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Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, July 1, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online. Call in at 202-588-0893.

Dale City July 4th Parade - NoVA Labor Contingent: Sat, July 3, 8:15am – 12:00pm
8:15 am - 8:30 am Meet outside Mapledale Plaza Giant, 5469 Mapledale Plaza along Dale Boulevard; 8:45 - 9:00 am - Move to parade site and set up; 10:00 am - Parade starts. Wear your union shirts and caps and bring your local's banner! For more information, contact Richard Louie at 703-599-9920.

Labor at Palisades July 4 Parade: Sun, July 4, 12pm – 2pm
Whitehaven Pkwy NW & MacArthur Blvd NW, Washington, DC 20007, USA (map)
Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester joins DC Mayor Muriel Bowser at this year’s Palisades Community Association's Fourth of July parade.

MWC/CSA closed on Monday, July 5 in observance of the July 4 holiday. Next Union City will appear Tuesday, July 6.

Missed this week’s Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here. This week's show: The American Postal Workers Union is celebrating its’ 50th birthday today; Postal Workers president Mark Dimondstein reports on how his union is still fighting for postal worker rights. PLUS: the Hero Pay bill in DC City Council…Your Rights at Work and the New Minimum Wage webinar…the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Michael Gene Sullivan previews the Mime Troupe’s brand-new radio drama, “Tales Of The Resistance, Volume 2: Persistence,” and the Labor411 on which franks are kosher for a union-made Independence Day.

Metro Council urges passage of Hero Pay Act
Saying that “It is long past time for us to compensate essential workers for the extreme risk that they and their families faced every day,” Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester on Thursday urged the DC City Council to pass the Heroes Pay Act of 2021. The bill would give Hero Pay to the workers who have been on the front line throughout the pandemic, keeping us fed, safe, and clean. Many received no additional assistance from their employers but had additional out of pocket costs to keep reporting to work and the emotional strain of working through the pandemic. Forester thanked Labor Committee Chair Elissa Silverman and her committee members for recommending the bill and urged the full Council to “support and fully fund the Heroes Pay Act of 2021.”

SEIU 722 members approve contract at WHC
SEIU 722 members at MedStar Washington Hospital Center have approved a new contract. The first-ever four year contract includes a 2.25 percent wage increase in each of the first three years, 2.50 in the fourth year, a ratification bonus of $500 (after taxes) for fulltime workers and $250 for part-time workers. Also included is an attendance bonus of up to $1,200, and part time members are now eligible for benefits after 30 days, rather than a year.

Union Voice/Readers Write: Kosher…and union
“My Hebrew National hot dog is kosher AND union, thanks!” writes Saul Schniderman (How & where to buy union on Independence Day 6/30 UC).

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Check out the Labor411 guide to celebrating the 4th of July “with Union Flair.”

Today's Labor Quote: William Faulkner

“Clocks slay time. Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Marvel Cooke, a Journalist for Working People. Last week’s show: Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth.

July 2

President Johnson signs Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbidding employers and unions from discriminating on the basis of race, color, gender, nationality, or religion - 1964

July 3

Children, employed in the silk mills in Paterson, N.J., went on strike for 11-hour day and 6-day week. A compromise settlement resulted in a 69-hour work work week - 1835

Feminist and labor activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman born in Hartford, Conn. Her landmark study, "Women and Economics", was radical: it called for the financial independence of women and urged a network of child care centers - 1860

July 4

Albert Parsons joins the Knights of Labor. He later became an anarchist and was one of the Haymarket martyrs - 1876

AFL dedicates its new Washington, D.C. headquarters building at 9th St. and Massachusetts Ave. NW. The building, still standing, later became headquarters for Plumbers and Pipefitters - 1916

Five newspaper boys from the Baltimore Evening Sun died when the steamer they were on, the Three Rivers, caught fire near Baltimore, Md. They are remembered every year at a West Baltimore cemetery, toasted by former staffers of the now-closed newspaper - 1924

With the Great Depression underway, some 1,320 delegates attended the founding convention of the Unemployed Councils of the U.S.A., organized by the U.S. Communist Party. They demanded passage of unemployment insurance and maternity benefit laws and opposed discrimination by race or sex - 1930

Two primary conventions of the United Nations' International Labor Organization come into force: Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize - 1950

July 5

During a strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company, which had drastically reduced wages, buildings constructed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson park were set ablaze, reducing seven to ashes - 1894

Battle of Rincon Hill, San Francisco, in longshore strike. 5,000 strikers fought 1,000 police, scabs and national guardsmen. Two strikers were killed, 109 people injured. The incident led to a General Strike - 1934

National Labor Relations Act, providing workers rights to organize and bargain collectively, passes Congress - 1935 photo: FDR signs NLRA.

- 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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