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Safeway's plan to close distribution center "A slap in the face"

MD/VA Labor in Session updates

Super Bowl features union footballs

New online labor bookstore

Union Voice/Readers Write: "Fat or "Fair" promotion?

Today's Labor Quote: Sam Gompers

Today's Labor History

LABOR CALENDAR; [link removed] click here for latest listings

Union City Radio: 7:15am M-F; [link removed] WPFW 89.3FM

Metropolitan Washington Council Candidate Education Forum: Mon, February 3, 6pm - 8pm
Contact organizer for details; By invitation; email mailto:[email protected] [email protected]

Labor Live@5: Magpie (Greg Artzner & Terry Leonino): Tue, February 4, 5pm - 6pm
WPFW 89.3FM

photo: DC Attorney General Karl Racine discussed recent major wins on wage theft for DC workers on yesterday's Your Rights At Work on WPFW 89.3 FM; [link removed] click here to listen to the show, or search for Union City Radio on your favorite podcast app. photo by Chris Garlock

Safeway's plan to close distribution center "A slap in the face"
Workers at the Safeway's Collington Distribution Center reacted with shock and anger Thursday when they were abruptly informed that the Center is being shut down by the end of May. "It's like a slap in the face to everyone, especially to the workers because they sacrificed for the company to stay here," said Ritchie Brooks, president of Teamsters Local 730, which represents warehouse workers. Safeway parent company Albertsons said that warehouse operations are being moved to a distribution center in Denver, Pennsylvania. The workers and local officials are especially frustrated because they made concessions and pledged financial incentives four years ago to keep the facility open. "Albertsons has had the benefit of those cost savings these past years," said Prince George's County Economic Development Corporation President and CEO David Iannucci in a statement. "The company owes it to its workforce to explore every possible way to keep these jobs here in Maryland." The unions plan to fight the closure. "They told us no four years ago, and we kept it open," said Local 730's Tyrone Richardson. The move by Safeway follows last month's [link removed] closing or sale of Shoppers Food stores around the region, affecting hundreds of UFCW 400 workers.
- Excerpted from a [link removed] report on WJLA; photo: Teamsters 730 in October 2015, after launching an online petition urging Safeway to delay its decision to close its local distribution center

MD/VA Labor in Session updates
MD: "Right-to-Work" legislation is being heard Tuesday in the House Economic Matters Committee; the Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO is urging submission of testimony in strong opposition to HB 163 (must be submitted by noon on Monday, February 3rd) as well as turnout at the committee hearing at 1pm on Feb. 4. Contact Chuck Cook at mailto:[email protected] [email protected] for details, including a template for testimony.
VA: Two key bills are pending, including [link removed] Collective Bargaining for Public Employees and [link removed] Repeal Right to Work. [link removed] Click here for details.
- David Stephen, MWC Political Director

Super Bowl features union footballs
Did you know the leather for every single NFL football, including the ones that will be used in this Sunday's Super Bowl, is crafted by members of UFCW Local 1546 who work at the Horween Leather Company? Sister local UFCW 1994/MCGEO reports that "The hard-working men and women of the Horween Leather Company in Chicago, Ill., have been supplying the leather for every Super Bowl football since the very first game in 1967. "It doesn't just take a high-level of skill to throw a football, it takes a lot of talent to make one too," said Earl Ferguson, a machine operator and UFCW Local 1546 member at Horween. Check out the video below for a peek inside the historic plant.
And if you're hosting a party on Super Bowl Sunday, be sure your snacks and drinks are union made. Wash it down with something off Labor 411's selection of nearly [link removed] 250 union-made brews.

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New online labor bookstore
A new labor bookstore has just opened online -- [link removed] laborsbookstore.com -- that's bringing back into print a number of the valuable union-building tools lost to the labor community when Union Communication Services shut down last year. One of the most popular titles, "The Union Steward's Complete Guide," is being brought back in a brand-new updated edition, along with a healthy selection of used labor books, from Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" to Juliet Schor's "The Overworked American."

Union Voice/Readers Write: "Fat or "Fair" promotion?
"I checked on YouTube, and it also quotes Dolly Parton (in her song "9 To 5") as saying `fat promotion,' ([link removed] Labor Quote, 1/29), but I'm pretty sure she's saying `fair' promotion," writes Paul McKenna. "Doesn't `fair' promotion make more sense?"
It does indeed. Although [link removed] Lyrics.com has the line as "fat promotion" the more authoritative [link removed] Genius lyrics site says "9 to 5, for service and devotion/You would think that I/Would deserve a fair promotion". Check it out for yourself in the video below.

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Today's Labor Quote: Emma Tenayuca

"I was arrested a number of times. I never thought in terms of fear. I thought in terms of justice."

Tenayuca led 12,000 pecan shellers - mostly Latino women - on a 3-month strike in San Antonio, Texas that began on this date in 1938.

Today's Labor History

This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] Voices from the Lansing Auto Town Gallery

On today's show, auto worker Dorothy Stevens on her pioneering career at the Fisher Body plant in Lansing, MI. Also this week, Karen Nussbaum on Dolly Parton's hit song, Bill Fletcher on the wildcat strike by the Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement, and the Cool Things from the Meany Archives team digs into the AFL's cornerstone.
Last week's show: (1/19): [link removed] MLK: All Labor Has Dignity

January 31
Ida M. Fuller is the first retiree to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484; her first check was for $22.54 - 1940

After scoring successes with representation elections conducted under the protective oversight of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the United Farm Workers of America officially ends its historic table grape, lettuce and wine boycotts - 1978

Union and student pressure forces Harvard university to adopt new labor policies raising wages for lowest-paid workers - 2002

Five months after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans school board fires every teacher in the district in what the United Teachers of New Orleans sees as an effort to break the union and privatize the school system - 2005

February 1
Led by 23-year-old Kate Mullaney, the Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, N.Y, raises earnings for female laundry workers from two dollars to 14 dollars a week - 1864

25,000 Paterson, NJ silk workers strike for eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. 1,800 were arrested over the course of the six-month walkout, led by the Wobblies. They returned to work on their employers' terms - 1913

February 2
Sixteen thousand silk workers in Paterson, NJ and 32,000 in Lawrence, Mass. strike for shorter work week with no cut in pay - 1919

Legal secretary Iris Rivera (photo below) fired for refusing to make coffee; secretaries across Chicago protest - 1977

The 170-day lockout (although management called it a strike) of 22,000 steelworkers by USX Corp. ends with a pay cut but greater job security. It was the longest work stoppage in the history of the U.S. steel industry - 1987

- David Prosten;

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source for all news items and www.unionist.com as the source for Today's Labor History.

Published by the Metropolitan Washington Council, an AFL-CIO "Union City" Central Labor Council whose 200 affiliated union locals represent 150,000 area union members. JACKIE JETER, PRESIDENT.

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