LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings
NOTE: Union City is appearing on Fridays this month; December 10, 17 & 24. Follow our Twitter and Facebook feeds for breaking news.
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
Union day of action for Edward Burroughs at Baltimore/DC Building Trades
Sat, December 18, 10am – 2pm
5829 Allentown Rd, Hillcrest Heights, MD 20746, USA (map)
If you plan to attend, make sure you register here.
2022 MD General Assembly Legislative Conference & Holiday Lunch: Mon, December 20, 9:30am – 3:00pm
Union Hall Local 24, 2701 W Patapsco Ave, Baltimore, MD 21230
Cost: $35.00 (includes registration, holiday lunch and conference materials). For registration form and/or if you would like to present legislation that your union is lobbying, please contact Legislative and Political Director Chuck Cook at 443-614-3760 or email [email protected].
Edward Burroughs Labor Virtual Phone Bank
Mon, December 20, 4pm – 8pm; SIGN UP HERE: VirtualPhone Bank
Tue, December 21, 4pm – 8pm; SIGN UP HERE: VirtualPhone Bank
Metro Washington Council Delegate meeting: Tue, December 21, 5pm – 7pm
RSVP here
Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, December 23, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online.
Tune in for the San Francisco Mime Troupe's holiday classic "A Red Carol," with labor songs and a 10-person cast that includes present and veteran SF Mime Troupers!
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Missed this week’s Your Rights At Work radio show featuring the DC Labor Chorus’ 2021 “Evening of Favorite and Sacred Songs”? Catch the podcast here. |
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Labor endorses Burroughs in Prince George’s County special election
“Our choice for District 8 couldn’t be more clear,” said Metro Washington Labor Council president Dyana Forester (at right in photo) at Wednesday’s announcement of labor’s endorsement of Edward Burroughs III (at left, with bullhorn) in the closely-watched race for the Prince George’s County Council District 8 seat. The son of two civil servants and a lifelong resident of Prince George’s County, Burroughs “has spent his career fighting for workers, safer working conditions, and racial justice,” the unions said. “We need a Council member who supports organized labor and who will work with us to decrease staffing ratios and increase funding for Capital Region Medical Center, so our healthcare heroes have the support they need to provide high-quality care to every one of their patients,” said Ricarra Jones, political director for 1199SEIU Maryland/DC. Julio Palomo, Business Manager for the Baltimore-Washington Laborers' District Council added that Burroughs “has demonstrated time and again his commitment to working families and creating quality union jobs for county residents." Said UFCW 400 president Mark Federici, “With Prince George’s County’s rapidly growing hospitality sector, we need elected officials who will fight for jobs for County residents with fair wages and strong benefits.”
The District 8 Special Election will be held on January 4th, with ballots going out starting this week. Anyone interested in volunteering for the labor effort can sign up here, and campaign events and phonebanks are scheduled for December 18, 27 and 28; check here for details.
photo by Kayla Mock, UFCW 400 |
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Politics & Prose workers organize
Challenging D.C.’s top independent, progressive bookstore to live up to its own ideals, workers at Politics & Prose on Tuesday filed for a union. The workers, who want to join UFCW Local 400 as the Politics & Prose Workers Union, say they have a majority among the three-store group’s 65 workers, and they’ve asked the owners for voluntary card-check recognition. If the union succeeds, Politics & Prose, a frequent host of pro-worker and progressive programs at its flagship store in Northwest D.C., would be one of the few unionized independent bookstores in the U.S. and, the workers tweeted, the first in D.C.
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer |
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REGISTER NOW: Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO 2022 MD General Assembly Legislative Conference and Holiday Lunch
The Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO 2022 MD General Assembly Legislative Conference and Holiday Lunch will be held Monday, December 20, 2021, from 9:30a–3p at the IBEW Local 24 union hall, 2701 West Patapsco Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21230. $35 includes registration, holiday lunch and conference materials. For registration form, and/or if you would like to present legislation that your union is lobbying, contact Legislative and Political Director, Chuck Cook at 443-614-3760 or email [email protected].
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Earl Dotter on exhibit now at UMD
Earl Dotter's retrospective exhibit, “Life’s Work,” (open through 12/21, see below for details) sheds light on the nature of diverse American workplaces, including the satisfaction derived from work, as well the dangerous and dehumanizing aspects of it. Beginning in the Appalachian coalfields in the early 1970’s and continuing to the present, Dotter has put a human face on those who labor, often in unsafe and unhealthy conditions, from miners to meatpackers, farmworkers to firefighters, and many more.
The exhibit is open through Friday December 21, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM weekdays at the School of Public Health Building, Room 2236 (Friedgen Seminar Room, just inside the main SPH building entrance), 4200 Valley Drive, College Park, Maryland 20742.
Image of an earlier exhibition of Earl Dotter's Life's Work exhibit (taken pre-pandemic).
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Labor On The Move: Tefere Gebre announces next steps; Sammi Sluder new Guild union rep; Baltimore CSA’s McLaughlin moves on
Tefere Gebre announces next steps: AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre announced last Friday that he’s moving on to the next chapter in a career that has seen him influence movements for justice around the world. Gebre will continue his work at the federation but will not seek reelection in June 2022. “I feel incredibly proud of the work I’ve done so far in my life with and for workers and their families,” said Gebre. “Tefere’s leadership skills and his vision, passion and commitment to building strong movements at the local, state and national level has been invaluable,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “I know Tefere will continue to lead with conviction in the next chapter of his career, and I look forward to continuing our work together in the future.”
Sammi Sluder new Guild union rep: Sammi -- short for Samantha -- Sluder is the newest union representative at the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. She joined her colleagues at the League of Conservation Voters in 2019 to form a union with the Guild and served on the bargaining committee to win their first contract after just 9 months. “Through the trauma of 2020, our diverse, multi-racial, millennial group of organizers secured an average salary increase of 10% for unit employees, created a policy to not allow ICE into LCV offices, implemented accountability structures for racist harassment and toxic behavior, and improved employee control over job descriptions and workload,” said Sluder. “It is the best work I've ever done, and I'm so happy to get to work along-side more workers to build solidarity and win protections!”
Baltimore CSA’s McLaughlin moves on: Metro Baltimore Labor Council Community Services Director Tommy McLaughlin, who wrapped up his stint there earlier this month, “has been an incredibly important part of the Council’s success over the past 3 years, especially through his work on initiatives like our annual Holiday Basket Drive, Golf Tournament and Raising the B.A.R. Apprenticeship Readiness classes,” said Interim President Glen Middleton Sr. “Please join us in congratulating him and wishing him well in his new job and future endeavors.”
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Solidarity Center Podcast Spotlights Wage Theft of Migrant Workers
Millions of migrant workers trapped in pandemic lockdowns were forced to leave their employers and return home—bearing all the costs even as they often were unpaid for the work they had performed. In the latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast, a worker rights advocate in Sri Lanka describes the efforts of the Justice for Wage Theft Campaign, a global effort that includes the Solidarity Center, to push for governmental and employer reforms to ensure migrant workers have access rights fundamental to all workers. “Wage theft was already there, but then during COVID-19, it happened on a mass scale,” Michael Joachim tells Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau. Listen to this an all Solidarity Center Podcasts here.
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Today’s labor quote: the Politics & Prose Workers Union
“Politics & Prose has long been considered a progressive and inclusive bookstore, and our decision to unionize is a natural next step in the company’s ongoing effort to put our shared values into practice.” |
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This week’s Labor History Today podcast: This week's show: The first pay equity strike; Massachusetts’ longest strike. Last week's show: Founding the American Federation of Labor
December 17
Deborah Samson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts. She was the first known woman to impersonate a man in order to fight in the Revolutionary War. Her family was poor. As a girl, young Deborah, became an indentured servant.
December 18
General Motors announces it is closing 21 North American plants over the following four years and slashing tens of thousands of jobs - 1991
December 19
An explosion in the Darr Mine in Westmoreland Co., Penn. kills 239 coal miners. 71 of the dead share a common grave in Olive Branch Cemetery. Dec 1907, was the worst month in US coal mining history, with over 3,000 dead - 1907
A 47-day strike at Greyhound Bus Lines ends with members of the Amalgamated Transit Union accepting a new contract containing deep cuts in wages and benefits. Striker Ray Phillips died during the strike, run over on a picket line by a scab Greyhound trainee - 1983
26 men and 1 woman are killed in the Wilberg Coal Mine Disaster near Orangeville, Utah. The disaster has been termed the worst coal mine fire in the state’s history. Federal mine safety officials issued 34 safety citations after the disaster but had inspected the mine only days before and declared it safe - 1984
- 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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