 October 28
Union organizer and anarchist Luisa Capetillo is born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. She organized tobacco and other agricultural workers in Puerto Rico and later in New York and Florida. In 1916 she led a successful sugar cane strike of more than 40,000 workers on the island. She demanded that her union endorse voting rights for women. In 1919, three years before her death, she was arrested for wearing pants in public, the first woman in Puerto Rico to do so. The charges were dropped – 1879 The St. Louis Gateway Arch is completed after two and one-half years. Originally sold as a jobs program for thousands of African Americans in St. Louis suffering from the Depression, the 630-foot high arch of stainless steel marks the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront of St. Louis, Mo. Although it was predicted 13 lives would be lost in construction, not a single worker died – 1965 October 29 Japanese immigrant and labor advocate Katsu Goto is strangled to death, his body then strung from an electric pole, on the Big Island of Hawaii by thugs hired by plantation owners. They were outraged over Goto’s work on behalf of agricultural workers and because he opened a general store that competed with the owners’ own company store - 1889 Wall Street crashes—"Black Tuesday"—throwing the world's economy into a years-long crisis including an unemployment rate in the U.S. that by 1933 hit nearly 25 percent - 1929 October 30 Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urges employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs - 1986 The fishing boat Andrea Gail, out of Gloucester, Mass., is caught in ferocious storm and lost at sea with her crew of six. The event inspired the book, “The Perfect Storm,” by Sebastian Junger, and a film by the same name. The city of Gloucester has lost more than 10,000 whalers and fishermen to the sea over its 350-year history - 1991 - compiled/edited by David Prosten at Union Communication Services  “Do not buy finery or jewels, because books are worth more than they are. Adorn your understanding with their precious ideas, because there is no luxury that dazzles like the luxury of science.”
 A coalition of three of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)’s unions are coming together for a “Safety Solidarity Surge” beginning next week, where union leaders will fill in the gaps of proper instruction on following all of the mandated safety initiatives required by WMATA. Metro unions ATU Local 689, OPEIU Local 2, and Teamsters Local 922, the three unions representing operations, clerical and maintenance crafts as well as the bus and rail control centers for WMATA, say they have grown frustrated with safety failures from the Authority. “Our organizations and our members have pleaded with WMATA for too long to get serious about implementing an effective safety culture,” said Jackie L. Jeter, president of ATU Local 689. “Our unions are not going to tolerate any death or injury that could have been prevented because the ball was dropped on training and implementation. We know that Metro continues to be the safest form of transportation in this region, but we have a long way to go to be the safe transit system we are supposed to be. If WMATA leaders won’t make the first move then we will.” Read more below...
photo: Metro workers speak out at WMATA hearing on Thursday; photo by Carlos Jimenez  In a victory for free speech and public access rights, hundreds of protesters jubilantly demonstrated yesterday in front of the new Trump International hotel. Trump had attempted to push the protest off the plaza in front of the hotel, taking advantage of the unusual leeway to control public space granted by the federal government when Trump leased the Old Post Office for his $212 million-dollar hotel. However, the Metro Labor Council had already applied for a permit to hold a picket, and the feds honored the request, allowing picketers to press their demand that Trump negotiate with his workers in Las Vegas. Trump was forced to move his ribbon-cutting indoors -- where the protest could still be heard -- and the demonstration garnered international news coverage, including Sputnick News, US News & World Report, The Huffington Post and WTOP.
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