Missed yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here; Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester reports on the latest on efforts by DC school unions to keep students safe; plus why postal workers took to the streets across the country this week and the final episode of Tales of the Resistance!
Georgia on your mind (and your phone)
With the balance of power in the U.S. Senate at stake, the AFL-CIO is coordinating online phonebanks for the upcoming Georgia special election. “The Metro Washington Council is participating in this critical Labor-to-Labor program and I urge all our affiliates to pitch in for this effort,” said MWC Political Director David Stephen. Click here to sign up; once you fill out the survey, a calendar for the MWC group phone banking will be sent out as well as your personal login information. The easy-to-access online phonebank will focus on turning out union members in Georgia for the Senate runoff election in support of Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock. “Please share this with your union leadership and all of your local’s members,” urges Stephen, “This is our opportunity to make a difference.”
As need increases, so does support
Since the pandemic began back in March, the Community Services Agency has assisted over 700 DC-area union members with rental, utility and food assistance. "This is double what CSA usually provides over a year,” says CSA Executive Director Sonte DuCote. That’s why LiUNA Local 11’s recent $1,500 contribution was especially appreciated, DuCote says. The Laborers’ support extends beyond financial assistance; the local partners with CSA’s Building Futures Construction Pre-Apprenticeship Program to place graduates into its apprenticeship program. CSA is a critical part of the metropolitan Washington labor community,” said Julio Palomo, Business Manager of the Baltimore Washington Laborers District Council, LiUNA, and a former CSA board member. “It's important that locals do all they can to build CSA’s capacity to serve members.” CSA is still collecting contributions for its Holiday Basket program: send checks payable to CSA, or gift cards, to CSA, 815 16th Street, NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20006. Or give online. Locals wanting to adopt families for Christmastime should contact [email protected].
COPE updates
Maryland Democratic Party Executive Director Eva Lewis, and Maryland delegates Jheanelle Wilkins (photo) and Julian Ivey were the featured guests at last Thursday’s Metro Washington Council Montgomery and Prince George's County COPE. The upcoming legislative session in Maryland was the main topic of discussion as Lewis, Wilkins and Ivey briefed the COPE attendees on their legislative agenda and then participated in a discussion about labor’s priorities.
The DC COPE committee meet’s tomorrow (see Calendar, above); discussion items include: Collective Action Resolution on Presidential Election, Public Sector Workers Comp Bill, Displaced Workers Bill, strategy for 2021 legislative calendar, local involvement in the Georgia Senate runoff.
NoVA Labor re-names award after Scott Reynolds
“At our meeting tonight, NoVA Labor voted to name our annual Grassroots Political Action Award in honor of Scott Reynolds, our beloved union brother who passed away this month,” reports NoVA Labor president Ginny Diamond. “The Scott Reynolds Political Action Award will be presented annually to the union that contributes the most volunteers to our labor political program. Scott was a delegate to NoVA Labor from the Baltimore Washington News Guild and he will be deeply missed.”
Today's Labor Quote: John L. Lewis
"Out of the agony and travail of economic America the Committee for Industrial Organization was born."
Lewis, president of the Mine Workers, walked away from the American Federation of Labor on this date in 1935 to lead the newly-formed Committee for Industrial Organization. In 1938 it changed its name to the Congress of Industrial Organizations; the CIO and the unions created under its banner organized six million industrial workers over the following decade.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: From 1980 to 1995, during a time of significantly declining membership in most other American labor unions, the Service Employees International Union – SEIU -- nearly doubled its membership. Dr. Timothy Minchin explains why, in this excerpt from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. The Columbine Mine Massacre, which took place on November 21, 1927, was an important moment in the Colorado Mine Wars. Bob Rossi, who hosts a monthly labor segment on the Willamette Wake Up show on KMUZ in Salem, Oregon, discusses miners' organizing efforts. Plus: On this week’s Labor History in 2:00, Rick Smith tells the story of the 1909 Uprising of the 20,000.
Last week’s show: A journey down the Working River
History’s first recorded (on papyrus) strike, by Egyptians working on public works projects for King Ramses III in the Valley of the Kings. They were protesting having gone 20 days without pay -- portions of grain -- and put their tools down. Exact date estimated, described as within “the sixth month of the 29th year” of Ramses’ reign -- 1170BC -- in The Spirit of Ancient Egypt, by Ana Ruiz. Scholar John Rome adds in Ancient Lives: The story of the Pharaoh’s Tombmakers that the strike so terrified the authorities they gave in and raised wages. Romer believes it happened few years earlier, on Nov. 14, 1152 BC.
Troops were dispatched to Cripple Creek, Colo. to control rioting by striking coal miners - 1903
- David Prosten
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