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
AFL-CIO Week of Action on the PRO Act: Apr 26 – May 1, 2021
This is the national AFL-CIO's week of action on the PRO Act. Please call Senator Warner at 202-224-2023 or 703-442-0670 and ask him to co-sponsor the bill.
Film: HAYMARKET: The Bomb, The Anarchists, The Labor Struggle: Apr 28 – May 2, 2021
Click here to register for the May 1 8p ET discussion (see below) and click here for free registration for the film; you’ll be able to watch the film at your convenience (available beginning at 12noon Wed April 28).
Constructing a New Social Compact: A Public Forum on Empowering the Post-Pandemic Working Class: Apr 28 – May 1, 2021
Register for free.
Video: We Mean To Make Things Over: Thu, April 29, 4pm – 5pm
A special sneak preview rough cut screening of a video in progress: We mean to make things over: A labor history of May Day and discussion of the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act).
Virtual Workers Memorial Day Program (Jewish Labor Committee): Thu, April 29, 4pm – 5pm
Book talk: Trumka & Anand on "Winners Take All": Thu, April 29, 6pm – 8pm
Streaming in real time on the Toledo Lucas County Public Library Facebook page and viewers are invited to be a part of the conversation via Zoom by registering here.
Arlington Dems Labor Caucus: Thu, April 29, 6pm – 7pm
Meeting of union members and community allies in Arlington.
Bowser targeted by rally for DC Essential Workers’ Bill of Rights
Next week’s Virtual Rally for the DC Essential Workers’ Bill Of Rights – Weds, May 5 at 6p, click here to RSVP – will focus on DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. “We are fighting to make sure that essential workers have sick leave, hazard pay, paid bereavement leave, and stronger workplace safety,” says Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester. “Mayor Bowser has the power to make this happen, so join us as we rally to urge her to get it done.” Another focus of the rally are the local workers who lost their lives in this pandemic, “and we’ll hear stories from frontline workers who have been affected by unsafe workplaces,” says MWC Political Director David Stephen. “Make sure you spread the word to your union brothers and sisters as we rally for essential worker protections!” You must register in advance here.
AFL-CIO launches Virginia ad campaign boosting the PRO Act
The AFL-CIO launched a major ad campaign in Virginia this week, airing statewide television and radio ads promoting the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The advertising campaign is aligned with a national week of action, from April 26 to May 1, mobilizing working people to demand Senate passage of the landmark worker rights bill. “We’re taking nothing for granted,” said AFL-CIO spokesperson Kalina Newman. “The PRO Act is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to give working people a stronger voice on the job. We’re making sure the Senate hears us loud and clear by reminding Virginians of what they already know: It shouldn’t be this hard just to get by.” The TV ad features a number of MWC and NoVA Labor affiliates and the radio ad features a personal testimonial from United Steelworkers (USW) member Sederick Wilson.
Solidarity Center Launches New Climate Justice Plan
The Solidarity Center is launching a new, partner-informed, inclusive strategic plan to support workers and their unions around the world to address impacts and drive solutions for an accelerating climate crisis.
“The Solidarity Center recognizes that workers and their communities—especially in the global south—are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis. We are committed to directing resources and attention toward people-centered climate policy and legislative advocacy by our partners and allies in their respective countries,” says Shawna-Bader Blau, Solidarity Center executive director.
The Solidarity Center’s strategic plan includes using collective bargaining to advance cleaner, safer and more sustainable operations across sectors and developing worker-driven climate solutions. Find out more at Solidarity Center.
Solidarity Center initiatives to advance climate justice include a convening of palm oil unions from Colombia, Honduras, Indonesia and Malaysia, with environmental partners, to support implementation of a strategic plan by labor leaders from those countries that addresses issues with common actors and challenges within the supply chain, and pursues advocacy avenues for worker protection demands and engagement in policymaking on climate-change mitigation measures. photo: Oscar Durand / Solidarity Center
Today's Labor Quote: Jacob Coxey
“We have come here through toil and weary marches, through storms and tempests, over mountains, and amid the trials of poverty and distress, to lay our grievances at the doors of our National Legislature.”
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living! Last week’s show: Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas.
Coxey’s Army of 500 unemployed civil war veterans reaches Washington, DC - 1894
photo: Coxey's Army approaches DC
When their demand that only union men be employed was refused, members of the Western Federation of Miners dynamited and destroyed the $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill Company at Wardner, Idaho - 1899
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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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