LABOR CALENDAR
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
Workshop: Voter Suppression, Citizen Engagement and GOTV: Sat, July 18, 10am – 12pm
Via Zoom; Doxie McCoy, [email protected]
The 1877 Railroad Strike: Sat, July 18, 11am – 12pm
Zoom; Meeting ID: 980 51971056; Password: 963397
Reopen #OnlyWhenItsSafe Virtual Town Hall (WTU 6); Sun, July 19, 3pm – 4pm
Zoom; RSVP here
The 13th Annual NE Shoot for a Cure (see graphic below) is hosted by UFCW Locals 27 & 400; details/flyer here
Metro Washington Council and Community Services Agency staff are teleworking; reach them at the contact numbers and email addresses here.
Union City Summer Schedule: UC appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday in July/August, with special editions as necessary. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for latest local labor news updates.
Missed yesterday’s Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here; Doris Crouse-Mays, Virginia AFL-CIO President on Virginia Issues an Emergency Temporary Workplace Standard to Protect Workers from COVID-19; Joe McCartin & Sara Myklebust, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor on An Interactive Tool for Building Power. Plus, Fight The Power with Public Enemy.
Tentative Agreement reached with Kroger
After weeks of difficult negotiations, conducted all electronically over Zoom, with the assistance of federal mediators, UFCW Local 400 has reached a tentative agreement with Kroger. “While, like always, we did not get everything we want, this agreement represents a fair deal that meets our goals,” said the union, which along with its bargaining advisory committee, is unanimously recommending for ratification. Details on the agreement and how all members can cast an informed and safe vote are expected soon. Read more.
VA workers hail passage of COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Workplace Standard
“Virginia's workers just won, and we won BIG!” said the Virginia AFL-CIO on Wednesday, after Virginia became the first state in the nation to issue a standard to protect workers from COVID-19. State fed president Doris Crouse-Mays called passage of the Emergency Temporary Workplace Standard “a step forward in putting our working families and frontline workers first.” She credited calls, emails and letters to the Governor and the Safety and Health Codes Board for the “huge and amazing win,” saying “We could not have done it without you.” Read more.
DC teachers say "Reopen #OnlyWhenItsSafe”
"Reopen #OnlyWhenItsSafe” is the mantra for District teachers as the school year edges closer. The Washington Teachers Union is hosting a virtual town hall Sunday night and a car caravan Monday to push District of Columbia Public Schools to “make the right decision regarding schools reopening this fall.” The union – which supports reopening schools “only when it is safe for our students, our teachers and our communities” -- is also circulating a petition asking Mayor Bowser and DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee to work with teachers “to ensure protocols are in place and fully met to ensure the health of our school communities prior to reopening our schools.”
Today's Labor Quote: Joseph Small
“I didn't know anything about mutiny. I just knew that I didn't want to work under the same conditions that I did work under and advance the chance of the same thing happening again.”
Small was one of the Black sailors convicted in the Port Chicago Mutiny; see Today's Labor History, below.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work”: the Housewives League of Detroit.
Last week’s show: 2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange contest winners!
July 17
Two ammunition ships explode at Port Chicago, Calif., killing 322, including 202 African-Americans assigned by the Navy to handle explosives. It was the worst home-front disaster of World War II. The resulting refusal of 258 African-Americans to return to the dangerous work underpinned the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what is called the Port Chicago Mutiny - 1944
July 18
The Brotherhood of Telegraphers begins an unsuccessful three-week strike against the Western Union Telegraph Co - 1883
35,000 Chicago stockyard workers strike - 1919
Hospital workers win 113-day union recognition strike in Charleston, S.C. - 1969
July 19
Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Delegates adopt a Declaration of Women's Rights and call for women's suffrage - 1848
An amendment to the 1939 Hatch Act, a federal law whose main provision prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity, is amended to also cover state and local employees whose salaries include any federal funds - 1940
- 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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