The U.S. Air Force’s plan to cut a thousand defense civilian workers by April – cuts the service claims the GOP-run Congress is forcing on them – is unfair to workers and costly to taxpayers, says American Federation of Government Employees President J. David Cox, whose union represents defense civilian workers.
That’s because while the jobs will be cut, the work won’t. Instead, it’ll be shoved onto the remaining civilians and on to service members, or parceled out to civilian contractors, both of which Cox said are more expensive than retaining civilian workers. “If the goal is to increase costs to taxpayers while eroding our military readiness, the Air Force will certainly succeed,” Cox said. The Fire Fighters are gaining allies in their campaign to ban toxic chemicals from the nation’s furniture. The campaign aims to convince the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to write rules to outlaw such chemicals, which endanger Fire Fighters’ lives when the workers battle blazes, especially home fires. Testifying in support of local legislation on the issue last year, IAFF 36 president Ed Smith told the DC City Council that "It’s truly hard to imagine that in our homes, a place of refuge, security and comfort can be a major source of exposure to harmful toxins. Hard to believe…but sadly it is very true." In this week's Labor Quiz, what was Mother Jones' occupation before she committed herself to travelling the country to help workers organize? Was she a dressmaker and schoolteacher, a postmistress, a textile worker, or a homemaker? Go to dclabor.org to submit your answer and you could be next week's winner! Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1919, Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson ordered police to raid an open-air mass meeting of shipyard workers in an attempt to prevent a general strike. Workers were brutally beaten, but the strike began the following month, with 60,000 workers walking out in solidarity with some 25,000 metal tradesmen. In 1942, President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board to mediate labor disputes during World War II. Despite the fact that 12 million of the nation’s workers were women—rising to 18 million by war’s end—the panel consisted entirely of men. Today’s labor quote is by Jack London, born on this date in 1876. American author, journalist, and social activist Jack London, who wrote the classic definition of a scab—someone who would cross a picket line and take a striker's job: "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles"
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