Payroll Protection Program: Unions are now eligible! Mon, March 29, 11am – 12pm

Airport Union Caucus: Mon, March 29, 2pm – 3pm
Meeting for unions representing airline and airport workers at Dulles and DCA.

Prince William County Labor Caucus: Mon, March 29, 7pm – 8pm
Meeting for union members and community allies in PWC.

George Mason University Coalition for Worker Rights: Tue, March 30, 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Coalition of GMU professors, students, campus employees, alumni, and contract workers.

Loudoun County Labor Caucus: Tue, March 30, 5pm – 6pm
Meeting of Loudoun County union members and community allies.

Labor Radio Podcast Network livestream PodExtra: Women’s History Month; Long Island migrant labor camps with Dora Cervantes (General Secretary Treasurer of the Machinists Union) and Mark Torres (author, “Long Island Migrant Camps: Dust for Blood,” Teamster, and labor lawyer).

ALDF United wins union election

The staff at Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) won their union election last Friday, with a super majority of eligible staff voting to join ALDF United, which is part of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), IFPTE Local 70. “We thank everyone inside and outside our organization for their support. We look forward to getting to work on our first union contract,” said the ALDF organizing committee. “Despite ALDF management’s attempts to bust the staff’s union, the employees prevailed in exercising their workplace right to join together in union. This victory highlights the power of strong worker organizing. We are so proud of ALDF United and are excited to support them as they begin negotiating to make ALDF an even better organization,” said NPEU Interim President Katie Barrows.

Organizing comes alive in "Union Made"

Union Made captures the blood, sweat, tears, as well as the courage, love, and solidarity that animates a union organizing drive. The new book by Eric Lotke, an attorney at the National Education Association, provides a window into the challenges faced by workers who are fighting for dignity and a more humane workplace. Lotke’s second work of fiction takes place in Richmond, Virginia, with a storyline anchored between two narratives: Catherine Campbell and the workers who are organizing Pac-Shoppe, and Nathan Hawley, an accountant working for a company planning a hostile takeover. Catherine’s story takes the reader inside the dynamics of organizing high stake meetings with Pac-Shoppe employees and strategic direct actions around the city as they band together to fight for higher wages, predictable work shifts, and dignity on the job. The other storyline opens a window into the cold calculation of finance capitalism, as we follow Nathan’s heroic journey away from a lonely accountant dealing with the banality of tracking spreadsheets and positive growth curves to a dialectic with Catherine that grows his class consciousness and creates a beautiful interplay as Nathan falls in love with both the movement and Catherine. Union Made is published by Tim Sheard’s Hardball Press. You can also watch an interview with Lotke here.

- reviewed by Evan Papp of Empathy Media lab. Read a labor-related book and want to review it for Union City? Email us at streetheat@dclabor.org!

Today's Labor Quote: Randi Weingarten, in response to the Atlanta shootings:

"As the people who educate children, care for patients and keep our communities safe, we must continue to teach tolerance and acceptance, and to take a stand against the injustices that continue affecting the lives of so many people we love."

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The Hardhat Riot.Last week’s show: We Were There; Pins and Needles; Dust for Blood.

Ohio makes it illegal for children under 18 and women to work more than 10 hours a day - 1852

Sam Walton, founder of the huge and bitterly anti-union Wal-Mart empire, born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He once said that his priority was to
“Buy American,” but Wal-Mart is now the largest U.S. importer of foreign-made goods—often produced under sweatshop conditions - 1918

“Battle of Wall Street,” police charge strikers lying down in front of stock exchange doors, 43 arrested - 1948

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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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