“While we can sit at the front of the Metro during the morning commute to the Capitol, we still cannot afford to lift our families out of poverty on the low pay we earn,” wrote Sontia Bailey in The Hill last week on the 60th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Bailey works at the Refectory Café inside the U.S. Capitol, and wrote that “As one of many low-wage Capitol contract workers, Rosa’s commitment inspires me and my co-workers to make the ‘Fight for $15’ a fight to the finish.” The U.S. Capitol and Senate contract workers “will continue to strike and engage in civil disobedience until the company recognizes our right to form a union,” said Bailey. “We will not yield until we win our seat at the bargaining table.” On today's labor calendar, catch a free screening of “Food Chains” tonight at 6 at the Takoma Park Busboys. In this exposé, an intrepid group of Florida farmworkers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through their ingenious Fair Food program, which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States. The free screening -- part of the monthly “Bread & Roses” series – is presented by the DC Labor Film Festival and co-sponsored by the Greater Washington Immigration Film Festival, the International Labor Rights Forum and Restaurant Opportunities Center DC. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1886, twenty-five unions founded the American Federation of Labor in Columbus, Ohio. Cigarmaker’s union leader Samuel Gompers was elected president. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. And on this date in 2009, faced with a national unemployment rate of 10 percent, President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals, saying the country must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work. Joblessness had soared 6 percent in the final two years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Today’s labor quote is from the AFL’s founding document’s preamble in 1886: “A struggle is going on in all of the civilized world between oppressors and oppressed of all countries, between capitalist and laborer...”
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