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By Mark Gruenberg
WASHINGTON—Even with a recent raise, thanks to her union contract, Alberta Tapia doesn’t make enough from her janitorial job to keep herself and three other adults well fed and with a roof over their heads. She winds up falling behind on house payments.
And that’s what brought her, along with dozens of other people of color, marshalled by Service Employees Local 32BJ, to the U.S. Capitol lawn in 103-degree heat in D.C. on July 20.
“Black lives matter!” and “Pass the Heroes Act!” the crowd’s chants alternated.
“A mistake can get you infected, and many of my coworkers have contracted COVID, yet we don’t get an extra penny for our essential work preventing others from sharing our fate,” said Alberta Tapia, janitor at a Tysons Corner health center and SEIU 32BJ member. | SEIU 32BJ via Twitter It’s also what brought thousands of other workers—aided by the New Poor People’s Campaign and unions including the Service Employees, the Teamsters, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Unite Here, the United Farm Workers, and the Communications Workers, among others—out into the streets that day.
Their objective, along with those of at least 40 other demonstrations nationwide: To strike in memory of police-murdered African-American George Floyd, and to honor him by demanding the U.S. root out systemic racism—and that includes racism against Black and brown jobless workers....
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