For 29 years, Mary Stephens worked at the Parkersburg Care Center in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the last 14 years in laundry. By all accounts, she was a model employee. Two years ago, a subcontractor, Health Care Services Group, was hired to run the laundry. Up until this point, residents’ clothes, sheets, towels and other personal items had been washed with two workers operating the laundry. But in a cost-cutting move, HCSG decided one worker could do the job, loading all the work onto Mary. She worked as hard as she could, but Mary kept falling behind and last October, she was fired. The workers – like Mary, members of UFCW Local 400 -- united and proved that the laundry job was not able to be done by one person. Mary and her union filed a grievance and Mary got more than $12,000 dollars in back pay. Although Mary decided to start her retirement instead of returning to work, the subcontractor running the laundry operation has been bringing in extra people to help, and while this change was too late for Mary, her union ensured that justice was served.
Today’s labor calendar is jammed, starting with a Medicare for All rally at 12:30pm, and then starting at 3, the AFL-CIO will host a discussion with Brazil's national union center and the Workers Party. At 4 there’s a screening of the new film Stand! at the AFL-CIO and tonight at 6 the Baltimore chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute is hosting their Annual Awards Banquet. Complete details, as always, are at dclabor.org; click on Calendar. In today’s labor history, on this date in 1894, Coxey’s Army of 500 unemployed civil war veterans reached Washington, DC. Today’s labor quote is by Jacob S. Coxey, from a speech he attempted to give in 1894. Police arrested him for walking on the grass, but fifty years later, in 1944, Coxey finally delivered the speech from the steps of the U.S. Congress, saying: “We stand here to-day in behalf of millions of toilers whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, whose prayers have been unresponded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from them by unjust legislation, which protects idlers, speculators, and gamblers..." Read the whole speech here. Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Did you know that union members can save up to 25% when renting cars, vans, or SUVs by using the Union Plus Car Rental Program? Get going at unionplus.org/carrental.
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