Airport food workers are taking a stance against inequality and poor working conditions at DCA. A new report released yesterday by UNITE HERE Local 23 shows that at D.C.’s two government-owned airports, the government makes more money per hour from terminal concessions workers than do the workers themselves. The average wage for the workers is just $9.74 an hour, while the airport authority makes $17.17 an hour at DCA and $20.20 at Dulles. And while revenue from airport concessions is growing, wages and working conditions are stagnant. “DC airport food workers have been left behind,” says the union, “But not for long. Workers at DCA and Dulles are standing up for their rights.”
On today's labor calendar, Verizon strike picket lines continue throughout the metro area; go to dclabor.org and click on calendar for the latest list of locations and times. At 10 am this morning, Stand with Arleja, an expecting mother fired by Walmart, in an action organized by DC Jobs with Justice. At noon, in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists are co-sponsoring a showing of “Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story” at the AFL-CIO. Also at noon, there’s a Teamsters History Tour, sponsored by the DC LaborFest. And at 7 tonight, catch the screening of “Sing Faster: The Stagehand’s Ring Cycle” at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, hosted by IATSE 22, which represents local stagehands. Complete details, as always, at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. Here’s today’s labor history: On this date in 1805, striking shoemakers in Philadelphia were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy for violating an English common law that barred schemes aimed at forcing wage increases. The strike was broken. In 1932, as many as 20,000 unemployed World War I veterans and their families arrived in Washington, D.C., to demand early payment of a bonus they had been told they would get, but not until 1945. They built a shantytown near the U.S. Capitol but were burned out by U.S. troops after two months. In 1936, the notorious 11-month Remington Rand strike began. The strike spawned the "Mohawk Valley formula," described by investigators as a corporate plan to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, employ thugs to beat up strikers, and other tactics. The National Labor Relations Board termed the formula "a battle plan for industrial war" And on this date in 1962, the AFL-CIO began what was to become an unsuccessful campaign for a 35-hour workweek, with the goal of reducing unemployment. Earlier tries by organized labor for 32- or 35-hour weeks also failed. Today’s labor quote is by Senator Hiram Johnson of California, who called the 1932 attack on the Bonus Army ‘one of the blackest pages in our history.’ Noting that the veterans had been hailed as heroes and saviors only a decade earlier, Johnson said that ‘The president sent against these men, emaciated from hunger, scantily clad, unarmed, the troops of the United States army. Tanks, tear-bombs, all of the weapons of modern warfare were directed against those who had borne the arms of the republic.’
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