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Statehood is Racial Justice Rally: Tue, June 22, 8:30am – 9:45am

East Capitol St and 2nd Street NE (map)

GMU Coalition for Worker Rights: Tue, June 22, 3:30pm – 4:30pm

Coalition of faculty, students, alumni, campus employees, and contract workers

Loudoun County Labor Caucus: Tue, June 22, 5pm – 6pm

Meeting of union members and community allies in Loudoun County

Tri-County COPE: Tue, June 22, 7pm – 9pm

Strathmore Demonstration (IATSE 868): Wed, June 23, 5pm – 7pm

4th level of the Grosvenor Metro Station parking garage (map)

RSVP here.

“Statehood is Racial Justice Rally” planned as Senate holds historic statehood hearing
For only the second time in history, the U.S. Senate is holding a hearing on DC statehood today and statehood supporters are staging a Statehood is Racial Justice Rally this morning at 8:30a (see Calendar). “We have never come this close to winning DC Statehood,” said DC Vote. “Our allies in the Senate need to see us. Our opponents must hear us.” Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester is among those speaking at the rally. “We will have statehood signs available, but we encourage you to make one with that message,” urged DC Vote. “Homemade signs have a bigger impact!”

Local Shoot For The Cure event raises over $50K
American Income/OPEIU 277 and Labor Against Cancer raised over $50,000 at last week’s annual Shoot For The Cure, sponsored by UFCW locals 400 and 27. Marlene Forsythe, Office Manager of Iron Workers Local 5 and her team (center photo) took first place; IUEC 10 (top right) was second; in third was UFCW 27 (bottom left); ATU 689 (bottom right) fielded one of the biggest teams (including MWC Board Member Greg Bowen, next to AIL’s George Farenthold) and UA Sprinkler Fitters 669 (top left) took home the most raffle gifts, because they bought the most tickets. Photos courtesy George Farenthold.

Solidarity Center Report: Unions Say Bangladesh Safety Accord Must Be Extended
Worker rights and human rights advocates are urging multinational corporate fashion brands to commit to a binding successor agreement that will continue the pathbreaking work of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a landmark agreement that made factories safer for 2 million garment workers. “In five years, thousands of fire, building and electrical hazards were fixed in the [ready-made-garment] RMG factories,” says Rashadul Alam Raju, general secretary of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation (BIGUF). “As a result, safety standards were uplifted for millions of workers [and] the country has not witnessed any major accidents or loss of life in the factories inspected by Accord.” Read more at Solidarity Center.

Today's Labor Quote: Elie Wiesel

“Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the oppressed.”

From his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1986.

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth. Last week’s show: Debs on capitalism; Dudzic on the Labor Party.

Eighty-six passengers on a train carrying members of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus are killed, another 127 injured in a wreck near Hammond, Indiana. Five days later the dead are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Ill., in an area set aside as Showmen’s Rest, purchased only a few months earlier by the Showmen’s League of America - 1918

Violence erupted during a coal mine strike at Herrin, Ill. Thirty-six were killed, 21 of them non-union miners - 1922

- David Prosten

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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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