Employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development will save up to $1500 in mass transit expenses this year, thanks to Local 476 of the American Federation of Government Employees. As a result of bargaining demands by Local 476, HUD agreed to increase the transit subsidy on May 1 and then announced that the increase would be retroactive to January 1, 2016. While HUD did not acknowledge the union in either of its announcements, attempting to make it appear as if the increased subsidy were an unsolicited benefit offered by the Department, Local 476 president Ashaki Robinson Johns told members that "AFGE Local 476 is proud to be advocating for you, both in the workplace and on Capitol Hill, and we are pleased to share in this latest victory with you."
On today’s labor calendar, there’s a discussion with Pride at Work Co-Founder and AFL-CIO Executive Council Member Nancy Wohlforth at noon at the AFL-CIO. Wohlforth, the first openly gay officer of an international union, has been a champion of social and economic justice and in the early 1990s, she and a group of LGBTQ labor activists came together to form Pride at Work, which was chartered in 1994 and gained official recognition by the AFL-CIO in 1997. Wohlforth will discuss the organization’s struggle to be recognized and provide her perspective on the evolving landscape for LGBTQ equality, from employment nondiscrimination to transgender rights. For complete details and the latest local labor calendar, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1864, twenty-one young women and girls making cartridges for the Union Army at the Washington, D.C. arsenal during the Civil War were killed in an accidental explosion. Most of the victims were Irish immigrants. A monument was erected in the Congressional Cemetery, where 17 of the workers are buried. In 1873, Susan B. Anthony went on trial in Canandaigua, New York for casting her ballot in a federal election the previous November, in violation of existing statutes barring women from the vote. And in 1903, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led a rally in Philadelphia to focus public attention on children mutilated in the state's textile mills. Three weeks later the 73-year-old would lead a march to New York City to plead with President Theodore Roosevelt to help improve conditions for the children. Today’s labor quote is by Susan B. Anthony “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.”
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