Backed by the Washington Teachers’ Union, teachers from Thomson Elementary School marched earlier this week to demand that DCPS and Chancellor Kaya Henderson resume contract negotiations with their union.
The schools’ teachers, like other DCPS teachers across the city, say they want a new collective bargaining agreement that respects the work they do and includes fair compensation. Earlier this month, close to 100 teachers from Murch Elementary, Deal Middle School and Wilson High held a similar march and rally on May 6. Other marches and rallies are planned throughout the city. On today’s labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue today throughout the metro Washington area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times. The DC LaborFest continues today with a free noontime screening of “Love and Solidarity” at the IBEW headquarters on Seventh Street. The film is an inspiring exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Reverend James Lawson, who provided crucial strategic guidance while working with Martin Luther King, Jr., in southern freedom struggles and the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike. Free popcorn for all attendees! Full details at dclabor.org; click on calendar. Here’s this weekend’s labor history: On this date in 1926, the Railway Labor Act took effect. It was the first federal legislation protecting workers’ rights to form unions. On May 21, 2004, nearly 100,000 unionized SBC Communications workers began a 4-day strike to protest the local phone giant’s latest contract offer. And on May 22, 1895, Eugene Debs was imprisoned in Woodstock, Illinois for his role in the Pullman strike. Today’s labor quote is by Eugene Debs “Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders, but, notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most vital potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thralldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as the setting of the sun.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Union City Radio is proud to be supported by UnionPlus, which has been working hard for union families since 1986.
Union City Radio is part of The Labor Radio/Podcast Network
Listen now...UC Radio airs weekdays at 7:15a on WPFW 89.3 FM; subscribe to the podcast here. |