D.C. Circulator operators late last week overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract with First Transit for higher wages and greater safety guarantees. Drivers -- members of ATU Local 1764 -- had been rallying for months for better salaries. The benefits in the new contract are contingent on the District allocating extra funds for the operations of the bus system.
And last Thursday, more than 30 flight crew members marched outside the United Airlines ticket gates at Dulles Airport reminding passengers that the company’s flight attendants still don’t have a contract after more than five years. The protest was part of the Association of Flight Attendants' “Third Thursday” efforts at major airports served by United. On today's labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue throughout the metro area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times. The DC LaborFest continues tonight with a screening of the new film, UNION TIME: Fighting for Workers'’ Rights, with Director Matthew Barr. The free screening starts at 6 pm tonight at the Brookland Busboys and Poets. Complete details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1883, after 14 years of construction and the deaths of 27 workers, the Brooklyn Bridge over New York’s East River opened. Newspapers called it “the eighth wonder of the world” In 1995, some 2,300 members of the United Rubber Workers, on strike for 10 months against five Bridgestone-Firestone plants, agreed to return to work without a contract. They had been fighting demands for 12-hour shifts and wage increases tied to productivity gains. Today’s labor quote is by Samuel Gompers "Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish." Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor.
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