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
DC COPE meeting: Tue, April 13, 2pm – 4pm
Register here
George Mason University Coalition for Worker Rights: Tue, April 13, 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Coalition of faculty, students, alumni, employees and contract workers.
Loudoun County Labor Caucus: Tue, April 13, 5pm – 6pm
Meeting of union members and community allies in Loudoun County
"Wednesdays with Warner" for the PRO Act: Wed, April 14, 8:15am – 8:45am
Windmill Hill Park, 500 South Lee St., Alexandria, VA
Southern Towers Tenant Zoom Event: Wed, April 14, 10:30am – 11:30am
For the link contact [email protected] or [email protected].
Film: MARTIN EDEN: Wed, April 14, 7pm – 9pm
CLICK HERE for tickets: $12; $2 from each ticket purchased goes to MWC’s Community Services Agency Event support provided by American Income Life.
Post-screening Q&A with filmmaker and novelist John Sayles.
Missed last week’s Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here. This week's show: AFL-CIO Communications Director Tim Schlittner on the PRO Act Digital Day of Action today; Moment of Silence for WTU 6 president Liz Davis; latest labor news headlines, including peeing in bottles at Amazon and our new Bad Bosses feature.
Jacqueline Pogue Lyons takes over reins at WTU
The Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) today announced that Jacqueline Pogue Lyons has been confirmed as the union’s next President. Regina Bell will become General Vice President. “It is an honor to lead the Washington Teachers’ Union,” Pogue Lyons said. “We will continue to honor the work and legacy of (former WTU president) Elizabeth Davis (who died April 4) by working to ensure that our students receive the education they deserve. This starts today with our work to prevent cuts to our school budgets and ensure that city leaders follow the law by ensuring city dollars are allocated equitably to our students.” Pogue Lyons has been a teacher in the District of Columbia for twenty-eight years; she became WTU’s General Vice President in 2016, where she was a tenacious advocate for the rights of teachers and oversaw the work of the WTU Field Representatives in ensuring DC Public Schools abided by WTU members’ contractual rights. “Every teacher who chooses to come to Washington, D.C. deserves a union that will stand behind them and support them,” Pogue Lyons added. “Every student deserves a great teacher who is supported and encouraged to grow in their profession. We must end the antiquated and punitive systems that our city uses to evaluate teachers and schools, causing tremendous turnover in our profession, and replace them with programs and supports that will help our students thrive.”
EPA ditches Trump-era contract, restores workers’ rights
In the latest victory for federal workers, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has signed an agreement with AFGE removing anti-worker provisions from the contract and taking steps to renegotiate a new contract that will be more worker friendly. With the new agreement with AFGE, the union reports that “all language relating to the previous administration’s illegal, anti-union, anti-worker executive orders is gone.” Read more.
Union Voice/Readers Write: “A threatening and hostile anti-union campaign”
“I believe we will now see a slow but steady removal of those that voted in the union election (The fight to organize Amazon workers is just beginning, 4/12 UC),” writes UC reader Jim Bertolone (former president of the Rochester NY Labor Council). “Amazon will begin removing for petty infractions those they suspect may have voted for the union and could include the majority of those casting a vote. This was a threatening and hostile anti-union campaign. The only safety of not being suspected of voting for the union was not to vote at all. I believe that is why about half, 2500 or so, cast no ballot.”
Today's Labor Quote: Meghan Markle
“At my old job, there was a union and they would protect me.”
The Duchess of Sussex, a former member of the Screen Actors Guild, in her recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: The US-Canadian Labor History Collaborative, plus songs about the 1913 Saskatchewan coal miners’ strike.
Last week’s show: Canal workers, gays & miners, Gandhi’s labor quote
International Hod Carriers & Building Laborers’ Union (today’s Laborers’ Int’l Union) is founded, as 25 delegates from 23 Local Unions in 17 cities—representing 8,186 Laborers—meet in Washington DC - 1903
Labor leader and Socialist Party founder Eugene V. Debs is imprisoned for opposing American entry into World War I. While in jail he ran for president, received 1 million votes - 1919
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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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