Today is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, and also a day for activists to hit the streets.
At 9a OUR Walmart workers and supporters will rally at the H Street Walmart in downtown DC. Previous demonstrations have forced the bigbox giant to raise hourly wages but workers there “are still struggling to put food on our tables and so our fight continues,” says Cynthia Murray, a founding OUR Walmart member from Laurel. Then at 10a, take action against corporate greed at the Verizon Wireless store at 13th and F Streets. Despite making more than $1 billion in profits every month, Verizon is squeezing its workers, demanding cuts in retirement and job security, raising health care costs by thousands of dollars per worker, and even taking away benefits from employees who have been injured on the job. Verizon has also been threatening and intimidating non-union wireless workers who dare to stand up for their rights. More details about both actions are on our website at dclabor.org Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1828, William Sylvis, founder of the National Labor Union, was born. In 1891, the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, precursor to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was founded. In 1908, 154 men died in a coal mine explosion at Marianna, Pennsylvania. Engineer and General Superintendent A.C. Beeson told the local newspaper he had been in the mine a few minutes before the blast and had found it to be in perfect condition. And in 1953, some 400 New York City photoengravers working for the city’s newspapers, supported by 20,000 other newspaper unionists, began what was to become an 11-day strike, shutting down the papers. Today’s labor quote is by William Sylvis: “Our cause is a common one. It is war between poverty and wealth. … This moneyed power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can, we will win through the ballot box; if not, then we shall resort to sterner means.”
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