Union City Radio for Thursday, June 16

Outside the Community for Creative Non-Violence, residents of the homeless shelter now have something fresh and colorful to look at: themselves. A bright new mural was completed recently, thanks to the efforts of Azita Mashayekhi, a Teamsters staffer and OPEIU Local 2 member. Mashayekhi came up with the idea after passing the shelter’s “desolate wall” during her daily commute to her job at Teamsters headquarters up the street.
An artist herself, Mashayekhi began navigating the maze of government bureaucracy and got the attention of the Murals DC Project. The mural – by D.C. artist Rose Jaffe -- shows portraits of several of the current residents and staffers at the shelter, as well as its late founder, Mitch Snyder. “People should be remembered, and that’s the least we can do, to remind people who come here that other people care,” Mashayekhi said. “Sometimes you have to go to the government and push them.” Next week, Mashayekhi's photography will be on display at the Great Labor Arts Exchange where she will be leading a photography workshop.

On today’s "Your Rights At Work" call-in show here on WPFW at 1pm, our guests include local transit workers president Jackie Jeter, on how SafeTrack is affecting Metro workers, and [email protected]’s Jerame Davis is in-studio with me and guest co-host Damon Silver to discuss discrimination and harassment at work of gays and lesbians, in the aftermath of the Orlando tragedy.
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 1918, railroad union leader and socialist Gene Debs spoke in Canton, Ohio, on the relation between capitalism and war. Ten days later he was arrested under the Espionage Act, and eventually sentenced to 10 years in jail.

In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act became law, but was later declared unconstitutional. It established the right to unionize, set maximum hours and minimum wages for every major industry, abolished sweatshops and child labor. The Wagner Act, in effect today, was approved two years later to legalize unionization.

And on this date in 2000, Inacom Corporation, once the world's largest computer dealer, sent most of its employees an email instructing them to call a toll-free phone number; when they called, a recorded message announced they had been fired.

Today’s labor quote is by Gene Debs
“The working class who make the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have never yet had a voice in declaring war. The ruling class has always made the war and made the peace.”