LABOR CALENDAR
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
Coalition to Repeal "Right to Work": Fri, August 21, 7pm – 9pm
Zoom and Social Media Training: Sat, August 22, 10am – 12pm
Hosted by the Chesapeake Bay CLUW
"Save the Post Office Saturday" Day of Action: Arlington, VA; Baltimore, MD; Crofton, MD; Reston, VA; Silver Spring, MD; Timonium, MD; Towson, MD; Vienna, MD; Washington, DC
Sat, August 22, 11am – 1pm
Details on each location/RSVP here
Metro Washington Council and Community Services Agency staff are teleworking; reach them at the contact numbers and email addresses here.
Missed yesterday’s Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here; Danny Alpert, co-director of the upcoming film The Last Strike; the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Tales of the Resistance Episode 4; It Came From R&D.
"Save the Post Office Saturday" Day of Action
Spurred by slowed mail delivery and attacks on the U.S. Postal Service by President Trump, concerned citizens are heading to their local post offices tomorrow (see Calendar) to mobilize in defense of one of the nation's most popular services. They'll call on Congress to safeguard the integrity of the U.S. mail and elections. "The actions will show Americans coming together to stand up for a postal system that connects us, that we rely on for medications, paychecks, and more, and that will literally be counted on to deliver democracy in the elections this fall," said AFL-CIO constituency group Pride At Work, one of the many supporters of the Day of Action.
Campaign Workers Guild makes history
After less than a month between voluntary recognition and bargaining, the Campaign Workers Guild and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have ratified a collective bargaining agreement extending through the general election. The contract “simultaneously validates that organizing work is not just a job, but a career, and responds directly to field 's concerns regarding working conditions during the pandemic,” says bargaining team member Tomás Clasen. “In short, the best field team apparatus in the country is now protected by a progressive, worker-centered contract.” The agreement provides interns, field organizers and digital organizers with retirement benefits, improved salary conditions and—in a first—protection for workers during a global pandemic, among other benefits. The Campaign Workers Guild, based out of Washington, DC, is an independent national union representing non-management workers on electoral and issue-based campaigns and other political workplaces.
Today's Labor Quote: "Nat Turner," by the R.J. Phillips Band
Turner and his army had taken up the fight
Raised their swords and hatchets to end slavery
And the blood they shared was shed so they could be free
Nat Turner, Nat Turner, Nat Turner
All people must be free.
Listen to the song here.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: “The Flintstones” and class struggle; The Ford Hunger March
Labor History Today producers Patrick Dixon and Alan Wierdak explore the labor history and class struggle lurking not too far beneath the surface of Fred's New Job, an episode from the third season of The Flintstones that originally aired in February 1963. Empathy Media Lab host Evan Papp visits the hallowed ground in Detroit where the labor battle known as the Ford Hunger March and Massacre took place. Plus this week’s Labor History in 2: Singing a Union Tune.
Last week’s show: Remembering Gene Debs; Waging Peace
August 21
Slave revolt led by Nat Turner begins in Southampton County, Va. - 1831
August 22
Five flight attendants form the Air Line Stewardesses Association, the first labor union representing flight attendants. They were reacting to an industry in which women were forced to retire at the age of 32, remain single, and adhere to strict weight, height and appearance requirements. The association later became the Association of Flight Attendants, now a division of the Communications Workers of America - 1945
International Broom & Whisk Makers Union disbanded - 1963
Joyce Miller, a vice president of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers, becomes first female member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council - 1980
International Longshore & Warehouse Union granted a charter by the AFL-CIO (it subsequently disaffiliated in 2013) - 1988
August 23
The U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations is formed by Congress, during a period of great labor and social unrest. After three years, and hearing witnesses ranging from Wobblies to capitalists, it issued an 11-volume report frequently critical of capitalism. The New York Herald characterized the Commission's president, Frank P. Walsh, as "a Mother Jones in trousers" - 1912
Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, accused of murder and tried unfairly, were executed on this day. The case became an international cause and sparked demonstrations and strikes throughout the world - 1927
Seven merchant seamen crewing the SS Baton Rouge Victory lost their lives when the ship was sunk by Viet Cong action en route to Saigon - 1966
Farm Workers Organizing Committee (to later become United Farm Workers of America) granted a charter by the AFL-CIO (the UFW later disaffiliated) - 1966
The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act is modified, setting the minimum salary for exemption from overtime at $455 per week, or $23,600 per year. Employees earning less than that are now guaranteed overtime, regardless of whether they are hourly or salaried - 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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