Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka talks with Labor History Today’s Joe McCartin about the current state – and the future -- of the American labor movement. Plus, Mark Potashnick on Jim Pohle, the founder of the American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers. Two African-American sharecroppers are killed during an ultimately unsuccessful cotton-pickers strike in Lee County, Ark. By the time the strike had been suppressed, 15 African-Americans had died and another six had been imprisoned. A white plantation manager was killed as well - 1891 - David Prosten By Mark Gruenberg, PAI News
WASHINGTON—Culminating several days of in-person lobbying, but continuing a defense that’s been going since Donald Trump’s first day in office, federal worker unions, their congressional allies and other union leaders took their campaign against the GOP president’s edicts to Congress. The mass rally of several thousand people on Capitol Hill on Sept. 24 drew attention to Trump’s anti-worker actions, from curbs on union representation for all two million federal workers down to sudden declarations that 900 of the lowest-paid disabled workers in the Portland, Ore., Veterans Administration hospital would be laid off – with two weeks’ notice. Led by the Government Employees (AFGE) and the Treasury Employees (NTEU), unions and workers lobbied for legislation to stop Trump‘s edicts in their tracks in the new fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. The Democratic-run House has agreed. The GOP-run Senate is another matter, though one speaker, Sen. Chris Von Hollen, D-Md., promised the crowd he would push the ban on Trump’s edicts through. Whether and when he, and other Senate Democrats, can succeed is up in the air. The point of the rally was to get them to do so. “Talk is cheap. Let’s get to work,” AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre said. “Something is happening in America,” federation President Richard Trumka declared before challenging Trump: “Bring it on!” Trump’s edicts, which the unions are also challenging in court, throw federal worker unions out of their small offices in federal buildings, yanked away their computers, phones and fax machines, curb due process rights for federal workers, make it easier for bosses to fire workers for no reason at all and even tell union stewards that when they defend federal workers they must do so on their own time and on their own dime. “We are proud and united union members and we stand here ready to fight to defend our collective bargaining rights, and to demand respect for our contract,” NTEU President Tony Reardon declared. “Our fight is your fight and your fight is our fight,” said Lee Saunders, the AFSCME president. His union was one of more than 18 whose members helped swell the noonday crowd. “In my 14 years” at the Health and Human Services Department, “I’ve never seen employees who have been targeted and harassed like this,” Deneen Johnson, chief steward of NTEU Local 229, told the crowd. “I’ve seen violations of employees’ rights and denial of due process of law.” photos by Chris Garlock click here for latest listings Union City Radio: 7:15a M-F; WPFW-FM 89.3 UAW strike picket (weekdays only): Mon, September 23, 6am – 2pm GM White-Marsh transmission plant, 10301 Philadelphia road, White Marsh, MD. If you take Rt. 43 east off of 95, get off of 43 onto the Philadelphia road exit. 24th Annual CSA Golf Tournament: Mon, September 23, 9am – 4pm Enterprise Golf Course, 2802 Enterprise Rd, Mitchellville, MD 20721 Chesapeake Bay CLUW Chapter meeting: Mon, September 23, 6pm – 8pm On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, 16403 Heritage Blvd, Bowie, MD 20716 FILM: I'M LEAVING NOW [YA ME VOY]: Mon, September 23, 7:15pm – 9:00pm AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910 Union members who present their member cards will receive the AFI Member discount. Fed UP! Rise UP! AFGE Rally and Lobby Day: Tue, September 24, 12pm – 1pm Capitol Hill below Area 9 (across the street from the Supreme Court) NNU registered nurses and activists walked in solidarity with striking UAW members at the GM plant in White Marsh, Maryland (just outside Baltimore) last week. “The auto workers stand symbolizes the struggles that millions of workers face every day – how to cope with soaring health care costs and how to protect their jobs and their families as more and more wealth is shifted to corporations and the super-rich at the expense of everyone else,” said NNU President Jean Ross, RN in a statement. The White Marsh picket line continues this week from 6a to 2p (weekdays only).
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