After strong campaigning by Fight for $15, SEIU and their allies, Maryland is apparently heading for an increase in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour – despite Governor Larry Hogan’s veto threat. That’s because both houses of the state legislature passed the $15 minimum wage hike by veto-proof margins. Maryland would thus join what is now a large number of states and major cities that have gotten tired of waiting for Congress to raise the federal hourly minimum of $7.25, and gone ahead and done it themselves. The federal minimum hasn’t budged in a decade.
Today’s labor calendar is jam-packed, with a conversation with ACORN founder Wade Rathke starting at 5pm at Georgetown, Union Night in Annapolis starting at 6, a discussion at GW on The Dignity of Work at 6, and a Benefit Concert for Quality Care and Patient Advocacy at 6:30 in Baltimore; complete details, of course, at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. In today’s labor history, on this date in 1894, the first “Poor People’s March” on Washington took place, when jobless workers -- known as “Coxey’s Army” -- demanded creation of a public works program. Today’s labor quote is by Chris Llewelyn, from her poem, “White Light (After Sonya Levien),” from “Fragments from the Fire: the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of March 25, 1911,” which won the Walt Whitman Award in 1986. It's not easy to teach us union. Garment girls shift like sand, start too young in the trade, wait for Prince Charming to take em away. When I arrived from Russia my cheeks like apples. And look now! But talk about a dreaming fool! Me, thirteen in the Golden Land longing to work at Life and Love. Be what you call a builder of bridges. I'd go back, show all Moscow a great American lady. My first position: feeding kerchiefs to machine. First English sentence: "Watch your needle -- 3,000 stitches A minute." I was some swift kid in those days: seventy-two-hundred an hour, eighty-six-thousand pieces A day, four dollars in the pay envelope -- and that the busy season. For three months my pay was bread. I yearned to earn wages, save my little sister's passage, I was so lonely in America. Soon like the rest I grieved at my machine, swore I'd marry any old man just to get out. One by one the others left to marry And returned to Triangle. I saw my future in a white heat light no dreams could soften. Thanks to the folks at Friday’s Folklore for sharing that poem; to sign up for Friday’s Folklore, just click here. Union City Radio is supported by our friends at Union Plus. Thinking about buying or refinancing a home? The Union Plus Mortgage Program provides top-notch service and is union-owned. Visit unionplus.org/mortgage.
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