Local airport workers won a huge victory yesterday when their two-year campaign for a living wage finally paid off. The Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority approved a new policy ensuring that airport contractors pay their employees a living wage. The airport workers -- including wheelchair and checkpoint agents, terminal cleaners, cabin cleaners, sky caps and baggage handlers, many of whom now earn as little as minimum wage -- could see hourly wages increase to $12.75. "I never thought I'd live to see the day," said DCA airport worker David Tucker, who's worked at the airport for fifty years. While SEIU 32BJ Vice President Jaime Contreras called the move “a step in the right direction," he said that workers still need $15 an hour "to reach the light at the end of a long tunnel of poverty. These men and women," Contreras said, "continue to face intimidation and retaliation by employers and need the protection that only a union can provide."
On today's labor calendar: Our guests on "Your Rights At Work" today at 1 o'clock here on WPFW are SEIU 32BJ Vice President Jaime Contreras, on why airport workers need a union, and filmmaker Chaumtoli Huq (Sham-toe-lee Huck), director of "Worker Voices," a new film about the lives, work, and organizing efforts of Bangladesh’s garment workers. Plus your calls about worker rights. Full details are on our website at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1912, nearly 10,000 demonstrators celebrated textile workers’ win of a 10-percent pay hike and grievance committees after a one-month strike in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1914, the Ludlow massacre took place when Colorado state militia, using machine guns and fire, killed about 20 people—including 11 children—at a tent city set up by striking coal miners. And in 1948, an unknown assailant shot through a window at United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther as he was eating dinner at his kitchen table, permanently impairing his right arm. It was one of at least two assassination attempts on Reuther. He and his wife later died in a small plane crash under what many believe to be suspicious circumstances. Today’s labor quote is by Walter Reuther, who said "There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood." Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org.
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. |