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Vote early, Vote Labor!

Hoffman wins seat on MWC board

Union demands release of bodycam footage leading up to the death of Karon Hylton

Solidarity Center Report: A Union Solution to Child Labor in Ghana Cocoa

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

AFL-CIO GOTV Kick-Off with President Trumka: Fri, October 30, 2pm - 3pm
[link removed] RSVP here

Coalition to Repeal Right to Work: Fri, October 30, 7pm - 9pm
Special guest VA Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy
[link removed] Register here

Labor Statewide Virtual Phone Bank: Sat, October 31, 10am - 1pm
[link removed] Click here to register

IATSE 868 demonstrates at Strathmore: Sat, October 31, 5pm - 9pm
Rockville Pike & Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD 20814
[link removed] RSVP here

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? [link removed] Catch the podcast here; The cliff-hanger Episode 9 of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's Tales of the Resistance radio drama. Will the Resistance become a Revolution? Or will the fascist corporate overlords maintain their control over the workers?
Plus: Metro Washington Council Political Director David Stephen on labor-endorsed DC-area candidates and why Montgomery County voters should vote against Question B.

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Vote early, Vote Labor!
With just four days to go before the last day to vote, the Metropolitan Washington Council "encourages you to VOTE LABOR and help spread the word!" says MWC president Dyana Forester. "Make sure to vote Joe Biden/Kamala Harris for President and Vice-President," says Forester. Below is a list of all the Congressional candidates for Maryland and the District of Columbia endorsed by the MD/DC state federation. "Don't believe the polls!" adds MWC Political Director David Stephen. "We must finish this election with a huge margin of victory!"
MARYLAND: Early voting is being held through Monday, November 2; early voting centers are open from 7 am to 8 pm. Here's a list of the [link removed] 2020 Presidential General Election early voting sites (PDF).
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The early voting period runs through Monday, November 2, but dates and hours may vary based on where you live. Voters registered in The District of Columbia can look up where to vote on [link removed] the District of Columbia's site.
Labor-endorsed candidates for U.S. Congress: District 2 - Dutch Ruppersberger; District 3 - John Sarbanes; District 4 - Anthony Brown; District 5 - Steny Hoyer; District 6 - David Trone; District 7 - Kweisi Mfume; District 8 - Jamie Raskin; Washington D.C. - Eleanor Holmes Norton

Hoffman wins seat on MWC board
Ann Hoffman (NOLSW, UAW 2320) has won the Metro Washington Council's Executive Board election which ran Oct. 22-24 with 17,470 votes, or 39.5% of the vote, followed by John Gibson (Teamsters 639), with 15,869 (35.9%) and Tom Clark (IBEW 26), with 10,871 (24.6%). "I am honored and humbled to have been elected," Hoffman said. "I look forward to working with all of the Council's delegates and Board members to help make the Metro Council a powerful force in the area. First we have some elections to win next Tuesday!" MWC president Dyana Forester said that "All three candidates brought a great deal of experience and energy," and welcomed Hoffman to the Board, noting that "she brings a wealth of knowledge, legal expertise and labor history to our team. We look forward to the great work ahead!"

Union demands release of body cam footage leading up to the death of Karon Hylton
32BJ SEIU stood in solidarity with the family of Karon Hylton, the union announced yesterday. "His loss is felt deeply by a close relative represented by our union and we join the demand for the release of body cam footage, transparency and accountability," said Jaime Contreras, Vice President of 32BJ SEIU, which represents over 20,000 Black and immigrant essential workers in the D.C. area. "We strongly condemn the police's handling of the matter, which did not have to end tragically," Contreras added. He noted that as a union representing mostly Black and Brown workers, "our members cannot escape a dangerous, daily reality, through no fault of their own. They fear brutality at the hands of law enforcement and are on the frontlines as essential workers who clean and secure buildings. Many have to travel to and from work during off-hours and fear being harassed and brutalized by the police."

Solidarity Center Report: A Union Solution to Child Labor in Ghana Cocoa
In Ghana, the General Agricultural Workers' Union of Ghana is reducing child labor through a community based approach that harnesses the collective power of its 30,000 cocoa farmer members and their families in more than 180 cocoa farming communities. Read more at the [link removed] Solidarity Center.

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Today's Labor Quote: George Orwell

"Power is not a means; it is an end...The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

graphic from [link removed] Climate & Capitalism

Today's Labor History
This week's [link removed] Labor History Today podcast: O Canada, organize!
How a little newspaper started labour journalism in Canada. The 1931 Fraser Mills Strike. And "Through Rain, Sleet, Snow and Terrorism."
Contributors: [link removed] Radio Labour; [link removed] On the Line: Stories of BC Workers; [link removed] Labor History in 2
Last week's show: [link removed] One Day More

October 30
Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urges employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs - 1986

October 31
George Henry Evans publishes the first issue of the Working Man's Advocate, "edited by a Mechanic" for the "useful and industrious classes" in New York City. He focused on the inequities between the "portion of society living in luxury and idleness" and those "groaning under the oppressions and miseries imposed on them." - 1829

Tennessee sends in leased convict laborers to break a coal miners strike in Anderson County. The miners revolted, burned the stockades, and sent the captured convicts by train back to Knoxville - 1891

After 14 years of labor by 400 stone masons, the Mt. Rushmore sculpture is completed in Keystone, South Dakota - 1941

Int'l Alliance of Bill Posters, Billers & Distributors of the United States & Canada surrenders its AFL-CIO charter and is disbanded - 1971

November 1
Nation's first general strike for 10 hour day; Philadelphia - 1835

Thirty-seven black striking Louisiana sugar workers were murdered when Louisiana militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot unarmed workers trying to get a dollar-per-day wage. Two strike leaders were lynched - 1887

Malbone tunnel disaster in New York City; inexperienced scab motorman crashes five-car train during strike, 97 killed, 255 injured - 1918

Some 400,000 soft coal miners strike for higher wages and shorter hours - 1919

The UAW begins what was to become a successful 172-day strike against International Harvester. The union turned back company demands for weakened work rules, mandatory overtime - 1979

Honda assembles the first-ever Japanese car manufactured in a U.S. plant, in Marysville, Ohio. By 2009 the plant was making 440,000 cars a year and Honda - just one of the foreign manufacturers with multiple plants operating in the U.S. - said it had sold 20 million cars since its American operation launched - 1982

- David Prosten

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source.

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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