LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings

Union City Radio: 7:15a M-F; WPFW-FM 89.3

Baltimore Symphony Musicians picket line: Fri, September 13, 9am – 11am
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 1212 Cathedral St, Baltimore, MD 21201

Arise! Labor Edition: AFL-CIO's Trumka on the Pittston strike: Fri, September 13, 9am – 10am
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online

NoVA Coalition of Labor Union Women Happy Hour: Fri, September 13, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
4536 B John Marr Drive, Annandale, VA

Film: Helmet Heads [Cascos Indomables] (Costa Rica): Fri, September 13, 9:30pm – 11:00pm
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910
AFI Latin American Film Festival; screening co-presented by the DC LaborFest/DC Labor FilmFest; show your union card and get the AFI member discount (if ordering online, choose the “AFI Member (LAFF)” option)!

Canvass and Phone Bank for Dan Helmer: Sat, September 14, 9am – 1pm
NoVA Labor, 4536 B John Marr Drive in Annandale, VA

Film: Waiting For The Carnival [Estou Me Guardando Para Quando O Carnaval Chegar] (Brazil): Sat, September 14, 2:30pm – 4:00pm
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Play: "The Moment Was Now": Sat, September 14, 3pm – 5pm & Sun, September 15, 3pm – 5pm
Emmanuel Episcopal Church Theater 811 Cathedral St. Baltimore, MD

Music: Baltimore Symphony Musicians present a Free Concert: Celebrate Baltimore, Community and the Power of Music: Sat, September 14, 4pm – 6pm
New Shiloh Baptist Church, 2100 N Monroe St, Baltimore, MD 21217

Film: Setting The Bar: A Craft Chocolate Origin Story (Peru): Sat, September 14, 4:30pm – 6:00pm
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Area supermarket workers and allies rally and march for contract
Hundreds of supermarket workers and their allies rallied and marched through downtown Washington Thursday, demanding fair contracts with Giant and Safeway. Negotiations officially start today. “Why now?” asked UFCW 400 president Mark Federici. “Why not!” After seeing New England supermarket workers forced out on strike earlier this year, and with both Giant and Safeway reaping hefty profits, local supermarket workers “are rightly expecting a fair contract,” Federici told Union City. “Our members make Giant and Safeway profitable and the dominant grocery chains in the Washington, D.C. area,” Federici said, noting that “It speaks for itself that we’re out here today with such big numbers and such enthusiasm before there’s even a crisis.” A number of other area unions and allies turned out for the rally and march, including a major contingent from AFGE. “We’re experiencing some of the same issues in contract negotiations as UFCW Local 400,” AFGE District 14’s Eric Bunn told Union City, “That’s why we’re here in solidarity, supporting them.” AFGE’s “Fed UP! Rise UP! AFGE Rally and Lobby Day” is set for Tue, September 24 at 12 noon (see Calendar).

10,000 immigrant janitors start contract talks
32BJ SEIU janitors, who maintain nearly all of the region’s commercial office buildings, began negotiations yesterday for a new union contract with the Washington Service Contractors Association. The current contract expires on October 15. Notably, hundreds of janitors in Loudoun County, VA will bargain their first-ever union contract with 32BJ SEIU. Nearly 134,000 commercial janitors nationwide are bargaining for their livelihoods as part of what will be the nation’s large private sector contract bargaining of the year. “The economic development around the commercial real estate boom means there is more than enough wealth to ensure these workers are provided their fair share of the profits they help create,” said 32BJ SEIU Vice President Jaime Contreras. “This contract will prove whether the region’s prosperity will ever trickle down to move low-wage workers into the middle class.” Cleaners -- most of whom work part-time, forcing them to take multiple jobs and still often not getting employer-paid health care -- will be looking to expand full time jobs with benefits during this bargaining. photo: SEIU32BJ janitors in Miami

Solidarity Center Report: Turkmen Labor Activist Released from Prison after 3 Years
Gaspar Matalaev, a labor and human rights activist who monitored and reported on the systematic use of forced adult labor and child labor in Turkmenistan’s cotton fields, was released after serving three years in prison on spurious charges stemming from his reporting. Matalaev was arrested in October 2016, two days after Turkmen.news published his extensive report on state-sponsored forced labor. He reportedly was tortured and held incommunicado while in prison, according to the Cotton Campaign, a coalition of organizations, including the Solidarity Center, working to end state-organized forced labor in Central Asian cotton field. Find out more at the Solidarity Center

Today's Labor Quote: John L. Lewis

“You can’t dig coal with bayonets.”

Lewis led the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960.

Today's Labor History

Labor History Today (9/8): Longest – and most divisive – teacher strike in NYC history
Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Teacher-community solidarity was the key to victory in the 2018 Los Angeles teacher's strike, but this wasn't the case in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville in 1968 when the longest teacher strike in New York City history also turned out to be its most divisive. Nick Juravich explains why.

Sept 13
The Post Office Department orders 25,000 railway mail clerks to shoot to kill any bandits attempting to rob the mail - 1926

Eleven AFSCME-represented prison employees, 33 inmates die in four days of rioting at New York State’s Attica Prison and the retaking of the prison. The riot caused the nation to take a closer look at prison conditions, for inmates and their guards alike - 1971

Sept 14
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, 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

Sept 15
Some 5,000 female cotton workers in and around Pittsburgh, Pa. strike for a 10-hour day. The next day, male trade unionists become the first male auxiliary when they gather to protect the women from police attacks. The strike ultimately failed - 1845

President Kennedy signs off on a $900 million public-works bill for projects in economically depressed areas - 1962

More than 350,000 members of the United Auto Workers begin what is to become a 69-day strike against General Motors - 1970

International Association of Siderographers merges with International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers - 1992

Labor history courtesy David Prosten

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source for all news items and www.unionist.com as the source for Today’s Labor History.

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. JACKIE JETER, PRESIDENT.

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