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Labor's role in ReOpen DC Advisory Group

Plumbers Local 5 finds new ways to help protect the nation's health

Live Facebook video today: Fighting for All Workers

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

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

Car caravan protest to support the Camden Yards Concessions workers: Fri, May 15, 1pm - 2pm

Caravan: Camden Yards Parking Lot G, 250 W Ostend, Baltimore; On foot, Camden Yards Warehouse, 333 W. Camden Street, Baltimore

NoVA Coalition to Repeal Right-to-Work: Fri, May 15, 7pm - 9pm
Via Zoom

Metro Washington Council Delegate Meeting: Tue, May 19, 1pm - 3pm
Via Zoom; [link removed] register here (required)

DC Labor FilmFest: Waging Change: Tue, May 19, 7pm - 9pm
via Zoom; FREE; [link removed] register here

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

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

Labor's role in ReOpen DC Advisory Group
The old saying is that "If you're not at the table, then you're on the menu," which is one reason local labor leaders fought to get on DC Mayor Muriel Bower's [link removed] ReOpen DC Advisory Group. Labor's representation includes AFSCME Council 20 Executive Director (and Acting President of the Metro Washington Council) Andrew Washington, who serves on the Government Operations, Public Safety, and Criminal Justice committee as well as coordinating a special Labor Focus Group; Dyana Forester (UFCW 400), Restaurants and Food; Jaime Contreras (SEIU 32BJ), Real Estate and Construction; John Boardman (UNITE HERE 25), Faith, Arts, Culture, Hotels Entertainment and Sport Committee; Elizabeth Davis (WTU 6), Education and Childcare Committee; and Lisa Brown (SEIU 1199), Public Health Innovation and Workforce Committee. The Labor Focus Group was created in response to "labor's concerns about the lack of opportunities on these committees and ensuring that [re-opening plans] represent the true challenges and fears of re-opening too soon," said Washington.

Plumbers Local 5 finds new ways to help protect the nation's health
It makes sense that [link removed] Plumbers Local 5 is the latest union to contribute to the Community Services Agency's efforts to help workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 1890, Local 5 has been committed to "protecting the health" of the nation's capital. "From our bathroom fixtures, through the sewers below the street, to the treatment plants, we safeguard the water supply for the health of our communities and protect our environment for future generations," the union says. Local 5 contributed $10,000 to CSA's Emergency Assistance Fund last week, which will be used to help unemployed union members struggling to maintain their households. "In this unprecedented crisis, this donation is just another way of showing solidarity within the labor movement," said Local 5 Business Manager James E. Killeen III. "Local labor's support has been absolutely outstanding, but not surprising in the least," said Sonte DuCote, CSA Executive Director. "We are truly grateful for Local 5's contribution."

Live Facebook video today: Fighting for All Workers
Unemployment numbers are beginning to rival those during the peak of the Great Depression. Working families are suddenly finding themselves without health insurance during a public health crisis and the future of our economy is appearing more and more uncertain with each passing day of inaction. In the midst of all of this chaos and anxiety, who's fighting on the side of working people? America's labor unions. Tune in on Facebook Live today at noon to hear about how the AFL-CIO is fighting for all workers. "We do not need more corporate bailouts or premature calls to end quarantining -- we need a response that serves and prioritizes working people, and America's unions are leading the call for workplace protections and a plan to reopen the country," says the labor federation. [link removed] Click here to RSVP on Facebook.

Today's Labor Quote: T-Bone Slim

Well, that cop, he went wild over me
And he held his gun where everyone could see
He was breathing rather hard
When he saw my union card
They go wild, simply wild over me

IWW songwriter T-Bone Slim died on this date in 1942. This is from his song "Popular Wobbly," sung here by Joe Glazer.

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Today's Labor History

This week's [link removed] 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.
[link removed] Last week's show: Jack Kelly's "The Edge of Anarchy"; "Union Maids" director Julia Reichert (Part 2)

May 15
U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Samuel Gompers and other union leaders for supporting a boycott at the Buck Stove and Range Co. in St. Louis, where workers were striking for a nine-hour day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott and sentenced the unionists to prison for refusing to obey the judge's anti-boycott injunction - 1906

The Library Employees' Union is founded in New York City, the first union of public library workers in the United States. A major focus of the union was the inferior status of women library workers and their low salaries - 1917

The first labor bank -- the Mount Vernon Savings Bank-- opens in Washington, D.C., launched by officers of the Machinists. The Locomotive Engineers opened a bank -- the Cooperative National Bank -- in Cleveland later that year - 1920

May 16
Minneapolis general strike backs Teamsters, who are striking most of the city's trucking companies - 1934

U.S. Supreme Court issues Mackay decision, which permits the permanent replacement of striking workers. The decision had little impact until Ronald Regan's replacement of striking air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1981, a move that signaled anti-union private sector employers that it was OK to do likewise - 1938

Black labor leader and peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and first black on the AFL-CIO executive board, and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington - 1979

May 17
First women's anti-slavery conference, Philadelphia - 1838

Governor of California signs a law stating that 10 hours of work should constitute a legal day's work. - 1853

Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools - 1954

Twelve Starbucks baristas in a mid-town Manhattan store, declaring they couldn't live on $7.75 an hour, signed cards demanding representation by the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies. Management roadblocks continue to deny the workers their union to this day - 2004

- 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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