More than 1,000 DC school bus drivers and attendants will achieve pay parity with other District government employees, thanks to a new three-year contract between the city and AFSCME 1959. Local 1959 president Corey Upchurch said it was “an exciting day for all of us,” calling the deal “the foundation on something we can build on collectively moving forward.” DC Mayor Muriel Bowser added that the contract “recognizes and rewards” the bus drivers and attendants “for the important work they perform year-round.” The contract, which is retroactive to fiscal year 2018, also offers benefits consistent with other district employees or drivers in similar positions, such as holiday pay and administrative closing pay, and incentives for improved service, such as premiums for safe driving and on-time arrivals. When Ty Owens walked into his local Social Security office in Manassas, Va., for help, he had to wait in line for five hours. If Donald Trump and his Health and Human Services Secretary, former drug company executive Alex Azar, have their way, that wait could get a lot longer. That’s because Azar’s operatives, after one 10-minute “bargaining” session in June with the Treasury Employees, who represent 14,000 HHS workers, threw their regressive demands on the table, gave the union two weeks to yield, then got up, walked out and declared an “impasse” in negotiations. That would let Trump’s government impose their “contract” on the union and would lead to longer lines and lesser quality service as federal workers depart in droves. It also brought Owens, president of NTEU Local 229 at HHS headquarters and dozens of his colleagues out into the HHS headquarters driveway for a noontime protest on Oct. 25. The HHS workers wielded hand-made signs such as “Public service deserves public respect” and “We’ve come so far. Don’t take it back, Azar!” They drew dozens of sympathetic honks from passing motorists and enthusiastic support from Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., Congress’ non-voting delegate from the Nation’s Capital. To cheers, she promised the future of the NTEU members, and the rest of the nation’s two million federal workers, would be far different if Democrats recapture Congress on Nov. 6. - Mark Gruenberg, Press Associates, Inc. (PAI); photo courtesy NTEU “They had no idea of the human toll that the work would take, over time. In fact, that they couldn’t find enough Americans to do the work.” Labor historian Joe McCartin, talking about the Erie Canal workers on this week’s Labor History Today podcast, available on your favorite podcast app. photo: Irish canal workers; courtesy The Wild Geese blog Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Film critic Pat Aufderheide on “Salt of the Earth,” the blacklisted 1954 film now recognized as one of the greatest American films ever made; labor historian Joe McCartin on the human cost of the Erie Canal, and the Meany Labor Archives’ Ben Blake delves into the American Federation of Labor pamphlet collection. Plus Salt of the Earth by Joan Baez, Erie Canal by Bruce Springsteen and the Erie Canal Rap, by MC LaLa. October 26 After eight years and at least 1,000 worker deaths—mostly Irish immigrants—the 350-mile Erie Canal opens, linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. Father John Raho wrote to his bishop that "so many die that there is hardly any time to give Extreme Unction (last rites) to everybody. We run night and day to assist the sick." - 1825 October 27 The New York City subway, the first rapid-transit system in America, opens. More than 100 workers died during the construction of the first 13 miles of tunnels and track – 1904 Three strikes on works-relief projects in Maryland were underway today, with charges that Depression-era Works Projects Administration jobs were paying only about 28 cents an hour—far less than was possible on direct relief. Civic officials in Cumberland, where authorities had established a 50-cent-per-hour minimum wage, supported the strikers - 1935 The National Labor Council is formed in Cincinnati to unite Black workers in the struggle for full economic, political and social equality. The group was to function for five years before disbanding, having forced many AFL and CIO unions to adopt non-discrimination policies - 1951 October 28 Union organizer and anarchist Luisa Capetillo (below) is born in Ariecibo, 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 Compiled/edited by Union Communication Services |