The Student Labor Action Project at the University of Maryland in College Park is planning a large rally and action today to ask the university to raise the wage for student workers on campus. SLAP aims to bring attention to what they say is the unacceptable practice of paying student workers on campus a minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, the state’s minimum wage, as opposed to the county minimum wage of $9.55 and hour. Chris Bangert-Drowns of SLAP notes that “given the rising costs of textbooks, tuition, housing, food, leaving students behind like this is unacceptable”. The rally is scheduled to begin at 4:30pm this afternoon at the Campus-Regents Drive traffic circle.
Also on today’s labor calendar: Verizon strike pickets continue throughout the metro area; get complete details at dclabor.org; click on calendar. The DC LaborFest continues today with a free noontime screening of DC LABOR FILMFEST PREVIEWS at the AFL-CIO and then tonight catch young actors in THE TEMP(EST) at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre at 7 pm. Full details at dclabor.org; click on LaborFest. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1935, the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, was established at a cost of $4.8 billion—more than $80 billion in 2015 dollars—to provide work opportunities for millions during the Great Depression. In 1937, four hundred Black women working as tobacco stemmers walked off the job in a spontaneous revolt against poor working conditions and a $3 weekly wage at the Vaughan Company in Richmond, Virginia. Today’s labor quote is by Ronald Reagan “The WPA was one of the most productive elements of FDR’s alphabet soup of agencies because it put people to work building roads, bridges and other projects…it gave men and women a chance to make some money along with the satisfaction of knowing they earned it.”
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