TODAY'S LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
Labor Radio Podcast Network livestream show: Wed, January 20, 7pm – 8pm
Watch live on Facebook
Guests: Marc Dann, Mark McDermott, Danny Schur & Kurt Stand
Andrew Washington viewing: Thu, January 21, 12pm – 5pm
Thankful Baptist Church, 1401 Independence Ave SE Washington, DC 20003
AFSCME Council 20 Executive Director and 1st Vice President for the Metro Washington Council
Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, January 21, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online
FILM: 9-5: The Story of a Movement: Thu, January 21, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Register here
Baltimore Labor Council meeting: Thu, January 21, 7pm – 9pm
Email for call-in details: [email protected]
NoVA Labor monthly meeting: Thu, January 21, 7pm – 9pm
Universal Paid Family Leave: DC Council Committee on Labor & Workforce Development: Fri, January 22, 9am – 12pm
Andrew Washington service: Fri, January 22, 11am – 1pm
Live-streamed online
Coalition to Repeal Right-to-Work: Fri, January 22, 7pm – 9pm
Got local labor news? Email it to us today! Send tips, releases or suggestions to us at [email protected]
Hospital or medical debt stories wanted
Have you, a family member or fellow union member been hit with crippling hospital or medical debts in Maryland? Advocates of legislation to limit the effects of such debt want to hear your story. Email David Stephen at [email protected] or NNU's Korey Hartwich at [email protected]. “We need to protect Marylanders from the outrageous possibility that getting sick can lead to bankruptcy, homelessness, and destitution,” says Hartwich, “and every story can get us closer.” MWC affiliates National Nurses United and SEIU 1199 are teaming up with community allies to support legislation proposed by Maryland Delegate Lorig Charkoudian and Senator Brian Feldman that would place tighter restrictions on medical debt lawsuits and debt collection practices, including prohibiting litigation for small amounts, blocking liens on patients’ homes or first cars, requiring hospitals to offer reasonable payment plans, and banning lawsuits while appeals or applications for financial help are still pending.
Time to topple Maryland's musical monument to the Confederacy?Calling it “racist,” “dreadful” and “disgraceful,” Marylanders are calling on the state’s General Assembly to repeal the official state song -- written by a pro-Confederate propagandist – and replace it with one co-written by a labor musician. “For more than 80 years, our beloved Maryland has had a dreadful state song written by a pro-Confederate propagandist,” says a petition started by Labor Heritage Foundation Executive Director Elise Bryant. “It refers to Abraham Lincoln as a ‘Tyrant’ and ‘Despot’ and denounces the Union forces—which included thousands of loyal patriotic Marylanders—as ‘Northern Scum.’” Musician Steve Jones – who’s written the music for two labor jazz operas -- and Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin have collaborated to re-write the song, re-titled as “Maryland My Maryland: The Free State Song,” to “celebrate its natural history, its beauty, its geographic and cultural diversity, and its commitment to the struggle for freedom and justice for all, not secession and violence.” The Maryland General Assembly has refused for decades to repeal the song’s official designation, claiming they have nothing to replace it with. “Now we do,” says the petition.
Today’s Labor Quote: Sharon McMahon
"I was just really struck by that moment -- like, it is someone's job to clean this up so we can have democracy."
McMahon is a government teacher who once taught in Montgomery County and now lives in Minnesota. She's launched the letter writing campaign to send thank-you letters to custodians at the U.S. Capitol who cleaned up after the January 6 insurrection; email them to AFSCME Local 626 at [email protected]
Today's Labor History
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Stand! The new hit labor musical. Last week’s show: The Vancouver Island Coal Strike; Skyscraper Labor.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) founded - 1920
Hard working Mickey Mantle signs a new contract with the New York Yankees making him the highest paid player in baseball: $75,000 for the entire 1961 season - 1961
Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown," a eulogy for dying industrial cities, is the country’s most listened-to song. The lyrics, in part: "Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores / Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more / They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks / Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown / Your hometown / Your hometown / Your hometown . . ." - 1986
- David Prosten
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. DYANA FORESTER, PRESIDENT.
Story suggestions, event announcements, campaign reports, Letters to the Editor and other material are welcome, subject to editing for clarity and space; just click on the mail icon below. You can also reach us on Facebook and Twitter by clicking on those icons.
|
