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Stories and music to end medical debt

Solidarity Center Report: Morocco Teachers Protest Limit on Strikes

Today's Labor Quote: Anne Feeney

Weekend Labor History

[link removed] LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings

Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; [link removed] click here to hear today's report

[link removed] Labor Committee for Affordable Housing: Fri, February 5, 3pm - 4pm
Labor needs a seat at the table in discussions about affordable housing. Our new committee, co-chaired by Bert Bayou (Unite Here Local 23) will discuss a pro-worker agenda for housing justice that includes tenant organizing, affordable housing policies, and raising wages so workers can afford housing.

[link removed] Coalition to Repeal "Right to Work": Fri, February 5, 7pm - 8pm
Coalition of 50 organizations seeking to reverse income inequality and empower workers by repealing the Jim Crow-era so-called "right to work law."

End Medical Debt Maryland campaign launch (virtual): Sat, February 6, 7pm - 8pm
RSVP at [link removed] bit.ly/emdlaunch to receive a Zoom link
Hear stories from Marylanders who have struggled with medical debt, learn about HB565/SB514: The Medical Debt Protection Act, and take action together to protect Maryland families and provide debt relief. Enjoy the fusion folk sounds of Conjunto Bruja and the virtuosic stylings of Lior Willinger (piano) and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Jacob Shack (viola) as music brings us together around a common vision of a world where patients are no longer penalized for being sick.

Missed yesterday's Your Rights At Work radio show? [link removed] Catch the podcast here: Remembering John Sweeney; Stephen Lerner, Marilyn Sneiderman, Harold Meyerson and Joe McCartin remember John Sweeney, who led the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009. John Sweeney died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Maryland; he was 86. A [link removed] memorial page has been set up for anyone wishing to post a tribute to his memory.

Stories and music to end medical debt
Medical debt is a huge problem for working people; over one recent 10-year period, Maryland's nonprofit hospitals filed nearly 150,000 lawsuits against their own patients for unpaid medical bills, resulting in workers' wages being garnished or liens being placed on their homes and vehicles. The End Medical Debt Maryland coalition will launch the Medical Debt Protection Act this Saturday night with a virtual campaign launch event that features stories from Marylanders affected by this issue as well as music from Conjunto Bruja and musicians -- AFM members -- from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. [link removed] Click here for details of the campaign launch; check out "a vision of a world where patients are no longer penalized for being sick."

Solidarity Center Report: Morocco Teachers Protest Limit on Strikes
Teachers in Morocco rallied throughout January against a government crackdown on their fundamental freedom to strike and also are protesting working conditions of contractual teachers. Morocco's constitution has protected the right to strike since 1962, but the government seeks to revise the country's labor law by adding significant obstacles to the right to strike, in violation of Morocco's international legal obligations. Teachers and other education workers pllan more protests next week. Find out more at [link removed] Solidarity Center.

Labor Quote: Anne Feeney

"You're really lucky if you get one song out that people will sing when you're gone. I've heard Have you been to jail for justice sung in Copenhagen by young kids being evicted from the youth house. I've heard it sung by a bunch of people, including Daniel Ellsberg, who were arrested in front of the White House over the Keystone pipeline. The song has really gotten legs and it's doing what I want it to do."

Folksinger and political activist Anne Feeney died on Wednesday. Listen to the rest of her interview on the [link removed] Labor Radio Podcast Weekly.

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Today's Labor History
This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] What's the matter with labor history? The life and work of Anna Louise Strong, a 20th-century American journalist, activist, and labor supporter. Steelworker Mike Stout, author of The Homestead Steel Mill: The Final 10 Years. Historian Max Krochmal on Why don't people know U.S. labor history and what can we learn from the past? Plus: The day New Orleans fired 7,000 teachers.
Last week's show: [link removed] The People, No

February 6
Ironworkers from six cities meet in Pittsburgh to form the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers of America. Their pay in Pittsburgh at the time: $2.75 for a nine-hour day - 1896

It took 1,231 firefighters 30 hours to put down The Great Baltimore Fire, which started on this day and destroyed 1,500 buildings over an area of some 140 acres - 1904

Philadelphia shirtwaist makers vote to accept arbitration offer and end walkout as Triangle Shirtwaist strike winds down. One year later 146 workers, mostly young girls aged 13 to 23, were to die in a devastating fire at the New York City sweatshop - 1910

Seattle General Strike begins. The city was run by a General Strike Committee for six days as tens of thousands of union members stopped work in support of 32,000 striking longshoremen - 1919

February 7
Union miners in Cripple Creek, CO begin what is to become a five-month strike that started when mineowners cut wages to $2.50 a day, from $3. The state militia was called out in support of the strikers - the only time in U.S. history that a militia was directed to side with the workers. The strike ended in victory for the union - 1894

Players formed The NHL Players Association in New York City after owners refuse to release pension plan financial information. The union was busted when owners transferred key activists, but it successfully re-formed ten years later - 1957

February 8
Mary Kenney O'Sullivan is born in Hannibal, Missouri. At age 28 she was to be appointed the first female general organizer for the American Federation of Labor by AFL President Samuel Gompers - 1864

Vigilantes beat IWW organizers for exercising free-speech rights, San Diego - 1912

- David Prosten

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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.

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