AFSCME Council 26 Executive Director Carl Goldman reports that he was among the DC-area activists to join 3,000 participants at the People’s Summit in Chicago last weekend to talk about how to move progressive issues forward. In addition to speeches, workshops and cultural events, Goldman says the Summit included some really inspiring “reports from the field” from organizers involved in a variety of progressive issues such as labor, racial justice, economic inequality, the environment and challenging neoliberalism. The participants also broke into groups by region to discuss how to take action at the local level.
The final chapter in the historic 45-day Verizon strike was written when the workers overwhelmingly voted on June 17 to ratify new contracts. “It was a tough strike, but this contract, which secures good jobs in our communities and preserve workers’ standard of living shows what can happen when we stand together," said Ed Mooney, Vice President of CWA District 2-13. On today's labor calendar, The Labor Heritage Foundation's annual Great Labor Arts Exchange continues today and through the weekend, bringing together labor musicians and artists from across the nation, with a free concert Saturday night honoring LUCI MURPHY. For more info, visit LaborHeritage.org. And there are two noontime events at the AFL-CIO today: One is a book discussion on "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" the other is "Please Don't Touch My Hair: A Convo on Black Hair in the Workplace." This weekend check out screenings of "Farewell Ferris Wheel" at AFI Docs, about a year in the life of migrant laborers who are also carnival workers. For full details on the local labor calendar, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s our weekend labor history: On June 25 in 1893, more than 8,000 people attended the dedication ceremony for The Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago, honoring those framed and executed for the bombing at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. On June 26 in 1894, members of the American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, refused to handle Pullman cars, in solidarity with Pullman strikers. Two dozen strikers were killed over the course of the strike. Today’s labor quote is by Eugene Debs, speaking in Pullman, Illinois, during the American Railway Union's Pullman Strike "If it is a fact that after working for George M. Pullman for many years you appear two weeks after your work stops, ragged and hungry, it only emphasizes that the charge I made before this community, and Pullman stands before you a self-confessed robber....The paternalism of Pullman is the same as the self-interest of a slave-holder in his human chattels. You are striking to avert slavery and degradation."
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