Labor Radio Podcast Weekly: Unify: A Young Worker's Podcast; UCOMM Live; Labor Radio on KBOO; Union City Radio; America's Workforce Radio; We Do the Work; Laborlines; En Masse
WAMU employees vote unanimously to unionize
The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday certified that content staff at Washington NPR station WAMU 88.5 have voted 65-0 to form a union with SAG-AFTRA. “(We) look forward to advancing our shared beliefs in transparency, accountability, fairness, and most importantly, the truth,” said WAMU Morning Edition host Esther Ciammachilli. “This vote provides a necessary pathway for us to work with management to create an environment that embraces WAMU's deep desire to serve the public while protecting the people who produce the news every day,” added 1A host Jenn White. “We're excited to work with WAMU and American University to shape this future.” The new bargaining unit will include reporters, editors, producers, hosts, audio engineers and other content creators across WAMU. The workers will now begin negotiating a contract with the owner of WAMU’s broadcast license, American University.
Tell Councilmembers: Pass a strong Right to Return to Work bill!
Earlier this week, the DC City Council unanimously voted to move forward B23-0965, which gives workers in hotels, restaurants, retail, entertainment venues, and contracting jobs the right to return to any jobs they lost as a result of COVID-19. With the bill advancing to its second and final vote on December 15th, “we need to make sure the Council holds the line and keep the bill from being watered down!” says DC Jobs with Justice’s petition; click here https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-councilmembers-pass-a-strong-right-to-return-to-work-bill?source=direct_link& to tell Councilmembers to pass a strong Right to Return to Work bill.
NOTE: Click here to hear UNITE HERE 25 Political Director Sam Epps discuss the Right to Return to Work bill on yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show on WPFW, which also featured AFA president Sara Nelson on the urgent need for Congress to act on economic relief.
- David Stephen
Solidarity Center Report: Countries Must Cooperate to Facilitate Safe Migration for Workers
Migrant workers around the world have suffered some of the harshest effects of COVID-19 and the related lockdowns, quarantines and travel restrictions. Yet while the world has recognized “the bravery of frontline workers,” many of whom are migrants, “we must now turn that celebration into something that is meaningful and not just ephemeral,” says United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. We must ensure “fair and ethical recruitment, decent work, and access to health care and social protection without discrimination. Migrants must not be stigmatized or denied access to medical treatment and other public services.” Guterres spoke this week during release of the first UN Secretary General’s report on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration which focuses extensively on the effects of COVID-19 on the world’s 272 million migrants and the guidance the Global Compact offers in addressing the adverse effects on migrant workers. Find out more at the Solidarity Center.
Today's Labor Quote: Walter Reuther
“First we must organize them, that’s the easy part, then we must unionize them, that’s the hard part.”
Auto Workers President Walter Reuther was elected president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations on this date in 1951.
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Monopoly and Class Struggle: The games we play
Last week’s show: Uprising of the 20,000
December 4
President Roosevelt announces the end of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), concluding the four-year run of one of the American government's most ambitious public works programs. It helped create jobs for roughly 8.5 million people during the Great Depression and left a legacy of highways and public buildings, among other public gains - 1943
December 5
Unionists John T. and James B. McNamara were sentenced to 15 years and life, respectively, after confessing to dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building during a drive to unionize the metal trades in the city. Twenty people died in the bombing. The newspaper was strongly conservative and anti-union - 1911
Ending a 20-year split, the two largest labor federations in the U.S. merge to form the AFL-CIO, with a membership estimated at 15 million - 1955
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney welcomes the collapse of World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, declaring "No deal is better than a bad deal" - 1999
The U.S. Dept. of Labor reports employers slashed 533,000 jobs the month before -- the most in 34 years -- as the Great Recession surged. The unemployment rolls had risen for 7 months before that and were to continue to soar for another 10 months before topping 10 percent and beginning to level off late the following year - 2008
December 6
United Mine Workers begin what is to become a 110-day national coal strike - 1997
African American delegates meet in Washington, D.C., to form the Colored National Labor Union as a branch of the all-white National Labor Union created three years earlier. Unlike the NLU, the CNLU welcomed members of all races. Isaac Myers was the CNLU's founding president; Frederick Douglas became president in 1872 - 1869
361 coal miners die at Monongah, W.V., in nation's worst mining disaster - 1907
International Glove Workers Union of America merges into Amalgamated Clothing Workers - 1961
- David Prosten
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