News: Potomac Disposal wants more tax dollars from Montgomery County but the company’s CEO says he has no intention of sharing with the workers who actually pick up the trash. The Mid-Atlantic Region Laborers, which represents about 200 trash haulers in Montgomery County, has launched a campaign urging the Montgomery County Council to support a raise for the workers. Click here to send an email to County Executive Ike Leggett.
Here’s today’s labor history: on this date in 1951, the Bagel Bakers of America union continued a work slowdown at 32 of New York’s 34 bagel bakeries in a dispute over health and welfare fund payments and workplace sanitation. Smoked salmon sales were down as well, although the effect on the cream cheese market was not reported. And on this date in 1977, eight female bank tellers in Willmar, Minnesota began the first strike against a bank in U.S. history. They walked out because they were paid little more than half what male tellers were paid. The strike ended in moral victory but economic defeat two years later. Today’s labor quote is by president John F. Kennedy: “We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.”
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News: Registered nurses at Medstar Washington Hospital Center are planning a one-day strike on December 22, saying that hospital management routinely and dangerously understaffs nurses, putting patients at risk. Hospital executives on November 26 declared an impasse and imposed their contract offer, but National Nurses United, which represents the RNs, called the move “illegal” and says there is no impasse.
And more than 140 District of Columbia home health care workers last week filed a lawsuit against three of the city’s largest Medicaid providers alleging widespread failure to pay legally required wages. They’ll seek class action certification on behalf of 6,000 co-workers in the coming weeks, and damages of $150 million dollars in pay could be owed to the workers, according to 1199-SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1921, a protest by 500 women in Kansas that began earlier in the week – organized in support of striking mine workers and against new anti-labor legislation that forced unions into arbitration and outlawed strikes in the state – swelled to 4,000, stretching a mile long. The women, dubbed the “Amazon Army” by the New York Times, disbanded upon hearing that the militia was on its way. Victory came a year later when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Kansas anti-labor laws unconstitutional. Today’s labor quote is by Susan B. Anthony: “Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.” Susan B. Anthony, who said: “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” She also famously said that “Failure is impossible.” Champion of temperance, abolition and African American rights, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan B. Anthony devoted her life to organizing and leading the woman suffrage movement. News: Labor music, movies and posters will be on sale today at rock-bottom prices at the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Inventory Blowout Sale, which runs from 11a to 2:30p in the lobby at the AFL-CIO, at 16th and I streets. “You need the culture, we need the space!” says Fran Owens.
And tomorrow night you can join the DC Labor Chorus for “songs that speak to your heart, head and feet!” at the “Favorite & Sacred Songs Holiday Concert” Saturday, December 13, starting at 7:30pm in The Chapel at the new ATU Training and Education Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Admission is free; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for full details. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 2006, a U.S. immigration sweep of half a dozen Swift meat plants resulted in arrests of nearly thirteen hundred undocumented workers. Today’s labor quote is by economist Henry George: “There are three ways by which an individual can get wealth – by work, by gift and by theft. And clearly, the reason why the workers get so little is that the beggars and thieves get so much.” Henry George was a 19th Century American writer, politician and political economist. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty, published in 1879, sold millions of copies worldwide. It is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of the land value tax as a remedy. News: Transit worker’s union local 689, the National Nurses Union and Washington Teachers Local 6 are among those planning to participate in this Saturday’s National March Against Police Violence, organized by the National Action Network. Marchers will gather at 10:30 a.m at Freedom Plaza.
Next Tuesday, December 16, is the deadline for donating to the Community Services Agency’s Holiday Basket Project. To donate non-perishable food or gift cards, or make a monetary donation, contact CSA Executive Director Kathleen McKirchy at [email protected] or call 202 974-8221. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1886, a small group of black farmers organized the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union in Texas. They had been barred from membership in the all-white Southern Farmers’ Alliance. Through intensive organizing, along with merging with another black farmers group, the renamed Colored Alliance by 1891 claimed a membership of 1.2 million black farmers. Today’s labor quote is by President Harry S. Truman: “It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one degree lower.” |
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