Bowser urged to declare grocery workers “first responders” Following news of the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in several area grocery stores, UFCW Local 400 is urging DC Mayor Bowser to declare grocery workers as “first responders.” The union, which represents thousands of grocery workers at Giant, Shoppers, and Safeway stores in the DMV area, is calling on Mayor Bowser to provide access to free, dedicated testing sites and protective equipment for grocery store, pharmacy, and food processing workers, as has been made available to other first responders in the District. “Our members working on the frontlines of this crisis are exposed to hundreds of customers per day and thousands per week, not to mention their coworkers, families and neighbors,” said UFCW Local 400 president Mark Federici. “We must do everything in our power to ensure these essential personnel are not putting themselves at unnecessary risk or serving as unintentional vectors for the virus. Without adequate testing, there is simply no way to know how widespread their exposure could be. The time to take immediate action is now, now, now!” UFCW has launched an online action targeting Mayor Bowser and governors from surrounding states.
Tough Teamsters: “It’s a challenge every day” Teamsters 639’s 9,000 DC-area members drive for a number of area employers, from freight haulers to UPS. “Some of them are flourishing and some are going to take a hit,” Local 639 president John Gibson told Union City recently when we checked in on how the COVID-19 outbreak is affecting his members. “We also have folks in the casino industry over at MGM, and that's pretty much shut down,” Gibson said. Meanwhile, he said, “out there at Dulles, the planes are not really operating, so obviously that's having a huge impact. On Amtrak, where we have a contract with Aramark, the trains aren't running as much as they were, if at all. And people just aren't traveling. So those industries are being impacted, but some others are not.” As far as the danger of exposure, Gibson says “It’s a challenge every day. These guys go out there knowing that they're susceptible to exposure to this virus, but they do it anyway, practicing safe hygiene procedure and all that, but it is really tough. But our Teamsters are tough. They're out there.”
Solidarity Center Report: Workers Stand Up for Rights in Bangladesh, Ukraine In Ukraine, as workers face employer efforts to shortchange their pay, lay them off or take other adverse actions during the COVID-19 crisis, many are turning to Labor Initiatives, a Solidarity Center-supported Ukrainian NGO that provides legal assistance to workers. And in Bangladesh, tens of thousands of garment workers are successfully standing up to employers through their unions to ensure they are paid during plant closures and have proper protective equipment if they must report to work. Find out more at Solidarity Center.
MWC COVID-19 UPDATES Legislative updates: click here for the latest updates, including Stay at Home Order Details for Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. & What Are Allowable Recreational Activities in DC? Unemployment Insurance: click here for the latest helpful information on UI. CSA: latest resource updates posted here, including latest version of "WHEN THE PAYCHECK STOPS: An AFL-CIO Survival Guide to Unemployment" including a Spanish version.
Today's Labor Quote: Martin Luther King Jr.
“Whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery.”
Dr. King delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in a church packed with union members and others on this date in 1968. He had returned to Memphis to stand with striking AFSCME sanitation workers, and was assassinated the following day.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Socialists, suffragettes and fear at work On this week’s show, Kurt Stand, who – at least until recently – was a bookseller at Busboys and Poets here in Washington, DC, tells us about his last days at work, Carl Goldman reminds us of the day in 1913 when 20,000 striking textile workers and their supporters gathered in front of the house of the socialist mayor of Haldeon, New Jersey, and Jessica Pauszek tells the story of Tough Annie, a woman of means who threw in her lot with working women in London during the struggle for women’s suffrage. Last week’s show: COVID-19: An injury to one is the concern of all
20,000 textile mill strikers in Paterson, NJ gather on the green in front of the house of Pietro Botto, the socialist mayor of nearby Haledon, to receive encouragement by novelist Upton Sinclair, journalist John Reed and speakers from the Wobblies. Today, the Botto House is home to the American Labor Museum - 1913
UAW Local 833 strikes the Kohler bathroom fixtures company in Kohler, Wisc. The strike ends six years later after Kohler is found guilty of refusing to bargain, agrees to reinstate 1,400 strikers and pay them $4.5 million in back pay and pension credits - 1954
- David Prosten; photo: William Dudley Haywood at the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike; Photo: Library of Congress
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