YOUR RIGHTS AT WORK (4/28/2016)

This week's guests: Latest report from the Verizon strike by Terry Richardson, president, CWA 2336; Ed Smith, president, Firefighters Local 36 is in-studio to talk about how firefighters and emergency medical services providers are at increased risk of developing specific cancers, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and certain infectious diseases from exposure to blood and other bodily fluids. Currently, workers who develop these conditions have a really hard time convincing the system--designed to support their health and welfare--that their condition stems from occupational hazards. And historian Lane Windham, who’s doing a post-doctoral fellowship at The Penn State Center for Global Workers' Rights, reports on what happened last week when the university administration sent her a memo explaining how faculty and staff could resist the graduate students' efforts to unionize (i.e. union-bust). She let the administration know what she thought about that - - in an opinion piece in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Labor song of the week: Communication breakdown – Led Zeppelin.


Labor Quiz: This Sunday is May Day and the 185th birthday of legendary labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones; there will be a wreath-laying in her honor at noon at 2601 Powder Mill Rd in Silver Spring, MD. Here are three quotes; which one is by Mother Jones?
1: You are never strong enough that you don't need help.
2: Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
3: Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Answer: 3; 1 is by Cesar Chavez and 2 is by Frederick Douglass.
Previous Quiz: The annual DC labor FilmFest is coming up in May; which of these films is NOT being screened at the FilmFest? Concussion, Horrible Bosses, or Suffragette?
Answer: Horrible Bosses.
Tune in next week and you could win a pair of passes to the DC Labor FilmFest!