Workers of the nation's only Lipton tea plant overwhelmingly voted to approve their first union contract on Monday.
The workers joined UFCW Local 400 last year. The contract covers 240 workers at the Suffolk, Virginia facility and includes significant improvements to working conditions and healthcare benefits. Mechanic Philip Surace said his first experience with a union was when he called Local 400 last spring. “I didn’t know much about unions, but I knew something had to be done,” he says. Philip quickly pulled together a meeting with his coworkers to learn about their rights to form a union. “Two months later, we had our union. I would encourage anyone who wants to make their workplace better to do the same thing we did.” Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, abolishing racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces. Labor leader A. Philip Randolph had successfully pressed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ban discrimination in the defense industries during World War II and after the war he pressured Truman to end segregation in the armed services. In 1992, the Americans With Disabilities Act took effect on this date. The ADA requires employers to offer reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities and bans discrimination against such workers. Today’s labor quote is by A. Philip Randolph, who said: "Justice is never given; it is exacted, and the struggle must be continuous, for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship." Union City Radio is supported by UnionPlus, which is committed to improving the quality of life for all working families; find out more at unionplus.org.
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