The Nats’ Opening Day -- originally scheduled for yesterday -- was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the union representing the folks at Nationals Park who pour the beer, prepare food and sell merchandise “stand to get nothing unless Major League Baseball and the Nationals take action.”
Each team is reportedly getting a million dollars from Major League Baseball to pay stadium workers, but UNITE HERE Local 23 says that so far the Nationals have not committed to pay the 1,200 sub-contracted workers employed by Levy Restaurants. The cost of paying the out-of-work concessions workers, says Local 23, is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the profits teams raked in last year, some $39.5 million dollars per team, on average. Workers are calling on the league and the Nationals to commit to pay its subcontracted food service workers for the first 40 home games they’re likely to miss. Support the workers by signing the petition on our website at dclabor.org. Here’s Carl Goldman, with today’s labor history: On April 3rd, 1913 20,000 textile mill, strikers in Patterson, New Jersey gather on the green in front of the house of Pietro Botto, the socialist mayor of nearby Hallinan to receive encouragement by novelists, Upton Sinclair, journalist John Reed as speakers from the industrial workers of the world, the Wobblies. Today, the Botto House is home to the American labor museum. At its height, before world war one, the socialist party had two members of Congress, over 70 mayors and many state legislators and city council members. The socialist party was the precursor to the present day democratic socialists of America, which has over 100 elected officials, including two members of Congress. Today’s labor quote is by Martin Luther King Jr. who delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in a church packed with union members and others on this date in 1968. He had returned to Memphis to stand with striking AFSCME sanitation workers, and was assassinated the following day: “Whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery.” Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus, which stands up for union members and their families. At unionplus.org you’ll find useful links to coronavirus resources from the AFL-CIO, as well as Union Plus Hardship Help Benefits. Check it out at unionplus.org
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