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 Labor FilmFest: 20 Years of Great Labor Films!
WORK SONGS: Tickets $12
THE LUNCHROOM: Tickets $5
IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE: Tickets $5
MISS MARX: Tickets $5
Montgomery/Prince George's COPE: Thu, May 13, 10am – 12pm
Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, May 13, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online.
Arlington Dems Labor Caucus: Thu, May 13, 6pm – 7pm
Meeting of union members and community allies in Arlington.
LABOR GOES TO THE MOVIES podcast Movie Club discussion: Thu, May 13, 7pm – 8pm
Join podcast hosts Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant -- and special surprise guests -- for a freewheeling discussion of the films in this year's DC Labor FilmFest!
Labor Committee for Affordable Housing: Fri, May 14, 3pm – 4pm
Committee to advocate for affordable housing policies and to connect the dots between the housing crisis and the increasing concentration of wealth and declining working class incomes due to the destruction of unions.
Coalition to Repeal Right to Work: Fri, May 14, 7pm – 8pm
Coalition of more than 50 organizations supporting the right of workers to organize unions to reverse decades of growing income inequality.
AFGE adds 3,000 members in April
More and more government workers are joining AFGE as the union continues its internal AFGE NOW organizing drives. AFGE just wrapped up its best month of internal organizing since March 2020, with 3,031 new members signing up last month, including 224 in DMV-area District 14. Many workers are joining the union at new employee orientations. AFGE Local 2054 was one of the local unions that added to its ranks in April, gaining 30 new members in two orientation sessions. “Organizing is not a separate activity. Everything we do, we think about organizing,” said Local 2054 President Barbara Whitson-Casanova (pictured far left). “Organizing is a way of life.” Read more here.
Labor Button of the Week: Korey Hartwich, NNU
Our recent post featuring a historic UNITE HERE Local 25 button inspired NNU’s Korey Hartwich to send in photos of some of his favorite labor buttons, and that in turn has inspired us to launch a new feature, our Labor Button of the Week (LBOTW). Send us a photo of your favorite labor button, along with a line or two explaining its significance or meaning to you, and you could be our next LBOTW! Send to us at [email protected].
Union Voice/Readers Write: The right to strike
After reading in The Washington Post about last Friday’s strike by Washingtonian staffers, the LiUNA Local 11’s Steve Lanning wrote to The Post to remind them that “Under U.S. labor law, the non-union employees still have the right to engage in protected, concerted activity including striking over working conditions.” Lanning pointed out that “The staff’s refusal to publish for a day constitutes protected, concerted activity. They cannot legally be reprimanded for it.” He also noted that “One day strikes have been an effective way for non-union workers to get back pay, end abusive and harassing behavior by management and for workers to have a real sense of their power and dignity. ‘We didn’t work and the boss made no money. Now he wants to talk.’ Here is hoping for the best outcome for the Washingtonian staff.”
Today's Labor Quote: Douglas Fraser
"I would rather sit with the rural poor, the desperate children of urban blight, the victims of racism, and working people seeking a better life than with those whose religion is the status quo, whose goal is profit and whose hearts are cold."
UAW Pres. Douglas A. Fraser was named to the Chrysler Corp. board of directors on this date in 1980, becoming the first union representative ever to sit on the board of a major U.S. corporation.
This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Sea Shanties and the Pleasure of Work. Last week’s show: 50 years of “Strike!”
Western Federation of Miners formed in Butte, Mont. - 1893
The Canadian government establishes the Department of Labour. It took the U.S. another four years - 1909
10,000 IWW dock workers strike in Philadelphia - 1913
Thousands of yellow cab drivers in New York City go on a one day strike in protest of proposed new regulations. “City officials were stunned by the (strike’s) success,” the New York Times reported - 1998
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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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