ATU 689 on Monday blasted the appointment of Corbett Price (right) to the Metro board. Local 689 president Jackie Jeter cited Price’s “reputation as an anti-worker, union-busting, slash-and-burn executive consultant who puts profits over people and public welfare,” in a blistering open letter to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who made the appointment. Jeter noted that one of Price’s first acts as an executive for Prince George’s County’s Dimensions Healthcare System was to fire nearly a quarter of the system’s staff but that he himself was fired within months of being promoted to CEO. He then went on to split his time between a hospital serving Brooklyn, New York’s poorest neighborhoods where he was paid a $500,000 salary, and D.C. General Hospital where he was paid $400 an hour, while slashing more than 1,200 jobs. “This kind of track record illustrates a person who does not put the needs of the public or working families first,” said Jeter. Price’s appointment is through June; Local 689 urged Bowser to replace Price this summer and replace him with “a demonstrated advocate of the people of D.C., transit workers, and expanded transit options.” Iron Workers Local 5’s Ron Borza (right) was inducted into the Washington Building Congress Hall of Fame on March 20. Borza was recognized for “truly outstanding” work by the Hall of Fame, which recognizes the "best of the best" in the DC-area construction industry. Brad Geiger, Plumbers 5, passed away unexpectedly on March 8. Geiger was the blueprint reading instructor for the Community Services Agency’s Building Futures program, where he had taught for the last four years. He died just two days before his son was born. "Brad was always very patient with the students yet at the same time he was tough about learning the material and attendance so they would be prepared for the real world of work," said CSA client services coordinator Sylvia Casaro Dietert. "He was a nice man looking forward to the birth of his son, and his loss is tragic for his family and for the Building Futures program. We will miss him terribly." Young Workers Summit feels the jolt of young labor activism: OPEIU Local 2's Caniesha Seldon is featured in this report on last weekend's Next Up Young Workers Summit in Chicago. Seldon is Local 2's chief steward at the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and staffperson at their young worker program (Y.O.U.N.G.). Goodbye Miss McAbee: After 50 years of caring for sick children, awesome nurse retires: Just before 8 on the last morning of her 2,604th week on the job, a nurse in a kaleidoscopic scrub top hobbled across the lobby’s cream-colored tile and switched on the lights. At a computer in the back of the D.C. neighborhood health clinic, Clydia Lavenia McAbee — “Miss McAbee” to most — adjusted her black-rimmed Ray-Ban reading glasses to review the day’s list of patients, almost all of whom she knew well...click here to read the rest of this Washington Post profile of an inspirational SEIU 722 member. |