Tens of thousands of Verizon workers are ready to strike. At a rally last Saturday in New York City with thousands of workers and supporters, the Communications Workers of America  announced that an overwhelming majority – a whopping 86% -- of Verizon workers have voted to authorize a strike if necessary.  The contract expires at midnight this Saturday, August 1 and covers 39,000 CWA and IBEW represented telephone workers from Massachusetts to Virginia. “Our members are clear and they are determined,” said Dennis Trainor, Vice President for CWA District One. “They reject management’s harsh concessionary demands, including the elimination of job security, sharp increases in workers' health care costs, and slashing retirement security.” With Verizon reporting $4.4 billion in profits in just the second quarter of 2015 alone, Trainor said the telecom giant’s “demands are completely outrageous and unwarranted.”

The region’s commercial office cleaners have ratified a new contract covering 10,500 workers that will provide a two-dollar-an-hour pay increase over the life of the four-year deal with the Washington Service Contractors Association, which represents the area's major commercial cleaning companies. "We got a really great contract that's going to change people's lives," said Viridiana Queensbury, a cleaner who works and lives in Northern Virginia. The wage increases in the contract will mean more than $68 million in additional income over four years for low-wage workers, their families and their communities in Washington, Baltimore, Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.  

On today’s labor calendar, economist James Galbraith will discuss on the Greek debt negotiations and what their outcome is likely to mean for the Greek and European economies. The talk starts at noon today at the Economic Policy Institute; for complete details, go to dclabor.org and click on calendar.

Here’s this week’s Labor Quiz: Before her untimely, mysterious death, Karen Silkwood was a member of which union? Was it the United Food and Commercial Workers, the  International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union, the United Steel Workers or the American Federation of Government Employees? Go to unionist.com and click on Labor Quiz and you could be next week's winner!

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1869, women shoemakers in Lynn, Massachusetts created the Daughters of St. Crispin to demand pay equal to that of men.

In 1913, a strike by silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey for an 8-hour day and improved working conditions ended after six months, with the workers’ demands unmet. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,800 strikers were arrested, including Wobbly leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

And in 1932, Federal troops burned the shantytown built near the U.S. Capitol by thousands of unemployed World War One veterans, camping there to demand a bonus they had been promised but never received.

Today’s labor quote is by the Washington Evening Star, which wrote of the Bonus Army vets that “These men wrote a new chapter on patriotism of which their countrymen could be proud.”

Homeward-bound commuters in Langley, Virginia last Thursday afternoon were greeted by hundreds of protestors outside CIA headquarters, many of them sporting American flags and other patriotic garb. The demonstration was organized by Operating Engineers Local 99, which is trying to reach a contract agreement with AECOM, a subcontractor at the agency. “Look, we love our country and we love working at the agency, but we feel disrespected,” said Robert Poe, an electrical specialist and Local 99 shop steward, wearing a t-shirt with “USA” emblazoned on across his chest. “Here we have a company that’s violating labor laws, and is trying to slash costs on our backs.” Another negotiating session has been scheduled for this Wednesday.

On today’s labor calendar, economist James Galbraith will discuss on the Greek debt negotiations and what their outcome is likely to mean for the Greek and European economies. The talk starts at noon today at the Economic Policy Institute; for complete details, go to dclabor.org and click on calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1869, William Sylvis died. Sylvis was the founder of the National Labor Union.

In 1918, Canadian coal miner and labor leader Albert “Ginger” Goodwin was shot and killed by Canadian police. Although he had been ruled unfit for military service during World War I because he had lung disease, the conscription board reversed its decision just days after Goodwin led a smelter workers’ strike for the eight-hour day. Opposed to the war, Goodwin fled and for months avoided capture by the authorities. His death, considered an assassination by many, inspired Canada’s first general strike on August 2 in Vancouver.

Today’s labor quote is by Albert “Ginger” Goodwin:
“We know that all this misery is the outcome of someone's carelessness, and that someone is the capitalists, those who own the machinery of production. Now, as this class of parasites have been living on the blood of the working class, they are responsible for the conditions existing at the present time.”
Albert Goodwin, who said “In order to throw this system over we have got to organize as a class and fight them as class against class.”

Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock and Amy Gelatly of the Employment Justice Center discuss worker rights with local activists/organizers and take listener calls.

With guests Paco Fabian, Good Jobs Nation, on striking low-wage workers who massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to demand “$15 and a union,” and Nikki Lewis, DC Jobs with Justice on the “Just Hours” campaign. 

The show for all you workers out there. It's about the rights you have on the job: what they are, how to use and protect them. And it's about the rights you don't have, and how to get them.

Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO, hosts the daily Union City Radio feature on WPFW. Gelatly is a EJC Employment Justice Organizer and has worked extensively in the area as an organizer and social worker. Engineer: Mike Nasella

Dozens of MetroAccess workers launched a “practice picket” at their bus garage Wednesday, saying that a private company contracted by WMATA to provide the service is abusing workers and demanding forfeiture of their basic human rights. The company, Transdev, is one of four private contractors that operate the MetroAccess service on WMATA’s behalf. According to the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents more than 400 Transdev employees at this location, the company pays poverty wages. This sort of low-paying work combined with Transdev’s other inhumane demands, the union says, creates a toxic workplace with high turnover, resulting in poorer service for riders.

If you missed last night’s Joe Hill concert in DC, you can catch another one tonight in Baltimore. The concerts mark the 100th anniversary of labor martyr Joe Hill’s death; Hill was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915 after being convicted of trumped-up charges. Tonight’s concert at the Unitarian Church starts at 7:30 pm.
For complete details, go to dclabor.org and click on calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1968, the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters formed the Alliance for Labor Action, later to be joined by several smaller unions. The ALA's agenda included support of the civil rights movement and opposition to the war in Vietnam. It disbanded after four years following the death of UAW President Walter Reuther.

The U.S. minimum wage increased to $6.55 per hour on this date in 2008. The original minimum, set in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act, was 25¢ per hour. And on this date in 2009, it rose to $7.25 per hour, where it remains to this day, despite a grassroots movement of raise minimum wages on the local level across the country.

Today’s labor quote is by Benjamin Todd Jealous:
“No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous, who said “In a democracy there are only two types of power: there's organized people and organized money, and organized money only wins when people aren't organized.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous is an American political and civic leader and former president of the NAACP.