LABOR CALENDAR
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
NoVA Arts Union Caucus Launch: Wed, May 13, 3pm – 4pm
Via Zoom
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It: Wed, May 13, 4pm – 5pm
Via Zoom
MWC Candidate Town Hall: Trayon White (Ward 8): Wed, May 13, 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Via Zoom; Registration required
Alexandria Dems Labor Caucus: Wed, May 13, 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Via Zoom
Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, May 14, 1pm – 2pm
MWC Candidate Town Hall: Anthony Lorenzo Green (Ward 7): Thu, May 14, 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Via Zoom; Register here
National Nurses Week ended yesterday, but the National Partnership for Women & families says "there is still much more we need to do as a country to honor and protect these frontline heroes." Click here to send an email to your members of Congress telling them to expand paid sick days and paid leave for nurses and all frontline workers in the emergency response to coronavirus.
UFCW 400 calls on Kroger to extend “Hero Pay”
UFCW Local 400, the union representing Kroger store workers, has condemned the company for its plans to cancel its so-called “hero pay” $2.00/hour pay increase after May 16th. The union is calling on the company to extend the bonus indefinitely until the end of this crisis for all Kroger employees continuing to work. The union has launched an online petition targeting Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen and is gathering signatures from thousands of Kroger union members in Virginia and West Virginia, as well as stores on the Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee borders. “Our members have risked their lives and the lives of their families to continue coming to work to serve customers through this crisis,” said Mark Federici, President of UFCW Local 400. “The danger they face everyday is still present, and with no vaccine in sight, will continue to be for quite some time. These heroes deserve to be compensated for the service they continue to provide to the community.” Read more here
“This means a lot to my family”“CSA and 32BJ made the sun shine bright once again.” So says SEIU 32BJ member Joseph Buruca. Laid off in March from his job as a concierge with Total Quality, providing services for the National Football League Players Association, Buruca (photo) is still waiting for his unemployment to come through. “Being the only one who supports my household and being laid off from my job I was feeling super stressed and did not know what to do until 32BJ contacted me about emergency assistance,” said Buruca. The Metro Washington Council’s Community Services Agency covered one of his bills this month; “This means a lot to my family,” said Buruca. "We are very grateful to our unions, allies, individual donors and funders for their confidence in CSA to help workers facing hardship during this crisis, said CSA Executive Director Sonte DuCote.
Today's Labor Quote: Doug Fraser
"I would rather sit with the rural poor, the desperate children of urban blight, the victims of racism, and working people seeking a better life than with those whose religion is the status quo, whose goal is profit and whose hearts are cold."
The Auto Workers president was named to Chrysler’s board of directors on this date in 1980, becoming the first union representative ever to sit on the board of a major U.S. corporation.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: “Strike for Your Life!”; labor history's lessons for the COVID-19 crisis
Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, Minnesota, on how “Lessons from labor history can inform our labor movement during the COVID-19 crisis.” “As a labor historian, the closest thing I can think of to the spread of coronavirus strikes is the epidemic of sitdown strikes to spread across the country in the mid-1930s.” Historian and writer Jeremy Brecher, from “Strike for Your Life!” Also this week, we preview Debs In Canton, a new audio/radio drama from the filmmakers of American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs.
Last week’s show: Jack Kelly’s "The Edge of Anarchy”; “Union Maids” director Julia Reichert (Part 2)
Western Federation of Miners formed in Butte, Mont. - 1893
The Canadian government establishes the Department of Labour. It took the U.S. another four years - 1909
10,000 IWW dock workers strike in Philadelphia - 1913
Thousands of yellow cab drivers in New York City go on a one day strike in protest of proposed new regulations. “City officials were stunned by the (strike’s) success,” the New York Times reported - 1998
- David Prosten; photo: Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of Taxi Workers Alliance, at 1998 rally. (Photo by AP.)
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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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