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Workers United for Reproductive and Gender Equity joins NPEU

CSA doubles down on helping workers

As protests grow, Luci Murphy & the People's Music Network ensure there are songs to go with them

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

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Toward a Progressive 2020s--A German-American Dialogue on Worker Rights and Welfare: Tue, July 7, 10am - 12pm
[link removed] Via Zoom
Conversation on the future of worker rights and welfare policies with Jens Zimmermann (photo), Bundestag delegate from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Hesse.

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[link removed] This week's Labor Radio/Podcast Weekly: Union City Radio; Heartland Labor Forum; Activate Live; My Labor Radio; Labor Express Radio; Working People; The Gig; Tales from Two Blue Collar Workers

Workers United for Reproductive and Gender Equity joins NPEU
Workers United for Reproductive and Gender Equity is the latest addition to the family at the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union. Workers United made a formal request to management at United for Reproductive & Gender Equity -- originally founded as ChoiceUSA -- for voluntary recognition on June 22nd. Management and the union released a joint statement saying that "We believe that unionizing is inherent to a fight for a more just world under dominant systems of white supremacy, capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy." "Reproductive justice and gender equity are deeply connected to workers' rights." added NPEU President Kayla Blado. "I am excited to work together to dismantle systems of oppression and lift up the voices of the workers of URGE and their important work."

CSA doubles down on helping workers
Frank Gaskins life has now been touched twice by the Community Services Agency. The first time was when he participated in CSA's signature Building Futures Construction Pre-Apprenticeship program. He graduated and went on to become an apprentice with Pile Drivers Local 441 (part of the Carpenters), working as a pile driver. The second time was when CSA's Emergency Assistance Fund helped him during a brief layoff due to COVID-19 earlier this year. "The Emergency Assistance that helped to pay my Pepco bill really helped alleviate that temporary financial stress," said Gaskins. "Frank's story is a great example of how the local labor movement enables CSA to advance its mission to help workers, support labor and strengthen communities," said CSA Executive Director Sonte DuCote. "We are grateful to every local that's made contributions in recent months, as well as the Greater Washington Community Foundation and the United Way National Capital Area, for helping to make critical COVID-19 assistance available to area workers." Find out more about CSA [link removed] here.

As protests grow, Luci Murphy & the People's Music Network ensure there are songs to go with them
If the world was not in the midst of a pandemic, Luci Murphy would be in the streets every day, leading Black Lives Matter activists through "Ella's Song," the Bernice Johnson Reagon classic containing this verse: "We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes/ until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons/ is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons." Instead, the 69-year-old singer -- she refers to herself as "an interpreter" -- who has demonstrated in Cuba, Iraq and her hometown of Washington, D.C., and who worked alongside protest singers Pete Seeger and Hazel Dickens, has had to limit her participation in demonstrations and protests to just two or three days a week. [link removed] Read more in Billboard.
photo: L-R Ron Wallace, Luci Murphy, Mike Honey and Steve Jones photographed in 1984 demonstrating near the South African Embassy; photo by Rick Reinhard

Today's Labor Quote: Lyndon Johnson

"In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we affirmed through law that men equal under God are also equal when they seek a job, when they go to get a meal in a restaurant, or when they seek lodging for the night in any State in the Union."

Today's Labor History

This week's [link removed] Labor History Today podcast: 2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange contest winners!. Plus, Joe Glazer's Solidarity Forever from the Songs of Work and Freedom album, and the Meany Archives gang brings us the July 4th, 1964 issue of the AFL CIO news, which featured the signing of the Civil Rights Act and Ben and Allen tie that into the ongoing protests for social justice.
[link removed] Last week's show: Why America's most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth.

July 6
Two strikers and a bystander are killed, 30 seriously wounded by police in Duluth, Minn. The workers, mostly immigrants building the city's streets and sewers, struck after contractors reneged on a promise to pay $1.75 a day - 1889

Two barges, loaded with Pinkerton thugs hired by the Carnegie Steel Co., landed on the south bank of the Monongahela River in Homestead, Penn. seeking to occupy Carnegie Steel Works and put down a strike by members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steel Workers - 1892

Rail union leader Eugene V. Debs is arrested during the Pullman strike, described by the New York Times as "a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital" that involved some 250,000 workers in 27 states at its peak - 1894

Transit workers in New York begin what is to be an unsuccessful 3-week strike against the then-privately owned IRT subway. Most transit workers labored seven days a week, up to 11.5 hours a day - 1926

July 7
Striking New York longshoremen meet to discuss ways to keep new immigrants from scabbing. They were successful, at least for a time. On July 14, 500 newly arrived Jewish immigrants marched straight from their ship to the union hall. On July 15, 250 Italian immigrants stopped scabbing on the railroad and joined the union - 1882

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones begins "The March of the Mill Children", when, accompanied part of the way by children, she walked from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt's home on Long Island to protest the plight of child laborers. One of her demands: reduce the childrens' work week to 55 hours - 1903

Cloakmakers begin what is to be a two-month strike against New York City sweatshops - 1910

Some 500,000 people participate when a two-day general strike is called in Puerto Rico by more than 60 trade unions and many other organizations. They are protesting privatization of the island's telephone company - 1998

- David Prosten

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source.

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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