LABOR CALENDAR

Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report

The Coronavirus Pandemic and K-12 Education Funding: Fri, April 24, 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Via Zoom

Coalition to Repeal Right to Work: Labor & the environment: Fri, April 24, 7pm – 8pm
Via Zoom

National Writers Union: Modernist poetry: Sun, April 26, 1pm – 2pm
Via Zoom

Metro Washington Council and Community Services Agency staff are all teleworking and can be reached at the contact numbers and email addresses here.

Latest DC-area labor news, delivered daily: tell a friend and help build our Union City!

DC nurses get much-needed masks
Local nurses got some good news this week. “On April 21, Masks $ America donated N95 respirators to United Medical Center and Howard University Hospital,” reports DCNA Executive Director Ed Smith. Masks 4 America raised money for the masks on a GoFundMe page. “DCNA also received approximately 100 face shields for our nurses working at United Medical Center from DC Mutual Aid.” Smith said the masks are essential for the nurses as they work to save lives and limit the spread of the virus.

Groundwork Collaborative staff unionize
The staff of the Groundwork Collaborative have unionized with the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU) as Groundwork Collaborative Union, after winning formal, voluntary recognition from management. “Unionizing is in line with Groundwork’s mission and vision of an economy that delivers real opportunity, security, and prosperity for all,” said the new union. A core part of the Collaborative’s vision “is a more equitable distribution of power, including power for workers in all kinds of workplaces,” said Executive Director Michael Linden. “With that vision in mind, we are proud to have voluntarily recognized the Groundwork Collaborative Union today." This is the sixth group of nonprofit employees to join NPEU in the last two weeks.

CSA keeps the lights on for single mom
Renita Harrison, UNITE HERE Local 23 member and a single mom with three teens, is a cook for government contractor Sodexo who’s been laid off due to the Covid-19 economic crisis. The Community Services Agency’s Emergency Assistance Fund “benefitted me and my family by keeping my electricity on and helping me to juggle my other bills despite my not having a job; it helped me to breathe," said Ms. Harrison. "Renita is one of tens of thousands of workers needing assistance,” said CSA Executive Director Sonte DuCote. “That’s why we are so grateful to our affiliates and partners for their generous contributions." Contribution to CSA’s Emergency Assistance Fund can be made by check payable to the Community Services Agency (send to CSA at 815 16th Street, NW, Suite 1100) or online.

Today's Labor Quote: Mumia Abu-Jamal

“Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.”

Today's Labor History

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Sacco & Vanzetti at 100; What happened to MLK’s dream?
Michele Fazio on “The Crime of the Century: Remembering Sacco and Vanzetti 100 Years Later”; Michael Honey, on “What Happened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of Economic Justice?” Plus Saul Schniderman on Ida Mae Stull, the nation’s first woman coal miner.
Last week’s show: Organizing during historic crises

The International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union halts shipping on the West Coast in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Philadelphia journalist whom many believed was on death row because he was an outspoken African-American - 1999

- 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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