As millions of American workers struggle to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, CEO pay for major U.S. companies has skyrocketed. According to the new AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch, CEO pay increased nearly 16 percent in 2014. Last year, the average American worker earned about $36,000 per year, while annual CEO pay averaged a whopping $13.5 million. Mega-retailer Walmart, highlighted in this year’s PayWatch, represents one of the most egregious examples of CEO-to-worker pay inequality. Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon earns $9,323 an hour compared to just $9 for a beginning employee. A new employee would have to work for 1036 hours just to equal what McMillon earns in a single hour. PayWatch also highlights the wealth of the six Walton family members who have more wealth than 43 percent of America’s families combined. More information about Walmart’s massive CEO-to-worker pay disparity and inequality among S&P 500 companies can be found at paywatch.org.
On today's labor calendar, the funeral service for DC Fire Fighter Kevin McRae starts at 9am at the DC Armory. Today at noon there’s a free DC LaborFest screening with local filmmakers who are working on City Of Trees, the story of one community's fight for equal access to good jobs and safe parks in our nation's capital. Tonight at 6pm NoVA Labor will hold its annual “Salute to Labor” Dinner in McLean, VA. Then at 7:30 tonight, catch the brilliant “Two Days, One Night” with (mar-e-yon co-tee-yar) Marion Cotillard at the AFI in Silver Spring. The DC LaborFest continues tomorrow with an 11am screening of Chicken Run at the Old Greenbelt Theatre and at noon I’ll lead a DC Labor History Walking Tour revealing labor’s often-untold story of protest and resistance in the nation’s capital. Go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for details and to sign up. In today's labor history, Pope Leo the thirteenth issued 'Rerum novarum' – or “On the Condition of Workers” -- a revolutionary encyclical in defense of workers and the right to organize on this date in 1891. Forty years later to the day, Pope Pius the eleventh issued 'Quadragesimo anno,’ believed by many to be even more radical than Pope Leo’s. In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Samuel Gompers and other union leaders for supporting a boycott at the Buck Stove and Range Company in St. Louis, where workers were striking for a 9-hour day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott and sentenced the unionists to prison for refusing to obey the judge’s anti-boycott injunction. And on this date in 1917, the Library Employees’ Union was founded in New York City, the first union of public library workers in the United States. A major focus of the union was the inferior status of women library workers and their low salaries Today's labor quote is from Pope Leo’s 1891 encyclical “On the Condition of Workers”: “The oppressed workers, above all, ought to be liberated from the savagery of greedy men, who inordinately use human beings as things for gain.” Pope Leo the thirteenth, who also wrote that “Workers are not to be treated as slaves; justice demands that the dignity of human personality be respected in them...gainful occupations are not a mark of shame to man, but rather of respect, as they provide him with an honorable means of supporting life.” This is Chris Garlock, with Union City Radio’s Your Rights at Work tip of the day: Most D.C. workers have the right to keep their job if they need to leave to care for a sick loved one or themselves. The D.C. Family Medical Leave Act – also known as FMLA -- allows eligible employees for eligible employers to take up to 16 weeks of unpaid leave to care for themselves or for family members with a serious medical condition, to recover from domestic violence, or to spend time with a newborn. Employees who take FMLA leave must be returned to the same or a substantially similar position, including the same rate of pay and hours. Find out more about your rights at work from the Employment Justice Center, at DCEJC.ORG or call 202-828-9675.
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