Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock hosts, with DCNA Executive Director and labor lawyer Ed Smith. 

This week's guests: 
Sesil Rubain, ATU Local 1764, on the new contract at the DC Circulator 
Adam Yalowitz and Bert Bayou, Unite Here 23, about the report released Tuesday by UNITE HERE showing that at D.C.’s two government-owned airports, the government makes more money per hour from terminal concessions workers than the workers make themselves. 
Jonathan Williams, UFCW 400, on the tentative agreement with Kroger and how worker solidarity got Kroger back to the table and got them a better deal.
 
Labor song of the week: John Lennon's Working Class Hero, performed by Green Day

Following two days of negotiations, Kroger has reached a tentative agreement with its unionized store associates. A team of Kroger employees who make up UFCW Local 400’s bargaining committee voted unanimously to accept the company’s latest offer. “If we didn’t stand up for ourselves, this never would have happened,” said Sarah Williams, a nine-year Kroger associate from Charlottesville who served on the bargaining committee. “What we were shown last week was supposed to be Kroger’s ‘last’ and ‘best’ offer – but we proved it wasn’t either.” The tentative agreement affects 41 Kroger stores in the region stretching from Kingsport, Tennessee to Harrisonburg, Virginia. The proposal will be voted on by the union membership next week.

The Metro Washington Council will join allies supporting the Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act at this morning’s DC City Council hearing on the bill. The proposed legislation would increase the minimum wage in the District of Columbia to $15 per hour by July 1, 2020, and increase the tipped minimum wage to $7.50 by 2022.  “We applaud Mayor Bowser for taking the lead on legislation that helps workers take a big step forward along the pathway out of poverty,” said Jackie Jeter, president of the Metro Washington Council. The legislation coincides with a slew of recent reports documenting D.C.’s rising cost of living.

On today's labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue throughout the metro area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times. Complete details, as always, at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1913, the Actors’ Equity Association was founded by 112 actors at a meeting in New York City’s Pabst Grand Circle Hotel. After producer George M. Cohan said that “I will drive an elevator for a living before I will do business with any actors’ union,” a sign appeared in Times Square reading: “Elevator operator wanted. George M. Cohan need not apply"

In 1937, Ford Motor Company security guards attacked union organizers and supporters attempting to distribute literature outside the plant in Dearborn, Michigan in an event that was to become known as the “Battle of the Overpass.” The guards tried to destroy any photos showing the attack, but some survived—and inspired the Pulitzer committee to establish a prize for photography. Oh, and three years later, Ford signed a contract with the union.

Today’s labor quote is by Walter Reuther
“There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood.”
Walter Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the mid 20th century.

Airport food workers are taking a stance against inequality and poor working conditions at DCA. A new report released yesterday by UNITE HERE Local 23 shows that at D.C.’s two government-owned airports, the government makes more money per hour from terminal concessions workers than do the workers themselves. The average wage for the workers is just $9.74 an hour, while the airport authority makes $17.17 an hour at DCA and $20.20 at Dulles. And while revenue from airport concessions is growing, wages and working conditions are stagnant. “DC airport food workers have been left behind,” says the union, “But not for long. Workers at DCA and Dulles are standing up for their rights.”

On today's labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue throughout the metro area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times.
At 10 am this morning, Stand with Arleja, an expecting mother fired by Walmart, in an action organized by DC Jobs with Justice.
At noon, in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists are co-sponsoring a showing of “Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story” at the AFL-CIO.
Also at noon, there’s a Teamsters History Tour, sponsored by the DC LaborFest.
And at 7 tonight, catch the screening of “Sing Faster: The Stagehand’s Ring Cycle” at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, hosted by IATSE 22, which represents local stagehands.
Complete details, as always, at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1805, striking shoemakers in Philadelphia were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy for violating an English common law that barred schemes aimed at forcing wage increases. The strike was broken.

In 1932, as many as 20,000 unemployed World War I veterans and their families arrived in Washington, D.C., to demand early payment of a bonus they had been told they would get, but not until 1945. They built a shantytown near the U.S. Capitol but were burned out by U.S. troops after two months.

In 1936, the notorious 11-month Remington Rand strike began. The strike spawned the "Mohawk Valley formula," described by investigators as a corporate plan to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, employ thugs to beat up strikers, and other tactics. The National Labor Relations Board termed the formula "a battle plan for industrial war"

​And on this date in 1962, the AFL-CIO began what was to become an unsuccessful campaign for a 35-hour workweek, with the goal of reducing unemployment. Earlier tries by organized labor for 32- or 35-hour weeks also failed.

Today’s labor quote is by Senator Hiram Johnson of California, who called the 1932 attack on the Bonus Army ‘one of the blackest pages in our history.’
Noting that the veterans had been hailed as heroes and saviors only a decade earlier, Johnson said that ‘The president sent against these men, emaciated from hunger, scantily clad, unarmed, the troops of the United States army. Tanks, tear-bombs, all of the weapons of modern warfare were directed against those who had borne the arms of the republic.’

D.C. Circulator operators late last week overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract with First Transit for higher wages and greater safety guarantees.  Drivers -- members of ATU Local 1764 -- had been rallying for months for better salaries. The benefits in the new contract are contingent on the District allocating extra funds for the operations of the bus system.

And last Thursday, more than 30 flight crew members marched outside the United Airlines ticket gates at Dulles Airport reminding passengers that the company’s flight attendants still don’t have a contract after more than five years. The protest was part of the Association of Flight Attendants' “Third Thursday” efforts at major airports served by United. 

On today's labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue throughout the metro area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times.
The DC LaborFest continues tonight with a screening of the new film, UNION TIME: Fighting for Workers'’ Rights, with Director Matthew Barr. The free screening starts at 6 pm tonight at the Brookland Busboys and Poets. 
Complete details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1883, after 14 years of construction and the deaths of 27 workers, the Brooklyn Bridge over New York’s East River opened. Newspapers called it “the eighth wonder of the world” 

In 1995, some 2,300 members of the United Rubber Workers, on strike for 10 months against five Bridgestone-Firestone plants, agreed to return to work without a contract. They had been fighting demands for 12-hour shifts and wage increases tied to productivity gains.

Today’s labor quote is by Samuel Gompers
"Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish."
Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor.