“Even with a strong union, we often have to confront racism in our workplaces,” writes UFCW 400 shop steward Laverne Wrenn in Labor Notes. “I’ve worked for the Kroger grocery chain in Portsmouth, Virginia, for 16 years, and I know from personal experience what it’s like to fight racism on the job.” Wrenn describes how she and her coworkers took notes, kept records and confronted a racist manager, gaining union solidarity and more membership in her store, as well as eventually ousting the manager. Go to labornotes.org to read Laverne’s complete post.
In today’s labor calendar, 1199SEIU's "We Care for DC" Town Hall Meeting with Tom Perez will take place at 6pm at the Plymouth Congregational Church; Go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for details. Here's today's labor history: On this date in 1970, the Post Office’s first mass work stoppage in 195 years began in New York City. An immediate trigger for the strike was a Congressional decision to raise the wages of postal workers by only 4%, at the same time as Congress raised its own pay by 41% Mail service was virtually paralyzed in several cities, and President Richard Nixon declared a state of emergency. It was two weeks before a settlement was reached. In 1997, the Los Angeles City Council passed the first living wage ordinance in California. And in 2005, Walmart agreed to pay a record $11 million dollars to settle a civil immigration case for using undocumented immigrants to do overnight cleaning at stores in 21 states. Today's labor quote is by Moe Biller, president of the Postal Workers in 1970: “We will not back away from our determination to achieve justice and dignity for all the Postal Workers we represent.”
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