DC Labor FilmFest: Celebrating 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

THE CHAMBERMAID [LA CAMARISTA]; Tickets $5

Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report

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.

Got local labor news? We want to hear about it! Email us at [email protected]!

Labor Photo: Honoring U.S. nurses who have died due to Covid-19

On Wednesday, International Nurses Day and the close out of Nurses Week, National Nurses United (NNU) hosted two D.C. actions to honor the more than 400 registered nurses who have died from the Covid-19 pandemic. Within view of the White House, NNU nurses placed one pair of shoes for every RN who has died during this pandemic due to a lack of employer and federal government action to protect nurses and other health care workers from getting infected with Covid-19 at work. The action also included reading of the names of each deceased nurse and remarks from NNU President Jean Ross, RN. Later that evening, the names of each of the fallen nurses were projected onto the AFL-CIO building, which sits across from the White House. “We are honoring our sisters and brothers, our siblings, who have fallen due to this deadly pandemic,” said Ross. “We take this moment to celebrate the lives of these frontline workers, and promise to fight for improved working conditions to prevent more deaths from happening. One loss is too many.”

Solidarity Center Report: Africa's Domestic Workers Demand Urgent Reforms

Nearly one-third of domestic workers surveyed in Africa were laid off during the pandemic—85 percent of whom were the main family breadwinner, per International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). Only 17 percent received emergency income, food or other state-provided social support—and most received such support through another household member because they were not eligible. Says IDWF Lead Research Associate Louisa Acciari: Losing your job when you do not have access to unemployment benefits, social security or any income support "is something where the unions can really campaign at the national level to get more inclusive social protection policies.” Read more at Solidarity Center.

Today's Labor Quote: T-Bone Slim

“Tear Gas, the most effective agent used by employers to persuade their employees that the interests of capital and labor are identical."

IWW song writer T-Bone Slim died on May 15, 1942.

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Sea Shanties and the Pleasure of Work. Last week’s show: 50 years of “Strike!”

May 14
Milwaukee brewery workers begin 10-week strike, demanding contracts comparable to East and West coast workers. The strike was won when Blatz Brewery accepted their demands, but Blatz was ousted from the Brewers Association for “unethical” business methods - 1953

May 15
U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Samuel Gompers and other union leaders for supporting a boycott at the Buck Stove and Range Co. in St. Louis, where workers were striking for a nine-hour day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott and sentenced the unionists to prison for refusing to obey the judge’s anti-boycott injunction - 1906

The Library Employees’ Union is founded in New York City, the first union of public library workers in the United States. A major focus of the union was the inferior status of women library workers and their low salaries - 1917

The first labor bank opens in Washington, D.C., launched by officers of the Machinists. The Locomotive Engineers opened a bank in Cleveland later that year - 1920

May 16
Minneapolis general strike backs Teamsters, who are striking most of the city’s trucking companies - 1934

U.S. Supreme Court issues Mackay decision, which permits the permanent replacement of striking workers. The decision had little impact until Ronald Regan’s replacement of striking air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1981, a move that signaled antiunion private sector employers that it was OK to do likewise - 1938

Black labor leader and peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first black labor leader to sit on the AFL-CIO executive board, and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington - 1979

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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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