This week’s wide-ranging bipartisan federal budget agreement apparently avoids a further hit on federal workers, the two top unions for those workers say. But it also potentially blows a big hole in large private employers’ responsibility for providing health insurance to their workers. And the unions warned that the budget drama isn’t over yet. That’s because a temporary spending bill, covering all government agencies, expires December 11.
 
Wearing purple T-shirts that read “Fighting for $15 and union rights at the airport,” about 200 airport workers from across the country rallied at National Airport last week for better wages and benefits. The Washington Post reports that the event kicked off efforts by SEIU 32BJ to win better wages and benefits for the contract workers who keep the airport running– the wheelchair attendants, janitors, cabin cleaners and baggage handlers– and earn as little as $6.75 an hour.  Last week’s rally was part of a nationwide campaign for a $15 minimum wage for airport workers.
 
On today's Labor Calendar, The Maryland State and District AFL-CIO 30th Biennial Convention kicks off this morning at the Washington Court Hotel; At 12:30pm check out “Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South” at the AFL-CIO; NoVA Labor-to-Labor phone banks continue today and then tomorrow at 8:30am, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe will rally labor volunteers before they hit the doors to turn out the union vote in next Tuesday’s elections; And on Sunday from 10-2, Teamsters 730 and their allies will leaflet area Safeway supermarkets to protest the planned closing of the Safeway distribution center in Landover.
Go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for complete details. 
 
Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1986, Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urged 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.
 
Today’s labor quote is by Marion Wright Edelman:
"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."
An American activist for the rights of children, Marion Wright Edelman is president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.
 
Today in Labor History is provided by Union Communication Services, at Unionist.com.
 
Rockin’ Solidarity is performed by Joe Uehlein and The Bones Of Contention; hear more at uliners.com
 
Union City Radio engineering is by David “The Cleaner” Kelly.
 
Union City is available at dclabor.org, on Facebook, and on Twitter; follow us @dclabor.
 
Union City Radio is a partnership between the Metro Washington Council and 89.3 FM WPFW, your station for jazz and justice. 
 
 
This has been Chris Garlock; see you on the line!

Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock and DCNA’s Ed Smith discuss worker rights with local activists/organizers and takes listener calls. 

Guests on today’s show include Caitlin Connolly, Home Care Fair Pay campaign coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, on new rules on labor standards for home care workers,  and Employment Justice Center organizer Emma Cleveland, with the story of Blanca de Leon, a hair stylist recently fired without notice by Bubbles Salon in DC; click here to sign a petition demanding that Bubbles establish a policy that requires that employees be given 30 days notice before being fired.

Management at United Way Worldwide has agreed to card check recognition and neutrality in future organizing drives among staffers at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters. The pact was crafted after The Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035 hit unexpected anti-union resistance from United Way managers after agency staffers started organizing with the Guild earlier this year. A number of top labor leaders serve on the United Way board and many union members contribute to the charity.

Behind those delicious berries at your local supermarket may be wage theft and union busting. Local activists picketed the 14th Street Whole Foods and Trader Joe's last Saturday to ask both chains to drop Driscoll's Berries and urge customers to boycott them. “Driscoll's is a major distributor for Sakuma, a berry producer known for wage theft, union busting, and even an armed raid on a camp where their workers were living,” reports “Mark,” a grocery store worker and member of the DC IWW, one of the picket organizers.
Read more at dclabor.org
 
On today's Labor Calendar, NoVA Labor-to-Labor phone banks continue today with less than a week to go before next Tuesday’s elections; there’s a discussion of labor market trends and the gig economy today starting at 9:30am at the Economic Policy Institute, and at 1pm on the "Your Rights At Work" Call-in Radio Show on WPFW 89.3 FM, we’ll take listener calls and visit with the National Employment Law Project’s Caitlin Connolly, who will discuss workplace issues for homecare workers.
Go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for complete details. 
 
Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1929 —"Black Tuesday"— Wall Street crashed, 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.
 
Today’s labor quote is by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:
“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few; but we can't have both."    

​Oscar-award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence has been making headlines lately, but not because she’s promoting an upcoming film. Lawrence recently penned an honest, frank letter on her personal experience with the wage gap in Hollywood. Her realization that she has been paid significantly less than her male peers despite performing the exact same work is a story that working women everywhere can relate to. Unfortunately, even in 2015 when women make up nearly half of the workforce, too many don’t earn equal pay for equal work. 
Wage inequality impacts our entire economy, not just women who are systemically shortchanged on the job. Jennifer Lawrence is a union member and is lucky enough to be protected by a union contract. But not all working women are so fortunate. Whether you are a famous actress in Hollywood or a teacher in a small town, receiving less pay than a male co-worker simply because of gender is never right. By joining together and negotiating for higher wages, working women can begin to conquer the pay gap. 
Read more on the AFL-CIO’s blog at aflcio.org

For the latest local labor event listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar.

Here’s today’s labor history:
On this date in 1879, union organizer and anarchist Luisa Capetillo was born in 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.

In 1965, the Gateway Arch, a 630-foot high inverted centenary arch of stainless steel marking the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront of St. Louis, Missouri, was completed after two and one-half years. Although it was predicted 13 lives would be lost in construction, not a single worker died.

Today’s labor quote is by Harry S. Truman, who said:
“It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." 
The 33rd President of the United States, Harry Truman was born and died in Missouri.