jobless workers demanded creation of a public works program. Though they numbered no more than a thousand, the unemployed protesters became known as “Coxey’s Army.” On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s Asch Building in New York City. Unable to escape because they had been locked in by their employer, 146 workers died, most of them young immigrant women. The tragedy inspired a worldwide movement for workplace safety and a crackdown on sweatshops. Today’s labor quote is by United Press reporter William Shepherd, who happened to be in Washington Square on March 25, 1911 and phoned in his report while watching the Triangle Shirtwaist factory tragedy unfold: “The floods of water from the firemen's hose that ran into the gutter were actually stained red with blood. I looked upon the heap of dead bodies and I remembered these girls were the shirtwaist makers. I remembered their great strike of last year in which these same girls had demanded more sanitary conditions and more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies were the answer.” Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org. Freestate Electrical is suing Donald Trump's organization for failing to pay $2 million dollars for work done on the luxury hotel in the Old Post Office Building. Freestate, an Electrical Workers signatory contractor, did award-winning work on the building when Trump was running for president. Four other contractors have sued over the project, claiming nearly $5 million in unpaid bills. “I want to make clear that this is not political,” said Tim Miller, executive vice president at Freestate’s parent company, AES Electrical. “Whether it is Trump, or somebody you never heard of, we did a good job, at an agreed upon price and we want to be paid for it. We’d rather be talking about what an excellent job our employees did on a complex project than doing this.” The hundreds of IBEW members who worked on the project have been paid for the work Freestate was contracted to do.
Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1932, the Norris-La Guardia Act restricts injunctions against unions and bans yellow dog contracts, which require newly-hired workers to declare they are not union members and will not join one. In 1970, five days into the Post Office’s first mass work stoppage in 195 years, President Nixon declared a national emergency and ordered 30,000 troops to New York City to break the strike. The troops didn’t have a clue how to sort and deliver mail and a settlement came a few days later. In 1974, the Coalition of Labor Union Women was founded in Chicago by some 3,000 delegates from 58 unions and other organizations. Today’s labor quote is by the editor of the United Mine Workers' Journal, who wrote: “This agreement has been well named. It is yellow dog for sure. It reduces to the level of a yellow dog any man that signs it, for he signs away every right he possesses under the Constitution and laws of the land and makes himself the truckling, helpless slave of the employer.” Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org. |
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