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DC teachers hold the line on school safety
Labor hits phones for Lazere as early voting nears
Solidarity Center Report: 'Women's Voices Can No Longer Be Silenced'
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
Public Hearing On Re-Opening DC Schools Safely: Fri, October 23, 3pm - 5pm
The John Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004
Sponsored by the Washington Teachers Union; more info on their [link removed] Twitter feed
Warrenton Lit Drop for Cameron Webb (VA 5th Congressional District candidate): Sat, October 24, 9am - 12pm
Wort Hog Brewing Company, 41 Beckham St, Warrenton, VA 20186
[link removed] 11th CD Democratic Committee Sturdivant Award and Diwali Virtual Event: Sun, October 25, 5:30pm - 8:00pm
The labor award, named after former AFGE President John Sturdivant, will go to Ron Kuley, President of IAFF Local 2068.
Metro Washington Council, Community Services Agency and Claimant Advocacy Program staff are teleworking; reach them at the contact numbers and email addresses [link removed] here.
Missed yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast [link removed] here; "Systemic racism" at the VA? Plus: Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester reports on the "No on B" labor rally, DC teachers hold a public hearing on re-opening DC schools safely, and DC dispensary workers organize with UFCW 400. Plus: Fighting union busters in a Carolina carpet mill
DC teachers hold the line on school safety
In response to complaints by the Washington Teachers Union, a Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) Hearing Examiner on Monday ruled that DCPS violated the law by refusing to bargain with WTU regarding reopening planning, finding that there is reasonable cause to believe that DCPS violated the law by not bargaining with WTU. It ordered that DCPS bargain with WTU over health and safety matters related to reopening. The union plans to continue organizing for collective action, as well as working to engage allies in the community and ensure teacher's voices are heard by policy-makers. At today's City Council hearing on DCPS's plans to reopen schools, only representatives from the Deputy Mayor for Education and DC Public Schools will be invited to speak, so the union will be holding their own "Hearing" starting at 3p outside the John A. Wilson Building (see Calendar).
Labor hits phones for Lazere as early voting nears
With DC labor voters getting ready to start voting next Tuesday, Darrian Williams, NALC Capitol Branch 142, and Paul Henriques, IBEW Local 26, hit the phones this week for MWC-endorsed candidate Ed Lazere (DC At-Large). "We will be phone banking for Ed again next Thursday," says MWC Political and Legislative Director David Stephen. Email him at mailto:dstephen@dclabor.org dstephen@dclabor.org to volunteer. Anyone interested in helping out the Lazere campaign with voter outreach at a vote center beginning next Tuesday at an Early Vote location should contact David, as well.
Solidarity Center Report: 'Women's Voices Can No Longer Be Silenced'
Women activists and their organizations are the drivers of positive change worldwide--and the freedom to form unions and freely associate is key to their ability to do so, according to a [link removed] landmark report released this week. "Celebrating Women in Civil Society and Activism," prepared by Clément Voule, United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, was released during an [link removed] event featuring Voule, Netherlands Ambassador for Human Rights Bahia Tahzib-Lie and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau. "Women around the world are building economic power by exercising freedom of association and assembly," said Bader-Blau. "Unions and the right to collective bargaining is one way we fight back." Find out more at the [link removed] Solidarity Center.
Today's Labor Quote: Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union
"Contracting out of maintenance work, elimination of relief crews, excessive overtime, and paring of staff to the `bare bones' set the stage for an explosion that was waiting to happen."
On this date in 1989, an explosion and fire at Phillips Petroleum refinery in Pasadena, Texas, killed 23 and injured 314. AP photo/Ed Kolenovsky
Today's Labor History
This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] One Day More
Saul Schniderman remembers musician activist Elaine Purkey.
Justice Denied: David Gariff on "Ben Shahn and the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti."
From the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast, "When It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism."
And, on this week's Labor History in 2: Paul Robeson, "The Voice of an Era."
Last week's show: [link removed] The Package King
October 23
Postal workers Joseph Cursseen and Thomas Morris die after inhaling anthrax at the Brentwood mail sorting center in Washington, D.C., which has since been re-named after them. Other postal workers are made ill. Letters containing the deadly spores had been addressed to U.S. Senate offices and media outlets - 2001
October 24
Strike of Teamsters, Scalesmen and Packers in New Orleans. City trade is paralyzed; in two weeks the walkout becomes a general strike, involving more than 20,000 whites and blacks together, in support of demands for union recognition and a 10-hour work day - 1892
The first U.S. federal minimum wage - 25 cents an hour - takes effect, thanks to enactment of the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act. The law required an increase to 30 cents an hour one year from this date, and to 40 cents an hour on this date in 1945. The FLSA also established the 40-hour work week and forbade child labor in factories - 1938
The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed by Pres. Roosevelt two years earlier - 1940
U.S. minimum wage increases to 40 cents an hour - 1945
AFL-CIO readmits Teamsters union to the labor federation, ending a 30-year expulsion for corruption. In 2005 the Teamsters again parted company with the AFL-CIO - along with a half-dozen other unions - over differences of approach on organizing and politics - 1987.
October 25
25,000 silk dye workers strike in Paterson, NJ - 1934
In what becomes known as the Great Hawaiian Dock Strike, a six-month struggle to win wage parity with mainland dock workers ends, in victory - 1949
The Tribune Co. begins a brutal five-month-long lockout at the New York Daily News, part of an effort to bust the newspaper's unions - 1990
John Sweeney, president of the Service Employees Intl. Union, elected president of AFL-CIO - 1995
- 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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