Montgomery County taxi drivers celebrated a major victory on Tuesday when the County Council unanimously passed new regulations capping credit card fee rates at 5%. “Drivers have been fighting for over a year to get the rate down,” reports the AFL-CIO’s Beth Levie, who’s been working with the drivers. Barwood drivers currently pay 7.45% in credit card fees, and “at the end of the year a driver could have paid thousands of dollars in credit card fees alone to Barwood,” Levie added. The new regs also allow drivers to use their own Square payment system, which only charges drivers 2.7%. “I think the proclamation ceremony for Jos Williams (which preceded the vote) ensured our victory,” said taxi driver Becaye Traore.
Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1913, President William Howard Taft signed legislation creating the Department of Labor. Former United Mine Workers Secretary Treasurer William B. Wilson was named to lead the new department. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named a woman, Frances Perkins, to be secretary of labor. Perkins became the first female cabinet member in U.S. history. And in 1989, Machinists struck Eastern Airlines, and were soon joined by flight attendants and pilots in the nationwide walkout. Owner Frank Lorenzo refused to consider the unions’ demands and Eastern ultimately went out of business. Today’s labor quote is by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, who in his inaugural address in 1801, declared: “Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
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