A hospice worker, a young mother and a McDonalds worker were among the more than 100 community and labor activists who turned out Tuesday morning in front of the Wilson Building for a spirited rally urging returning lawmakers to “Put people first” by immediately resuming work to pass fair scheduling and paid family leave legislation. While scheduling and family leave were put on hold before the summer recess, speakers pointed out that they couldn’t so easily do the same with their lives. Kimberly Mitchell, a Ward 7 resident who works at Macy’s downtown, spoke powerfully and personally about the twin crises affecting many workers and why both bills must pass. “While the Council was out,” she said, “I had MRIs done to confirm my worst nightmare: the brain tumor my doctors have been monitoring for two years has spread. My hours at work were cut yet again this summer and on a part time, unpredictable salary with no paid medical leave and a teenage daughter to support, I still don’t know how I’m going to afford the medical care I urgently need.”
Read more about the campaigns on our website at dclabor.org, where you can also find out about the latest local labor events and actions by clicking on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1896, militia were sent to Leadville, Colorado to break a miners’ strike. In 1912, Mother Jones led a march of miners' children through the streets of Charleston, West Virginia. And in 1991, members of five unions at the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas began the longest successful hotel strike in U.S. history. All 550 workers honored the picket line for the entirety of the 6-year, 4-month, 10-day fight against management’s insistence on cutting wages and eliminating pensions. Today’s labor quote is by Mother Jones, from the speech she made on this day in 1912 to striking coal miners in Charleston: “…this crime, starvation and murder of the innocents, so they can fill the operators’ pockets, and build dog kennels for the workers. Is it right?”
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The DC City Council is coming back from summer recess today, and local activists will be on the front steps of the Council to ask that they get to work for working families.
Just Hours and Paid Family Leave, two of the priority campaigns supported by organized labor and our allies, will be back on the table this session. For more than a year now, the labor-community coalition and folks working retail across the city have urged the Council to pass a "Just Hours" law to ensure full-time hours and stable work schedules in the local service industry. Similarly, the DC Paid Family Leave campaign has been waiting -- and waiting -- on the Council to pass a universal paid leave program. Come on down to City Council this morning at 8:15am and help spread the word on this day of action; show your support for critical policies that will help DC’s working families. Also on today’s labor calendar; NoVA Young Emerging Leaders is holding a Movie Night at 6pm in Annandale, Virginia; they’re showing "Dream On," a documentary that follows comedian John Fugelsang traveling the country to see if the American dream is still alive. And it’s a good night for labor films, as “Maestra” screens at 8pm at the Old Greenbelt Theatre in Greenbelt, Maryland, followed by Q&A with filmmaker Catherine Murphy. The film is about how 700,000 Cubans, mostly women, learned to read and write in just one year in 1961. For complete details and the latest on local labor events and actions, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1878, Upton Sinclair, socialist and author of “The Jungle”—published on this day in 1906—was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1887, according to folklorist John Garst, steel-drivin’ man John Henry, born a slave, outperformed a steam hammer on this date at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of the Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Alabama. Other researchers place the contest near Talcott, West Virginia. Today’s labor quote is from the work song "Take this Hammer" This old hammer killed John Henry, But it can't kill me. Take this hammer, take it to the Captain, Tell him I'm gone, babe, tell him I'm gone. For almost a hundred years after the abolition of slavery, convicts, mostly African American, were leased to work as forced labor in the mines, railroad camps, brickyards, turpentine farms, and then on road gangs of the American South, where work songs like this were common. Earlier this year, a few Catholic colleges drew a lot of national attention when they said a union of adjunct instructors would threaten their religious identity. But with no fanfare, hundreds of other Catholic hospitals, nursing homes, schools and, yes, colleges, bargain with unions representing their employees -- after all, the Catholic Church has taught for more than 100 years that workers have the right to organize!
Just in time for Labor Day, the DC-based Catholic Labor Network released a list of about 500 such Catholic institutions employing union labor. Washington-area examples include UNITE HERE food service workers in the cafeteria at the National Shrine, Newspaper Guild reporters at Catholic News Service... and of course, adjunct faculty at Georgetown and Trinity Washington universities represented by SEIU 500. Check out the report on our website at dclabor.org. On today’s labor calendar, catch up with all the latest local labor news at tonight’s meeting of the Metro Washington Labor Council, 6:30 pm at the AFL-CIO; complete details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1981, nearly half a million unionists converged on Washington D.C., for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies. And in 2006, musician and labor educator Joe Glazer, often referred to as “Labor’s Troubadour,” died today at age 88. Some of his more acclaimed songs include "The Mill Was Made of Marble," "Too Old To Work" and "Automaton." In 1979 he and labor folklorist Archie Green convened a meeting of 14 other labor musicians to begin what was to become the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange and, soon thereafter, the Labor Heritage Foundation, both of which are still going strong. Today’s labor quote is by Joe Glazer, from his song "The Mill Was Made of Marble" “I dreamed that I had died, And gone to my reward, A job in heaven's textile plant, On a golden boulevard. The mill was made of marble, The machines were made of gold, And nobody ever got tired, And nobody ever grew old.” Political, religious and community allies joined hundreds of airport workers Wednesday in demanding a $15 dollar an hour wage.
"The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has the power to make airline contractors pay a living wage," said Virginia Delegate Jennifer Boysco at a mid-afternoon rally at National Airport. "If Virginia is to continue moving forward, we can't leave airport workers behind," added Delegate Alfonso Lopez. And Reverend Graylan Hagler called on the airports to "have a backbone and meet a standard of dignity and respect." The mostly-immigrant workers also paid a moving tribute to their home countries struggling with war and famine, raising their crossed arms in support. "32BJ! When we fight, we win!" the workers chanted in the historic Terminal A lobby before marching silently through the airport to deliver a letter to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority signed over by over 1,000 contracted wheelchair attendants, skycaps, baggage handlers, checkpoint agents and cabin cleaners, some of whom earn as little as $6 an hour. Read more on our website at dclabor.org, where you can also find out about the latest local labor events and actions by clicking on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1945, more than 43,000 oil workers struck in 20 states, part of the post-war strike wave. In 2004, a player lockout by the National Hockey League began, leading to cancellation of what would have been the league’s 88th season. The lockout, over owner demands that salaries be capped, lasted 310 days. And in 2004, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee won a signed contract with the Mount Olive Pickle Company and growers, ending a 5-year boycott. The agreement marked the first time an American labor union represented guest workers. Today’s labor quote is by Richard Trumka “There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. We'll work for it, sisters and brothers. We'll stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other.” Richard Trumka was elected president of the AFL-CIO at the federation’s convention in Pittsburgh on this date in 2009. He had served as the secretary-treasurer under predecessor John Sweeney from 1995 to 2009, and prior to that was president of the United Mine Workers for 13 years. |
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