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Washington Teachers' Union President Elizabeth Davis passes

Journalists at SC's The State unionizing with Newspaper Guild

Your Move/Readers Write: '97 Detroit newspaper strike eclipsed '63 NYC strike

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

[link removed] TODAY'S 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] Loudoun County Labor Caucus: Tue, April 6, 5pm - 6pm
Meeting for union members and community allies in Loudoun.

[link removed] "Strike! A 50th Anniversary Symposium": Tue, April 6, 8pm - 10pm
Since its original publication in 1972, no book has done as much as Jeremy Brecher's Strike! to bring U.S. labor history to a wide audience.

"Wednesdays with Warner": Wed, April 7, 8:15am - 8:45am

Windmill Hill Park, 500 S. Lee St., Alexandria VA
Weekly action urging Senator Warner to sign on to the PRO Act to Protect the Right to Organize.

NoVA Labor Arts Union Caucus: Wed, April 7, 3pm - 4pm

Meeting of unions of the performing and broadcast arts.

Contact Jess Speaker for the link: mailto:[email protected] [email protected]

Film: Lapsis: Wed, April 7, 7pm - 9pm
[link removed] CLICK HERE for tickets: $12; $2 from each ticket purchased goes to MWC's [link removed] Community Services Agency. Support provided by [link removed] American Income Life.
Post-screening Q&A moderated by labor journalist Sarah Jaffe, with Katie Parker, Administrative Organizer for NPEU, the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union and EPI Policy Analyst Margaret Poydock

Alexandria Dems Labor Caucus: Wed, April 7, 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Meeting of union members and community allies in Alexandria; contact mailto:[email protected] [email protected] for the link.

Missed last week's Your Rights At Work radio show, "Duke University Press workers organize"? [link removed] Catch the podcast herehttps://anchor.fm/christopher-garlock/episodes/Celebrating-Womens-History-Month-in-song-ethbnq.%20 .

Washington Teachers' Union President Elizabeth Davis passes
The metro area labor movement lost one of its most outspoken leaders Sunday night when Washington Teachers Union president Elizabeth Davis died in a car crash.
Davis had been "at the forefront of public education advocacy and reform, leading the WTU's transformation into a social justice, solution-driven organization dedicated to advancing and promoting quality education for all children," WTU said in a release Monday morning. Davis worked hard at "improving teaching and learning conditions, and aggressively amplifying the voice of teachers in the dialogue around issues of teaching and learning," the union added. "We are confident that her legacy will continue to shape the WTU as well as education across the District."
"Elizabeth Davis fought every single day, not just for her members, but for all the city's students and parents," said Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester. "As a DC parent myself, and also as a lifelong city resident and labor activist, sister Davis was a constant inspiration to me and to so many others. The thoughts and prayers of the Metro Washington Council go out to her family, her union and to all whose lives were touched by Liz. Her loss is shared by the entire local labor community and we shall carry on her legacy of battling for justice even as we mourn her passing." Davis was a longtime member of the Metro Council's Executive Board.
The first time Davis stood up to D.C. school administrators was in the 1960s, [link removed] The Washington Post reported. "Davis, then a teenager, staged a walkout at Eastern High to protest the lack of African American history and culture in her school's curriculum. Hundreds of students joined her. And it worked, she said. The curriculum changed." "That was the beginning," Davis told the Post in an interview in February. "It was exciting. It was exhilarating. We were organizing." Memorial service details will be forthcoming.
photo: Davis at a rally at Freedom Plaza on April 25, 2019; photo by Chris Garlock/Union City

Journalists at SC's The State unionizing with Newspaper Guild
On March 31 the journalists of The State newspaper moved to form South Carolina's largest newspaper union, The State News Guild. Reporters, photographers and newsroom producers at the newspaper in South Carolina's capital city have signed cards expressing a desire to be represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035. "Because of a high level of support for unionizing in the newsroom, we are requesting immediate, voluntary recognition from our paper's management and the McClatchy Company," the union said in a [link removed] statement.

Your Move/Readers Write: '97 Detroit newspaper strike eclipsed '63 NYC strike
The 114-day 1963 New York newspaper strike (4/1 UC Labor History) "was the longest in history at the time, but it was certainly eclipsed by the Detroit newspaper strike and lockout that started in 1995," writes Newspaper Guild member Mark Pattison. "The unions ended the Detroit strike in February 1997, at which point the newspapers locked out workers, bringing them back only when there was a scab-created vacancy. And the lockout didn't end until November 2000."

Today's Labor Quote: Rose Schneiderman

Born on this date in 1882, Schneiderman was a prominent member of the New York Women's Trade Union League, an active participant in the Uprising of the 20,000, the massive strike of shirtwaist workers in New York City led by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1909, she was famous for an angry speech about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire:

"Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers...Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week'shttps://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-m3pqw-ffb69b Labor History Today podcast: Canal workers, gays & miners, Gandhi's labor quote. Last week's show: [link removed] The Hardhat Riot.

The first slave revolt in the U.S. occurs at a slave market in New York City's Wall Street area. Twenty-one blacks were executed for killing nine whites. The city responded by strengthening its slave codes - 1712

A sympathy strike by Chicago Teamsters in support of clothing workers leads to daily clashes between strikebreakers and armed police against hundreds and sometimes thousands of striking workers and their supporters. By the time the fight ended after 103 days, 21 people had been killed and 416 injured - 1905

What was to become a two-month strike by minor league umpires begins, largely over money: $5,500 to $15,000 for a season running 142 games. The strike ended with a slight improvement in pay - 2006

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source.

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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