Union City Radio: 7:15am M-F; WPFW 89.3FM

Book talk: John Sayles on his new novel "Yellow Earth": Sat, February 8, 6pm – 7pm
Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008

MontCo workers make progress on contract
“Bargaining is going fairly well,” reports UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO president Gino Renne. “We’ve made tremendous progress on a number of important issues.” Renne said that while “We are confident that we can reach a good deal,” the union is “prepared to go to arbitration if necessary to get the best deal” for Montgomery County employees.

Pro-worker bills advance in VA Assembly
Both collective bargaining for public employees and repeal of "right to work" advanced this week in the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia AFL-CIO President Doris Crouse-Mays was one of a long line of speakers supporting HB 153, Repeal of Right to Work, at the Labor and Commerce subcommittee. In addition to union members, advocates for repeal including the state NAACP, Sierra Club, Green New Deal, and other organizations.
- Virginia Diamond

Today's Labor Quote: Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

“I was convinced that the workers must organize. Someone must go from shop to shop and find out who the workers were that were willing to work for better working conditions. I must be that someone."

O’Sullivan, the first woman organizer for the American Federation of Labor, was born on February 8, 1864. photo: Leaders of the Women's Trade Union (which she helped found) in 1907; (l-r) Hannah Hennessy, Ida Rauh, Mary Dreir, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, Margaret Robins, Margie Jones, Agnes Nestor and Helen Marot.

Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Sisters, rebels and social justice in the Jim Crow South
On today’s show, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall discusses her new book, Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of the South in an excerpt from the Working History podcast.
Also this week, Karen Nussbaum on Iris Rivera’s historic refusal to serve coffee, Jessica Pauszek reads poetry by a striking British miner’s wife and Tom Zaniello remembers Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
Last week's show: Voices from the Lansing Auto Town Gallery

February 7
Union miners in Cripple Creek, CO begin what is to become a five-month strike that started when mineowners cut wages to $2.50 a day, from $3. The state militia was called out in support of the strikers – the only time in U.S. history that a militia was directed to side with the workers. The strike ended in victory for the union - 1894

February 8
Players formed The NHL Players Association in New York City (photo) after owners refuse to release pension plan financial information. The union was busted when owners transferred key activists, but it successfully re-formed ten years later - 1957

Vigilantes beat IWW organizers for exercising free-speech rights, San Diego - 1912

February 9
Wobblie activist Tom Mooney convicted in bombing frame-up orchestrated by Pinkerton Detective Agency. He was pardoned and released 22 years later - 1917

U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy falsely charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. It seems that just about everyone else the Wisconsin senator didn’t like was a Communist as well, including scores of unionists. This was the beginning of "McCarthyism." He ultimately was officially condemned by the senate and died of alcoholism - 1950

Some 19,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers in Washington state and Oregon begin what is to become a 40-day strike over economic issues - 2000

- David Prosten

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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.

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