2021 AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference: January 15-16
Click here to register
Aims to build on our victories and strategize about the continued fight for economic and racial justice with—and also within—the labor movement.

Coalition to Repeal Right-to-Work: Fri, January 15, 7pm – 9pm
Coalition of more than 50 groups that want to repeal this mis-named law and give workers the right to work with dignity.

Our Revolution Virtual Town Hall on Repeal of RTW: Sat, January 16, 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Our Revolution Chair Larry Cohen and NoVA OR Chair Sandra Klassen will moderate a panel on repeal of "right to work." Speakers include Delegates Sally Hudson, Josh Cole and Lee Carter, plus Josh Armstead, Michelle Woolley, Don Slaiman, and Virginia Diamond.
Click this link to join.

2021 Gonna Take Us All MLK Holiday Inaugural Ball: Sun, January 17, 8:00pm – 11:59pm
Sponsored by the Labor Heritage Foundation. The Motown Diva herself, Lynn Marie Smith, will be DJ’ing, and along with the rest of the country, we will be happily celebrating the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris.
To register, click here.

Missed yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here; John Boardman, UNITE HERE Local 25 on calls for DC-area hotel closures and transit safety procedures to protect staff and public from right-wing violence. Anita Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer at Howard University Hospital, clears up the myths and realities about the COVID vaccine. Richard Schweid on “The Caring Class.” Plus: Maryland My Maryland: The Free State Song. Hear a proposed replacement for the state’s song glorifying secession and violence. Sign the petition here.

Transit union demands safety plans to deal with violent insurrections
With the FBI warning of possible armed and dangerous demonstrations to oppose the swearing-in of President-elect Biden in Washington, DC and all 50 state capitals, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) yesterday demanded that transit agencies have safety plans in place to prepare for violent insurrections. “Last week’s deadly insurrection of the U.S. Capitol put ATU Local 689 bus drivers and Metro workers in our nation’s capital in grave danger for their lives and safety,” said ATU International President John Costa. “There is every reason to believe that our members – bus drivers, station agents, and other transit workers – across the country will be put at serious risk as these forces of sedition threaten to repeat the horrors and violence of January 6 leading up to and on inauguration day.” ATU demanded that transit agencies work with the union to develop and implement comprehensive safety plans to deal with any and all violence. “Transit agencies should be ready to shut down transit service completely or curtail service. The safety of transit workers, riders, and the public must come first,” said Costa. The union reminded members that they have the legal right to refuse work they consider dangerous or unsafe as they've had during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

Andrew Washington viewing and service set
On January 21, from 12pm until 5pm, a viewing for Andrew Washington – AFSCME Council 20 Executive Director and 1st Vice President for the Metro Washington Council -- will be held at the Thankful Baptist Church, where family and friends will have the opportunity to pay their respects. The viewing will be a walk through in/out viewing, face mask or face covering are mandatory at all times, social distancing will be strictly enforced along with temperature checks prior to entering the church. The family “deeply encourages those who may be feeling ill or under the weather to stay home!" Expressions of sympathy, cards, love offering etc. can be mailed to AFSCME District Council 20 office, 100 M Street SE, Suite 250 Washington DC 20003 or dropped off during the day of Andrew’s viewing at the church. On January 22, the Washington family will have a private service and Celebration of Life; services will be live-streamed online for all starting at 11:00 am. Click here for for details about Andrew's life.

Solidarity Center Report: Health and Safety: South Africa Domestic Workers No Longer Invisible
Domestic workers in South Africa now have workplace safety and health coverage through the efforts of the domestic workers' union, SADSAWU, with support from the Solidarity Center. In an historic judgment, the South African Constitutional Court recognized that injury and illness arising from work as a domestic worker in a private home is no different to that occurring in other workplaces and equally deserving of compensation. Domestic workers had previously not been covered by the country's occupational health and safety compensation fund. Read more at Solidarity Center.

Labor Quote: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?”

Dr. King was born on this date in 1929.

Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Vancouver Island Coal Strike; Skyscraper Labor
The story of the 1912 Vancouver Island Coal Strike -- the most protracted, violent and hard-fought strike in British Columbia's long labour history -- from the On The Line podcast.
In Part 1 of her online talk for The Skyscraper Museum last November, architectural historian Joanna Merwood-Salisbury traces labor protests in the construction industry in Chicago in the 1880s and examines the formation of unions uniting trades-based groups with ethnic organizations, as well as the public spaces of their protest movements.
And on Labor History in 2:00, Rick Smith tells us about The Rise of Settlement Houses.
Last week’s show: Cutting along the Color Line

December 15
Susan B. Anthony, suffragist, abolitionist, labor activist, born in Adams, Mass. - 1820

U.S. legislators pass the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, providing funds for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which funneled money to states plagued by Depression-era poverty and unemployment, and oversaw the subsequent distribution and relief efforts - 1934

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expels the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers; the Food, Tobacco & Agricultural Workers; and the United Office & Professional Workers for “Communist tendencies.” Other unions expelled for the same reason (dates uncertain): Fur and
Leather Workers, the Farm Equipment Union, the International Longshoremen’s Union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers - 1950

December 16
Leonora O’Reilly was born in New York. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she began working in a factory at 11, joined the Knights of Labor at 16, and was a volunteer investigator of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. She was a founding member of the Woman’s Trade Union League - 1870

Diamond Mine disaster in Braidwood, Ill. The coal mine was on a marshy tract of land with no natural drainage. Snow melted and forced a collapse on the east side of the mine, killing 74 - 1883

Beginning of a 17-week general strike of 12,000 New York furriers, in which Jewish workers formed a coalition with Greek and African American workers and became the first union to win a five-day, 40-hour week - 1926

Rubber Workers begin sit-down strike at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. - 1936

December 17
63 sit-down strikers, demanding recognition of their union, are tear gassed and driven from two Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. plants in Chicago. Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court declared sit-down strikes illegal. The tactic had been a major industrial union organizing tool - 1937

Unions at Yale University strike in solidarity with teaching assistants - 1992

- David Prosten

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