Today’s Labor Calendar
Click here for the complete calendar and details. Got something to add or update? Email us at [email protected].
Union City Radio: 7:15am, WPFW-FM 89.3 FM
2-minute audio version of the Metro Washington Labor Council's Union City newsletter.
Your Rights at Work radio show (WPFW 89.3FM): Thu, April 6, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online.
On this week’s show: AFSCME launches I Am Story podcast about the 1968 Memphis sanitation worker strike. |
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Union warns Safeway-Kroger merger will cost jobs, hike prices
Supermarket workers -- members of UFCW Local 400 -- were out at area Safeway and Kroger supermarkets yesterday as part of “StopTheMerger” protests across the country, warning shoppers that the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons (which owns Safeway) “is a looming disaster for everyone who buys groceries in America.” The union is urging the Federal Trade Commission to veto the proposed multi-billion-dollar merger. “I come out of Local 400,” said Metro DC President Dyana Forester, who joined two dozen protesters outside the Safeway in Southwest, just blocks from Nationals Park. That store was her local grocery when growing up. “We want to make sure we have the community behind us, and let them know how the merger would impact the community and the jobs.” The fear among UFCW 400 workers and other Safeway and Kroger workers nationwide is that if the merger goes through, dozens of stores will be closed, thousands of jobs will be lost, and prices will rise for shoppers because competition for their business will decline, said UFCW 400’s Aretha Green. “We are on the verge of losing our store,” said Green, “We feel it coming.”
- reporting by Mark Gruenberg, PAI News; photo by Chris Garlock/Union City |
Labor Quote: I AM Story podcast
“You know the photo. It's iconic. Marchers in the streets holding a simple sign with a simple message: I Am A Man.”
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Today’s Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The 1922-23 Windber Coal Strike. Last week’s show: Erasing Virginia’s labor history.
The first slave revolt in the U.S. occurs at a slave market in New York City’s Wall Street area. Twenty-one blacks were executed for killing nine whites. The city responded by strengthening its slave codes – 1712
Birth of Rose Schneiderman, prominent member of the New York Women's Trade Union League, an active participant in the Uprising of the 20,000, the massive strike of shirtwaist workers in New York City led by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1909, and famous for an angry speech about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire: “Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers…Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement” – 1882
What was to become a two-month strike by minor league umpires begins, largely over money: $5,500 to $15,000 for a season running 142 games. The strike ended with a slight improvement in pay – 2006
David Prosten
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Published by the Metropolitan Washington Labor Council, an AFL-CIO "Union City" Central Labor Council whose 200 affiliated union locals represent 150,000 area union members. DYANA FORESTER, PRESIDENT.
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