LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings Union City Radio: 7:15a M-F; WPFW-FM 89.3 UAW strike picket (weekdays only): Mon, September 23, 6am – 2pm
Fed UP! Rise UP! AFGE Rally and Lobby Day: Tue, September 24, 12pm – 1pm 
BSO musicians reach tentative contract agreement
Late Friday night the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its musicians reached a tentative agreement on a new contract proposal. The results of the ratification voting by both the musicians and the BSO board are expected to be announced sometime on Monday, September 23rd. The settlement came on the 96th day of what the BSO musician's union called The Great Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Work Stoppage, during which BSO management locked out the musicians for the summer. "Our battles are not over," said Mary C. Plaine, Secretary-Treasurer of the Musicians' Association of Metropolitan Baltimore, Local 40-543, American Federation of Musicians. "But if the proposal is passed, maybe we will have some time to catch our breath." She thanked everyone who supported the musicians over the last 14 weeks. photo: Ellen Pendleton Troyer, Delmar Stewart and Schuyler Jackson (not pictured) stand with striking UAW workers at White Marsh who are fighting for job security, fair wages and affordable healthcare. 
Nurses walk with striking UAW members in White Marsh
NNU registered nurses and activists walked in solidarity with striking UAW members at the GM plant in White Marsh, Maryland (just outside Baltimore) last week. “The auto workers stand symbolizes the struggles that millions of workers face every day – how to cope with soaring health care costs and how to protect their jobs and their families as more and more wealth is shifted to corporations and the super-rich at the expense of everyone else,” said NNU President Jean Ross, RN in a statement. The White Marsh picket line continues this week from 6a to 2p (weekdays only). 
Fed Up? Rise Up!
Massive turnout is expected for tomorrow’s federal worker march and rally (see Calendar). Four major federal worker unions – AFGE, NFFE, NTEU and IFPTE – will be joined by allies and supporters on Capitol Hill tomorrow “to make it clear that government workers demand dignity, fairness and respect,” says AFGE. More details here, including downloadable flyers and more. 
DC Statehood in the House
by Ann Hoffman You couldn’t walk in or around the Rayburn Building last Thursday without bumping into enthusiastic supporters of Statehood for DC. A thousand of them, from people who moved here a week ago to fourth-generation Washingtonians lined up for hours outside the hearing room (knowing they would never get to sit in one of the 50 or so seats). If you got in line when the building opened at 7:30, you got a seat for the 10 a.m. hearing - the first since 1993 on DC Statehood. After the doors closed, supporters packed the two overflow rooms. Hundreds watched the testimony of DC officials, constitutional experts and a DC military veteran on jumbotrons (photo) set up in a park across from Rayburn (popcorn not provided). If you're a Statehood buff, you probably did not learn anything new - except that DC outshines many states with respect to Bond ratings (AAA), pension funding (100%) and percentage of their state budgets contributed by the federal government (DC, 23%; state average, 32%). You can watch the 3-hour hearing here, where you’ll see Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly show that race and partisanship are keeping DC from its rightful place as the 51st state at 2:02:30 in the video. Hopefully more unions and their members will become actively involved in this fight. Metro Washington Council 3rd Vice President Herb Harris attended the House hearing; the Metro Council is a supporter of DC Statehood and released a statement reaffirming that support. Hoffman, a member of the National Writers Union, is a longtime DC Statehood activist. photo courtesy 51 for 51 
Today's Labor History Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. “Teachers strikes, the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matters movement, all of those are collective actions that for years you never saw; people didn’t believe in themselves. Now they know that if they’re gonna make progress, they can’t look to anyone but themselves.” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka talks with Labor History Today’s Joe McCartin about the current state – and the future -- of the American labor movement. Plus, Mark Potashnick on Jim Pohle, the founder of the American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers, class action law suits, and the app-based revolution in food delivery services. The Workingman's Advocate of Chicago publishes the first installment of The Other Side, by Martin A. Foran, president of the Coopers' International Union. Believed to be the first novel by a trade union leader and some say the first working-class novel ever published in the U.S. - 1868 
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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