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!
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