Labor union presidents seldom have good things to say about the company boss. But Jackie Jeter, the head of Metro’s principal union, is praising the transit agency’s new chief, Paul J. Wiedefeld, describing him as the first general manager in memory to take safety seriously.

And in the latest news on a story we’ve been following for a while now, Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers told Congress last week that more than half of the private contract workers at the Senate cafeteria were misclassified and thus at risk for being underpaid. We’ve got a link to the Washington Post’s reports on both these stories on our website at dclabor.org

And for the latest local labor activities, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1935, members of Gas House Workers’ Union Local 18799 began what was to become a four-month recognition strike against the Laclede Gas Light Company in St. Louis. The union later said the strike was the first ever against a public utility in the United States.

In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Violence during the march persuaded him to return to Memphis the following week, where he was assassinated.

Today’s labor quote is by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream - a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality. That is the dream...”

After a decade at the helm of NoVA Labor, Dan Duncan last week announced he won't be running for another term. "The time has come to move on and allow new leadership to take NoVA Labor to new heights," Duncan said. "We have a wonderful crew of people running our federation," Duncan added. "What we have done could never be accomplished by one person or one local. We have done it together and under the new leadership team that’s being formed, we will continue to make NoVA Labor bigger, better and stronger."

On this weekend’s labor calendar, catch the Phil Ochs Song Night tomorrow as Pat Wictor, Joe Jencks, Greg Greenway, Magpie and SONiA perform at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington starting at 7pm.
For the latest local labor activities, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1872, Toronto printers struck for the 9-hour day in what is believed to be Canada’s first major strike.

In 1894, the first “Poor People’s March” on Washington was held, in which a thousand jobless workers demanded creation of a public works program. Led by populist Jacob Coxey, the unemployed protesters became known as “Coxey’s Army.”

In 1911, a total of 146 workers were killed in a fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a disaster that would launch a national movement for safer working conditions.

And on this date in 1947, an explosion at a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois killed 111 miners. Mineworkers President John L. Lewis called a 6-day work stoppage by the nation’s 400,000 soft coal miners to demand safer working conditions.

Today’s labor quote is by Frances Perkins
“There was a stricken conscience of public guilt and we all felt that we had been wrong, that something was wrong with that building which we had accepted or the tragedy never would have happened. Moved by this sense of stricken guilt, we banded ourselves together to find a way by law to prevent this kind of disaster.”
Frances Perkins witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster and went on to serve as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet.

Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock hosts, with DCNA Executive Director Ed Smith. 

​Today's guests: 
Wala Blegay. Staff Attorney for DC Nurses Association & Sabrathia Draine Ishakwue, Registered Nurse, Member of DC Nurses Association, on the increasing violence in area hospitals and the need for legislation protecting local nurses at work. 
Carlos Jimenez, new Executive Director at the Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO.

Labor song of the week: The Union Grand; by Jack Chernos 

This Week’s Labor Quiz: Why is Troy, New York, significant in women’s history? Is is because:
Harriet Tubman lived there; Mother Jones organized a union there; the first sustained union of women workers was formed there; OR: women workers were first allowed to wear pants there.

Commuters on Route 29 Tuesday morning wondering why pregnant women were picketing honked their support when they saw the banner reading “Verizon Has Labor Pains!” “It’s been nine months since we began bargaining,” said CWA 2108 president Marilyn Irwin, “and we’re not much closer to a contract than we were on that first day.” While negotiations continue, the Verizon workers are frustrated and Irwin said that a strike “is a very real possibility. It’s just day to day and workers are angry that a company that’s making a billion and a half dollars a month in profits is trying to take away our job security and ruin our work lives.” Despite those frustrations and the chilly morning, the Local 2108 members were in good spirits Tuesday morning as they patted bellies exaggeratedly distended with pillows and waved at passing commuters. 

On today’s labor calendar, check out “Your Rights at Work” today at 1pm here on WPFW 89.3FM, as we discuss patient safety with the DC Nurses Association.
For the latest local labor activities, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar

Here’s today’s labor history:
In this date in 1900, groundbreaking began on the first section of the New York City subway system, from City Hall to the Bronx.

Today’s labor quote is by William O. Douglas
“The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses.  Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property.”
William O. Douglas served as U. S. Supreme Court justice from 1939 to 1975; his term, lasting 36 years and 209 days, is the longest term in the history of the Supreme Court.