Supporting the middle class just got easier with the launch of the Washington DC edition of Labor 411. The print and online directory boasts more than 8,500 listings, including hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and a vast array of consumer products whose producers treat their workers well with fair wages, good benefits and safe working conditions. “We want the average consumer to be able to focus his or her spending power in a way that advances and strengthens the middle class in America,” said Labor 411 publisher Cherri Senders. “Harnessing our consumer buying power is a powerful tool to build a stronger, fairer America,” added Jos Williams, President of the Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO. Go to labor411.org to check it out.
Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1976, thirty-five members of the Teamsters, concerned about the infiltration of organized crime in the union and other issues, met in Cleveland to form Teamsters for a Democratic Union. And in 1998, a strike began at a General Motors Corp. parts factory in Flint, Michigan that ultimately forced the closure of GM plants across the country for seven weeks. The Flint workers were protesting the removal of key equipment from their plant and feared their jobs would be lost. The company ended the dispute by promising the plant would remain open until at least the year 2000. Today’s labor quote is by Walter Reuther: “Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie--labor is fighting for a larger pie.” 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.
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