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
Artist:  
Song title:
Link: 

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.