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Labor marches today for Black Lives Matter

A mural for the times, brought to you in part by AFSCME members

Pride Month Profiles: Aimee Stephens, Gerald Lynn Bostock and Donald Zarda

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

[link removed] LABOR CALENDAR

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

VIRTUAL Great Labor Arts Exchange (41st): Jun 19 - 20, 2020
Online; [link removed] click here.

Church, Labor and CARES II: What do Workers Need Now?: Fri, June 19, 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Via Zoom; [link removed] CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Labor March For Black Lives Matter: Fri, June 19, 5pm - 8pm
Black Lives Matter Plaza* 815 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20006
[link removed] RSVP HERE

CLUW Chesapeake Bay Chapter Meeting: Mon, June 22, 7pm - 8pm
Zoom; [link removed] register here

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Metro Washington Council and Community Services Agency staff are teleworking; reach them at the contact numbers and email addresses [link removed] here.

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

Labor marches today for Black Lives Matter
Members of the labor community and allies will join a peaceful direct action event today on Juneteenth in support of the Black Lives Matter movement from 5-8p (see Calendar above). The effort is being coordinated by a group of unions that includes the Painters, Ironworkers District Council of The Mid-Atlantic States, the Union Veterans Council and Metro Washington Council affiliates. Locals or individuals who would like to donate food or water can contact David Stephen at mailto:[email protected] [email protected]

A mural for the times, brought to you in part by AFSCME members

It was the most visible affirmation of the sentiment sweeping the nation - "Black Lives Matter" - and a defiant response to President Donald Trump's controversy-laden photo op in front of the historic St. John's Episcopal Church. And AFSCME members helped make them happen. In response to the protests across the nation sparked by George Floyd's killing and Trump's June 1 photo op - for which peaceful protesters close to the White House were dispersed using force and tear gas - Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered 16th Street, leading to the White House, to be painted with a giant street mural reading, "Black Lives Matter." She also renamed the corner of 16th and H Streets - the site where the protesters were dispersed - "Black Lives Matter Plaza." The street mural was painted in part by members of the city's Department of General Services - workers represented by [link removed] AFSCME District Council 20. "I'm very proud of our city and our members once again leading the national conversation," said District Council 20 Executive Director Andrew Washington (who also served for the past few months as Acting President of the Metro Washington Council). "Everything we do right now is critical in standing up for economic and social justice."
- AFSCME website; [link removed] read more here

Pride Month Profiles: Aimee Stephens, Gerald Lynn Bostock and Donald Zarda
For Pride Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various LGBTQ Americans who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights. The first profile this year is the three plaintiffs in the 2020 Supreme Court cases that led to the landmark decision this week protecting the workplace rights of LGBTQ Americans: Aimee Stephens, Gerald Lynn Bostock and Donald Zarda, all fired for being gay; [link removed] read more here. The three cases were combined and this week the Supreme Court sided with the LGBTQ workers, saying that firing them because of their sexuality was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Pride At Work Executive Director Jerame Davis called the ruling "a huge win for equality." [link removed] Click here to hear Davis on yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show on WPFW (which also featured an interview with new Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester).
- Kenneth Quinnell, AFL-CIO Now blog

Today's Labor Quote: Organizers of today's Labor March For Black Lives Matter

"As members of the labor movement, we fully understand the power of one's voice and solidarity. Here is your opportunity to add your voice to the call for racial justice. We must make this moment a movement."

Today's Labor History

This week's [link removed] Labor History Today podcast: Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
[link removed] Last week's show: Labor supports DC Black Lives Matter protests; "Debs In Canton" preview; Revisiting The Battle of Homestead; Voices of exiled Iranian workers.

June 19
A pioneering sit-down strike is conducted by workers at a General Tire Co. factory in Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers union was founded a year later. The tactic launched a wave of similar efforts in the auto and other industries over the next several years - 1934

The Women's Day Massacre in Youngstown, Ohio, when police use tear gas on the women and children, including at least one infant in his mother's arms, during a strike at Republic Steel. One union organizer later recalled, "When I got there I thought the Great War had started over again. Gas was flying all over the place and shots flying and flares going up and it was the first time I had ever seen anything like it in my life..." - 1937

ILWU begins a four day general strike in sugar, pineapple, and longshore to protest convictions under the anti-communist Smith Act of seven activists, "the Hawai'i Seven." The convictions were later overturned by a federal appeals court - 1953

June 20
The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene Debs, is founded. In the Pullman strike a year later, the union was defeated by federal injunctions and troops, and Debs was imprisoned for violating the injunctions - 1893

Henry Ford recognizes the United Auto Workers, signs contract for workers at River Rouge plant - 1941

Striking African American auto workers are attacked by KKK, National Workers League, and armed white workers at Belle Isle amusement park in Detroit. Two days of riots follow, 34 people are killed, more than 1,300 arrested - 1943

The Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act, curbing strikes, is vetoed by President Harry S Truman. The veto was overridden three days later by a Republican-controlled Congress - 1947

Evelyn Dubrow, described by the New York Times as organized labor's most prominent lobbyist at the time of its greatest power, dies at age 95. The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union lobbyist once told the Times that "she trudged so many miles around Capitol Hill that she wore out 24 pairs of her Size 4 shoes each year." She retired at age 86 - 2006

June 21
In England, a compassionate parliament declares that children can't be required to work more than 12 hours a day. And they must have an hours' instruction in the Christian Religion every Sunday and not be required to sleep more than two in a bed - 1802

10 miners accused of being militant "Molly Maguires" are hanged in Pennsylvania. A private corporation initiated the investigation of the 10 through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested them, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. "The state provided only the courtroom & the gallows," a judge said many years later - 1877

The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right of unions to publish statements urging members to vote for a specific congressional candidate, ruling that such advocacy is not a violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act - 1948

100,000 unionists and other supporters march in solidarity with striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press newspaper workers - 1997

- 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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