Service workers at National Airport walked off the job yesterday, on strike against their employer, Eulen America, a Delta contractor at DCA. The workers, members of SEIU 32BJ, who are protesting health and safety concerns and belittlement by supervisors, joined other Eulen workers on strike yesterday at four of the nation’s busiest airports including Miami, JFK and Fort Lauderdale.
The Spanish-owned contractor has an alarming history of claims filed against it by it’s almost exclusively immigrant workforce for wage theft, discrimination and sexual harassment.

On today’s labor calendar…
Today’s the final picket line – for now -- by the locked-out BSO musicians; it starts at 7:30 this morning at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore;
UFCW Local 400’s Week of Action continues today with actions at 4 pm in Franconia, Alexandria and Dumfries;
and the DC Just Pay Coalition’s Outreach Blitz starts today – also at 4 pm – in Anacostia.
Complete details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation declaring Labor Day an official U.S. holiday. Don’t give him too much credit, though: 23 states had already established the holiday and Cleveland was no friend of labor: a few weeks after the Labor Day declaration he sent in the U.S. Army to crush the historic Pullman Strike. Thirty workers were killed, labor leader Gene Debs was arrested on trumped-up charges of conspiracy, and all the strikers were fired and blacklisted.

Today’s labor quote is by Gene Debs, who said:
“The strike is a weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle.”

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Summer is here, which means it’s a cool time to take advantage of union members savings on theme and water park tickets. Visit unionplus.org/entertainment.

Broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM.
Hosted Chris Garlock and Ed Smith.
DC’s call-in show about worker rights: those you have, those you don’t,
how to get them and how to use them.

HOUR 1:       
UFCW 400’s “Week of Action” to save jobs at Shoppers
Amber Stevens: Works in the front-end at Shoppers Food & Pharmacy at Forestville, MD; been there 11 years and has been very active during this week’s actions. Member of UFCW Local 400.
Tanya Sealy: Has worked at Kroger for 20 years and 3 months; Currently employed at Kroger #555 in Yorktown, VA. Previously worked at Kroger #536 in Norfolk, VA, which closed in October 2018 despite months of campaigning to save the store. Member of UFCW Local 400.

Sequnely Gray, Organizer, DC Jobs With Justice: Just Pay Coalition plans Outreach Blitz this weekend

Susan Eisenberg, IBEW member and artist, "On Equal Terms" exhibit and “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Women in the Trades” panel discussion. She also has two books out from Cornell last year, a new poetry book, Stanley's Girl, and a reissue of (NYT Notable Book) We'll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction, With a New Preface. 

HOUR 2: 
Latest labor news, plus listener calls: 202-588-0893
Mark Gruenberg, Editor, Press Associates Union News Service
• Pro-worker Dems talk with Trump trade rep about writing strong worker rights right into ‘new NAFTA’
• Report reveals widespread Trump spending on temps to replace federal workers
• AFL-CIO Paywatch: Elon Musk earned $2.4B last year in pay and perks

Music
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CREDITS: Produced by Chris Garlock; engineered by Mike Nasella
Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus, FIND OUT MORE AT UNIONPLUS.ORG

(audio) “Unions are actually more popular with the public than they have been in years because people are finally connecting the dots that coming together is more powerful, especially when you’re in a union and you have the protection of a union…”
That’s AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler on the latest edition of State of the Unions, the AFL-CIO’s podcast…
(audio) “I think most people see...that this rugged individualism that has been the storied narrative of America forever is broken and that the economy isn't working for most working people, so coming together in a union is the right remedy.”
Catch “State of the Unions” wherever you listen to podcasts.

On today’s labor calendar, the locked-out BSO musicians picket outside the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore this morning at 7:30;
UFCW Local 400’s Week of Action at Shoppers continues today with actions at Shoppers in Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church;
the AFL-CIO hosts “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Women in the Trades” at 3:30 this afternoon;
and from 1 to 3pm this afternoon, catch this week’s edition of Your Rights At Work here on WPFW 89.3 FM.
Complete details, as always, at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1985, a 26-day strike of New York City hotels by 26,000 workers—the first such walkout in 50 years—ended with a 5-year contract calling for big wage and benefit gains.

Today’s labor quote is by Emma Goldman, the women's rights activist and radical, born in Lithuania on this date in 1869.
Emma Goldman, who said:
“Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.”  

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Summer is here, which means it’s a cool time to take advantage of union members savings on theme and water park tickets. Visit unionplus.org/entertainment.

(audio: bagpipes) There were tears, and there was laughter. As ATU Local 726 president Danny Cassella joked, “This isn’t really a memorial service, it’s a training session. Larry finally figured out how to get you all in the same room. You can pick up your packets on the way out.”
Larry was Lawrence J. Hanley, the Amalgamated Transit Union president who died on May 7 at the age of 62. And the ATU’s Tommy Douglas Conference Center was packed to the rafters Monday with union leaders and members who came, “not just to mourn Larry’s loss, but to celebrate his life and legacy.”
“Just as he did as a bus driver,” said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, “Larry was always taking people with him.” The list of distinguished speakers who memorialized Hanley all sounded the same common themes to his life: vision, commitment, fighting spirit, and perhaps most important of all, a sense of humor. Jeff Rosenberg, ATU’s Director of Government Affairs, recalled that Hanley would often break the ice with an audience by asking “Did anybody lose a stack of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in a rubber band? Here’s the rubber band.” Larry Hanley, rest in power. (audio: bagpipes)

​On today’s labor calendar, the locked-out BSO musicians will picket again this morning at 7:30 and UFCW Local 400 launches its Week of Action at the Shoppers supermarket in Coral Hills, Maryland at 4 this afternoon.
For complete details, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state and local public-sector unions cannot require nonunion members to pay anything to support the collective bargaining, grievance-handling and other costs of union work on their behalf. Voting with the 5-4 majority was Neil Gorsuch, who had just been named to the court by President Donald Trump.  

Today’s labor quote is by the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies," which were founded at a 12-day-long convention in Chicago on this date in 1905. The Wobbly motto is: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Summer is here, which means it’s a cool time to take advantage of union members savings on theme and water park tickets. Visit unionplus.org/entertainment.

As the lockout of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians enters its second week – and support pours in from around the country -- picketing continues every morning this week, from 7:30 to 10:30 am.

And there are two noontime labor rallies in downtown DC today.
The first is “No Vote Until NAFTA 2.0 is Fixed!” on Capitol Hill; Trump wants a vote on the revised NAFTA as soon as possible, but if enacted as-is, the deal would lock in high medicine prices and fail to stop NAFTA’s ongoing outsourcing of jobs and pollution.
Also at noon, in Triangle Park at 20th and Virginia, NW, federal workers will rally to “Stop the Merger of OPM and GSA!” Trump’s plan to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management and transfer critical functions to the White House would undermine the civil service as a federal workforce that works for the American people.
You can also visit afge.org/SaveOPM and add your name to those taking a stand against dismantling OPM.

For complete details, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1994, police pepper-gassed workers at the A.E. Staley plant gate in Decatur, Illinois, one year into the company's two-and-a-half-year lockout of Paperworkers Local 7837.  

Today’s labor quote is by August Vincent Theodore Spies, one of the eight men framed and executed for the bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886; on this date in 1893, more than 8,000 people attended the dedication ceremony for The Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago, honoring the eight men. The following quote by Spies, recorded just before his execution, is inscribed on the base of the monument:
"The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you are throttling today."

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Summer is here, which means it’s a cool time to take advantage of union members savings on theme and water park tickets. Visit unionplus.org/entertainment.

(audio) Jerame Davis: HRC is the largest LGBTQ civil rights organization in the country-probably the world. They’re a massive organization. So they carry a lot of weight here in Washington especially with lawmakers and so forth but they also carry a lot of weight in corporate America. They are in many ways using their corporate equality index which is kind of their guide for how LGBTQ friendly a particular corporation is.”
That’s Pride At Work Executive Director Jerame Davis on the latest edition of the AFL-CIO’s State of the Unions podcast.
(audio) “But the problem is that when you look at a lot of these corporations that they’re grading and they’re giving them great scores--100, 90, etcetera, they’re really awful corporations. The tagline for the corporate equality index is great places to work for LGBTQ people, and that’s literally how they bill it as LGBT people could work here and would be supported. And then they give 90s to companies like Walmart that treat their employees terribly and pay them low wages and give them no benefits. And in fact, they had to rescind Walmart’s score last year because of a lawsuit, a transgender discrimination lawsuit that was won and HRC decided to rescind their score that year.
Tim Schlittner:  Big deal.
Jerame Davis: Yeah but it’s incredibly problematic that this is more of a PR campaign for corporations than an actual guide to how LGBTQ friendly they are because we all know that corporate policy isn't worth the paper it’s written on. They enforce it when they want to enforce it unless there’s a union there to enforce it. So giving these corporations these great scores and then those corporations of course then release press releases of their own saying look how great we are with the LGBTQ community and some of these corporations like Wells Fargo and T-Mobile--just go down the list and they’re just horrible the way they treat their employees and in some cases the way they’re treating the environment and our country.”
Catch “State of the Unions” wherever you listen to podcasts.

For the latest local labor calendar listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1880, Agnes Nestor was born. President of the International Glove Workers Union and the longtime leader of the Chicago Women's Trade Union League, she began work in a glove factory at age 14.

Today’s labor quote is by Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons, born on this date in 1848. Albert Parsons, who said:
“Let the voice of the people be heard!”

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Summer is here, which means it’s a cool time to take advantage of union members savings on theme and water park tickets. Visit unionplus.org/entertainment.

Today is Day 5 of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Lock-Out, and the BSO musicians will be picketing at 7:30 am this morning and again at 11:30 am at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall at the corner of Cathedral and Preston Streets in Baltimore.
Negotiations are set for later today and we’ll keep you posted on our website – dclabor.org -- and on social media @dclabor of Twitter and Facebook, where we’ve also posted links on how to contribute to support the locked-out musicians.
Former BSO Music Director David Zinman will be joining the picket line on Monday; we’ll have an update on Union City Radio then.

On today’s labor calendar, the 40th annual Great Labor Arts Exchange is going on now out at the ATU’s Tommy Douglas Center in Silver Spring; and don’t miss their big “Songs of Resistance” free concert tomorrow night at 7:30; details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1997, an estimated 100,000 unionists and other supporters marched in solidarity with striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press newspaper workers.

Today’s labor quote is by Abraham Lincoln, who said:
“If a man tells you he loves America, yet he hates labor, he is a liar!”  

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. If you’re thinking about hitting a theme park with your family this summer, visit unionplus.org/entertainment to get savings at America’s favorite theme parks.

Broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM.
Hosted Chris Garlock and Ed Smith.
DC’s call-in show about worker rights: those you have, those you don’t, how to get them and how to use them.

HOUR 1: BSO lockout and Pride At Work's 25th anniversary
Brian Prechtl on the BSO lockout; he's a percussionist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2003, and co-chair of the Baltimore Symphony Musicians Players’ Committee (AFM Local 40-543).
Mark Gruenberg, Editor, Press Associates Union News Service
• Baltimore Symphony Orchestra bosses cancel summer season, lock out unionized Musicians
• New Poor People’s Campaign demands redirecting military dollars to domestic needs
Jerame Davis, Executive Director, Pride At Work: Celebrating Solidarity to mark 25 years since our founding and 50 years since Stonewall. June 20, 2019 6PM at AFL-CIO in Washington, DC.

HOUR 2: Circus workers of the world, unite!
Murray Horwitz (right), American playwright, lyricist, NPR broadcaster, and arts administrator
Chris Bricker (Ieft), longtime labor organizer, saw-playing member of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 1000 (acoustic travelling musicians union), attending the 40th annual Great Labor Arts Exchange, which starts today and runs through Sunday out at the ATU’s Tommy Douglas Center in Silver Spring. Chris also hosts Morning on the Salish every Tuesday morning from 9:30 to 11am on KPTZ FM, in storied Port Townsend, Washington.  
Both were graduates of the Ringling College of Clowns, Class of 1971 and went on to be professional clowns and then union reps at the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Plus: NLRB Can't Shut Down 'Scabby'-Aided Protest

Produced by Chris Garlock, engineered by Chris Bangert-Drowns. photos/collage by Chris Garlock

(audio) “You know, when we’re on stage, we wear our tails, but you know, today, we’re out here in our shorts and our Baltimore Symphony Musicians shirts and as you can hear, there’s a lot of activity around me right now.”
That’s Brian Prechtl (PRECK-TUL), percussionist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and co-chair of the Baltimore Symphony Musicians Players’ Committee, Local 40-543 of the American Federation of Musicians. As we reported earlier this week, BSO management locked out their musicians on Monday, claiming they’re broke. The musicians point out that management is paying itself lavish salaries, but on the picket line Tuesday, Brian raised a bigger problem…
(audio) “People don’t give you money because you need it, and you have to find money if you’re any arts organization. People give you money if you inspire them, and unfortunately the language management has been using doesn’t inspire anybody, to give money, to believe there’s a positive vison for how they’re going to move forward. The only vison they seem to have is to cut the organization down, and that’s a really punitive way to run an arts organization, and to run a business.”
Tune in at 1pm this afternoon here on WPFW for this week’s edition of Your Rights at Work, to hear the rest of my interview with Brian, as well as all the latest local labor news.   

Also on today’s labor calendar…
Daily picketing by the BSO musicians continues today at 7:30am, 11:30 am and 4pm in Baltimore;
and [email protected] celebrates its 25th anniversary tonight at 6 at the AFL-CIO.
For all the latest local labor calendar listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1943, striking African-American auto workers were attacked by members of the KKK, the National Workers League, and armed White workers at the Belle Isle amusement park in Detroit. During the two days of riots that followed, 34 people were killed, and more than 1,300 arrested.

Today’s labor quote is by President Harry Truman, who vetoed the Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act on this date in 1947. The veto was overridden three days later by a Republican-controlled Congress. Harry S. Truman, who said:
“The bill is deliberately designed to weaken labor unions. When the sponsors of the bill claim that by weakening unions, they are giving rights back to individual workingmen, they ignore the basic reason why unions are important in our democracy. Unions exist so that laboring men can bargain with their employers on a basis of equality.”

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. If you’re thinking about hitting a theme park with your family this summer, visit unionplus.org/entertainment to get savings at America’s favorite theme parks.

If you’re in downtown DC over the next week or so, be sure to stop by the AFL-CIO to see “On Equal Terms - Tradeswomen: Forward into Our Fifth Decade,” an exhibit by artist, poet, activist and tradeswoman Susan Eisenberg.
Thirty-five years ago President Jimmy Carter issued two executive orders, part of a campaign to support equality in the workplace and open career opportunities for women. But while other historically male occupations have seen dramatic changes over the last three decades, the percentage of women in skilled trades construction jobs has remained virtually unchanged at less than 5%.
On Equal Terms, a mixed media installation, combines personal witness, artifacts, and 3-D mixed media –– including a life-sized tradeswoman on a ladder wearing a diamond hardhat –– to bring viewers into the experiences of women who work in construction and skilled trades. It’s free and open during regular business hours at the AFL-CIO at 16th and I.  

On today’s labor calendar…
Daily picketing by the BSO musicians continues today at 7:30am, 11:30 am and 4pm in Baltimore;
and Fruit of Labor performs free at the Shirlington Busboys and Poets at 6 pm.
For the latest local labor calendar listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

In today’s labor history, on this date in 1934, a pioneering sit-down strike was conducted by workers at a General Tire Company factory in Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers union was founded a year later. The sit-down tactic launched a wave of similar efforts in the auto and other industries over the next several years.  

Today’s labor quote is by American Federation of Labor president Sam Gompers, who signed an agreement with Secretary of War Newton Baker on this date in 1917 establishing a three-member board of adjustment to control wages, hours and working conditions for construction workers employed on government projects. Sam Gompers, who said:
"Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion."

Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. If you’re thinking about hitting a theme park with your family this summer, visit unionplus.org/entertainment to get savings at America’s favorite theme parks.