As news surfaced that the beleaguered DC Streetcar will not be ready this year and an exposé showed that the project has drained more than $200 million in taxpayer funds, the National Labor Relations Board has now ruled that the private contractor charged with operating the streetcar engaged in illegal anti-union activity, including threatening workers who wanted to join a union. The Amalgamated Transit Union says the decision is a legal victory, but that more must be done by DC Mayor Bowser’s office to improve wages and working conditions for streetcar employees. Even with all of the problems, the ATU would rather see WMATA run the streetcar project directly, and called on the mayor “to remove these rogue contractors, recognize the workers’ right to join ATU Local 689, and begin the process of integrating this into a publicly-operated and publicly-accountable transit system.”
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 Houston County, 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. In 1951, just ten days after an Illinois State mine inspector approved coal dust removal techniques at New Orient mine in West Frankfort, the mine exploded, largely because of coal dust accumulations, killing 119 workers. And in 2012, Michigan became the 24th state to adopt right-to-work legislation. The Republican-dominated state Senate introduced two measures—one covering private workers, the other covering public workers—by surprise five days earlier and immediately voted their passage; the Republican House approved them five days later (the fastest it legally could) and the Republican governor immediately signed both bills. Today’s labor quote is by historian Howard Zinn: “If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
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Union City Radio’s Chris Garlock and the Employment Justice Center’s Hannah Kane discuss worker rights with local activists/organizers and take listener calls.
Today's guests are Jon Liss, Executive Director and co-founder of New Virginia Majority, and Daniel Berhane, a taxi driver in Northern Virginia. New Virginia Majority is a group working to transform Virginia by organizing communities of color, women, working people, LGBTs, youth and progressive people. Jon has spent more than 30 years working for racial and gender justice with low-income tenants and workers in Northern Virginia. In the 1980s, Jon was an elected leader of a taxi drivers association. Daniel Berhane is a taxi driver in Northern Virginia. He has worked at the local and state levels to organize fellow taxi drivers in efforts to create a fair regulatory process for driving services like Uber and Lyft. “There is a lot of talk about the possibility of a government shutdown,” AFSCME Council 26 Executive Director Carl Goldman warned earlier this week. “While no one knows for sure what will happen, we must be prepared.”
Last week some two dozen leaders of Council 26 local unions held an "Emergency Leadership Meeting" to discuss the potential government shutdown, which could come as early as this Friday if no deal is reached. AFSCME lobbyists briefed the leaders on the latest news from Capitol Hill and they brainstormed on how to further prepare for a shutdown, including improving their communications network, creative protest actions, getting their message out to the public and how to help members survive a shutdown. Updates on this developing story will be posted on our website at dclabor.org On today's labor calendar, I’ll be interviewing Jon Liss of the New Virginia Majority on "Your Rights At Work" at 1 pm here on WPFW as well as taking listener calls about rights on the job. Then at 3 this afternoon, the AFL-CIO hosts a Human Rights Day Discussion on How the TPP Trade Agreement Would Undermine Our Rights Globally and tonight at 6 Trabajadores Unidos holds a workshop on Immigration Issues and DC Licenses. Complete details at dclabor.org; click on calendar. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1906, the IWW called the first sit-down strike in the United States at General Electric in Schenectady, New York. In 1948 the first International Human Rights Day was held, commemorating the signing at the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And in 1956, American Federation of Teachers Local 89 in Atlanta, Georgia, disaffiliated from the national union because of an AFT directive that all its locals integrate. A year later, the AFT expelled all locals that refused to do so. Today’s labor quote is from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, in part: “Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” More than five years after 29 miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, justice was finally served as former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was found criminally guilty for a conspiracy to willfully violate the Mine Safety and Health Act. Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts said that the decision will not bring back the 52 people killed on Massey Energy property during Blankenship’s reign as the head of that company, including the 29 killed at the Upper Big Branch disaster in 2010. “Their families still must live without their loved ones, holding their grief in their hearts the rest of their lives,” said Roberts. He added that "a message has gone out today to every coal operator in America who is willing to skirt mine safety and health laws: you do so at your own personal risk."
Today's labor calendar features a discussion with African labor leaders on “The South – South Connection,” from 3:30 to 5pm at the AFL-CIO. The Solidarity Center will host the discussion with trade union leaders from Nigeria, Liberia, Kenya and South Africa. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 2001, workers ratified a new labor agreement at Titan Tire of Natchez, Mississippi, ending the longest strike in the history of the U.S. tire industry, which began May 1, 1998, at the company's Des Moines, Iowa, plant. Today’s labor quote is by Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor: "Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens." |
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