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Transit workers: "Worst case scenario can still be avoided"

Black Labor Week launches tonight

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

[link removed] LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings

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

Black Labor Week: Black History - Race/Racism in America: Mon, September 14, 7:30pm - 9:30pm
[link removed] Register here; full schedule and registration links posted on our [link removed] online calendar

FILM: Nae Pasaran: Tue, September 15, 7pm - 9pm
FREE via Zoom; [link removed]- RSVP here

Black Labor Week: History of the Labor Movement in Connection with the Civil Rights Movement: Tue, September 15, 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Free; [link removed] register here

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

Missed last week's Labor Day 2020 Town Hall on WPFW? Catch it on the Union City Radio podcast! Includes [link removed] COVID's effects on DC-area workers featuring John Boardman, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, UNITE HERE 25, Jaime Contreras, Vice President, SEIU 32BJ, Ryan Chavka, IATSE 22 Business Agent & Ed Malaga, President, DC Musician's Union (AFM 161-710).

Transit workers: "Worst case scenario can still be avoided"
"The worst case scenario can still be avoided if we move fast," said ATU 689 last week after Metro reported a looming, pandemic-induced budget shortfall. "Transit systems around the country are requesting emergency funding that could help prevent massive service cuts and layoffs," said Local 689. Metro said last week that it will continue to operate with reduced service, institute furloughs for non-union workers and possibly lay off other employees in the coming year if the federal government doesn't step in with more funding. "Our members have been out on the frontlines of this crisis for months, helping to get other essential workers where they need to go," responded Local 689. "Hundreds of transit workers have passed away from COVID19. This is no way to thank those that helped keep this country moving while everyone else was in lockdown. It doesn't have to be this way."

Black Labor Week launches tonight
This is Black Labor Week, a series of interactive and inspirational events organized by the American Federation of Government Employees Women's and Fair Practices Departments. The online series starts tonight at 7:30 with [link removed] Black History - Race and Racism in America, hosted by Bill Fletcher Jr., who will lead a Black history musical journey from the 1950s to the present day. Participants will get a chance to tease their minds and test their knowledge on Black history glossary terms. Other sessions this week include Black History: Race and Racism in America; History of the Labor Movement in Connection with the Civil Rights Movement; Protest to Policy; The 2020 Census: Making Black Voices Count; The Power of the Black Vote. [link removed] Click here for the complete Black Labor Week schedule and sign-up links.

Today's Labor Quote: Ella Mae Wiggins

How it grieves the heart of a mother, you everyone must know.
But we can't buy for our children, our wages are too low.
It is for our little children, that seems to us so dear,
But for us nor them, dear workers, the bosses do not care.
But understand, all workers, our union they do fear.
Let's stand together, workers, and have a union here.

From "A Mill Mother's Lament," a ballad by textile mill striker Ella Mae Wiggins (see Labor History below) and sung here by Pete Seeger.

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Today's Labor History

This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] Labor Day: no picnic in a pandemic
Peter Rachleff on the history and significance of Labor Day on the [link removed] Union Yes Iowa podcast; anthropologist Paul Shackel remembers the 1897 Lattimer Massacre; from the Library of Congress's brand-new [link removed] America Works podcast, Greg Vaught, the singing gold mine worker from Elko, Nevada.
Plus, Pete Seeger remembers textile mill striker Ella Mae Wiggins, and on [link removed] Labor History in 2: The Making of a National Treasure.
Last week's show: [link removed] We Do The Work; Working History.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers union calls off an unsuccessful three-month strike against U. S. Steel Corporation subsidiaries - 1901

Gastonia, N.C. textile mill striker and songwriter Ella Mae Wiggins (photo), 29, the mother of nine, is killed when local vigilantes, thugs and a sheriff's deputy force the pickup truck in which she is riding off the road and begin shooting - 1929

A striker is shot by a bog owner (and town elected official) during a walkout by some 1,500 cranberry pickers, members of the newly-formed Cape Cod Cranberry Pickers Union Local 1. State police were called, more strikers were shot and 64 were arrested. The strike was lost - 1933

Congress passes the Landrum-Griffin Act. The law expands many of the anti-labor provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, increasing union reporting requirements and restricting secondary boycotting and picketing - 1959

- 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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