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Local Fight for $15 supporters cheer Biden's push to raise minimum wage

Labor movement applauds Celeste Drake's appointment to lead Made in America office

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

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
[link removed] Click here to register for the May 1 8p ET discussion and [link removed] click here for free registration for the film, which you can watch at your convenience (ends May 2!).

Constructing a New Social Compact: A Public Forum on Empowering the Post-Pandemic Working Class: Apr 28 - May 1, 2021
[link removed] Register for free.

[link removed] Labor Committee for Affordable Housing: Fri, April 30, 3pm - 4pm

Special guest Professor Louise Howells, teaches law at UDC Law School.

Film: Union Time: Fighting for Workers' Rights: Fri, April 30, 6pm - 8pm
[link removed] FREE; register here

[link removed] Coalition to Repeal "Right to Work": Fri, April 30, 7pm - 8pm

[link removed] Unions United: Building Worker Solidarity: Sat, May 1, 10:00am - 11:30am
Learn about labor history, get a report on the pro-labor bills that passed this legislative session, and discuss how union members can build solidarity and express our collective power.

May Day Immigrant Justice March: Sat, May 1, 11am - 1pm

Black Lives Matter Plaza Northwest, Black Lives Matter Plz NW, Washington, DC, USA ([link removed] map)

Sponsored by CASA, NAKASEC, Make The Road New York, National Domestic Workers Alliance, CARACEN-Central American Resource Center

PRO Act Rally: Tell Senator Warner to Support the PRO Act: Sat, May 1, 11:30am - 1:00pm
Windmill Hill Park 500 S Lee St Alexandria, VA 22314 ([link removed] map)
Organized by Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution and Virginia Justice Democrats. [link removed] RSVP HERE.

March on May Day: Sat, May 1, 3pm - 5pm

Malcolm X Park (16th and Euclid St NW) by the Joan of Arc statue ([link removed] map)

[link removed] Mark Dudzic "Redeployment" Party: Sat, May 1, 7pm - 8pm

The Labor Campaign for Single Payer organizer (and DC Labor FilmFest Co-Chair) is "redeploying" to chair the Campaign.

On this May Day weekend's labor calendar (see above), there are a number of great labor events (highlighted in yellow), including the May Day Immigrant Justice March at 11am and an online discussion of the film HAYMARKET: The Bomb, The Anarchists, The Labor Struggle at 8pm; you can also [link removed] click here for complete details on all the events this weekend. Got more labor events? Email us at mailto:streetheat@dclabor.org streetheat@dclabor.org

Local Fight for $15 supporters cheer Biden's push to raise minimum wage
Declaring that "No one working 40 hours a week should live below the poverty line" in his address to Congress Wednesday, President Joe Biden renewed his push for a $15 minimum wage a day afterhttps://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/04/27/executive-order-on-increasing-the-minimum-wage-for-federal-contractors/ issuing an executive order to raise the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15. After calling on Congress to pass the PRO Act, another piece of pro-labor legislation, Pres. Biden pressed Congress, "By the way: While you're thinking of sending things to my desk, let's raise the minimum wage to $15." Longtime supporters of the Fight for $15 cheered Biden's call. "By ensuring federally contracted workers earn a more livable wage, President Biden is setting a responsible and moral example for companies nationwide to follow while responding to the demands from working people who have been struggling to support their families and our economy," said SEIU 32BJ's Louis Davis. "Because companies rarely - if ever - raise wages on their own," Davis added, "low-wage workers have only government leaders and unions to rely on. The difference that $15 an hour can make for so many struggling families and our economy cannot be underestimated." The new minimum for federal contractors is expected to take effect next year and is likely to increase the pay of hundreds of thousands of workers.
- David Stephen

Labor movement applauds Celeste Drake's appointment to lead Made in America office
As a follow-up to his Jan. 25 [link removed] Buy America executive order, President Biden has named former AFL-CIO trade official [link removed] Celeste Drake (TNG-CWA, pictured above) as the first director of the administration's Made in America Office. "Celeste is a brilliant, critical thinker on trade and global issues who throughout her career has fought for policies that benefit America's working families," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA) said. "She is the perfect person to lead Made-in-America for the Biden-Harris administration."
- AFL-CIO Daily Brief

Today's Labor Quote: Terry O'Sullivan

"Just as the men and women of Haymarket stood united and stood fearless in the face of corporate terror, today we must stand united and stand fearless in the face of corporate tyranny."

O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers union, spoke in 2011 at the 125th anniversary of May Day commemoration in Chicago's Haymarket Square.

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TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week'shttps://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-s3mhe-101b036 Labor History Today podcast: Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living! Last week's show:[link removed] Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas.

April 30
An explosion at the Everettville mine in Everettville, W. Va., kills 109 miners, many of whom lie in unmarked graves to this day - 1927

Obama Administration's National Labor Relations Board implements new rules to speed up unionization elections. New rules are largely seen as a counter to employer manipulation of the law to prevent workers from unionizing. These rules were subsequently undone under the Trump administration in December 2019. - 2012

May 1
Women weavers form union, Fall River, Mass - 1875

John L. Lewis is elected president of the United Mine Workers. Fifteen years later he is to be a leader in the formation of what was to become the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) -1920

With the Great Depression in full force, the year 1932 opens with 14 million unemployed, national income down by 50%, breadlines that include former shopkeepers, businessmen and middle-class housewives. Charity is overwhelmed: only one-quarter of America's unemployed are receiving any help at all - 1932

Workers begin to acquire credits toward Social Security pension benefits. Employers and employees became subject to a tax of one percent of wages on up to $3,000 a year - 1937

Adolph Strasser, head of the Cigar Maker's Union and one of the founders of the AFL in 1886, died on this day in Forest Park, Ill. - 1939

Country music legend Hank Williams attends what was to be his final Musician's union meeting, at the Elite Café in Montgomery, Ala. He died of apparent heart failure three days later, at age 29 - 1953

Members of the Transport Workers Union and Amalgamated Transit Union working for the New York transit system begin what is to be a successful 12 day strike. Fiery TWU leader Mike Quill, jailed for several days during the strike, then hospitalized, died three days after his release from the hospital - 1966

After nine months of negotiations the United Transportation Union comes into existence, the product of merger between four railroad brotherhoods. The union represents rail, bus, mass transit and airline workers - 1969

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) takes effect, over objections of labor - 1994

May 2
Conference of hundreds of industrial unionists in Chicago leads to formation of IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as Wobblies - 1905

In what became known as Palmer Raids, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer arrests 4,000 foreign-born labor agitators. He believed Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and Socialists were causing most of the country's social problems - 1920

An underground explosion at Sago Mine in Tallmansville, W. Va., traps 12 miners and cuts power to the mine. Eleven men die, mostly by asphyxiation. The mine had been cited 273 times for safety violations over the prior 23 months - 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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