Arleen Winfield retired from her 37 year-long career at the Department of Labor in 2006. But don’t let the word 'retired' fool you. As an active member of a local club that engages in grassroots mobilization and advocacy work in Washington, Winfield is very busy. Earlier this month, she visited the national office of the American Federation of Government Employees for a similar purpose: to help establish a network of AFGE retirees across the country. “I’m sad when I hear people talking badly about the government and unions,” she said while balancing a plate of brownies on her lap. “It’s the union that built the middle class in this country,” she added. Winfield was among two dozen people who attended AFGE’s first retiree reception. “These are people who have dedicated their lives to public service and organizing is in their blood," said Julie Tippens, AFGE's retiree director. "They have spent much of their lives lifting up the voices of working people and have been on the front lines of the labor and civil rights movements for decades."
Read our complete story -- and see photos of these active union retirees -- on our website at dclabor.org Labor's Get Out the Vote phonebanks continue today; for details on all the latest local labor calendar listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed by President Roosevelt two years earlier. The Act also banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents. Against a history of judicial opposition -- including the Supreme Court -- the depression-born law had survived more than a year of Congressional altercation. Today’s labor quote is by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a "fireside chat" the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act: "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry."
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