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This Just In: Administrative law judge decries Hogan's attempt to violate constitutional rights of largest state employee's union and employees

Report: Private equity greed threatens Safeway workers' retirement

WMATA GM literally ducks responsibility

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

LABOR CALENDAR; [link removed] click here for latest listings

Union City Radio: 7:15am M-F; WPFW-FM 89.3

Transdev bus driver picket line (ATU 689): Daily 4:00am - 5:00pm
Gates of the Cinder Bed Road Division, 7901 Cinder Bed Road, Lorton, VA

[link removed] Rally to protest raids and arrests of trade unionists in the Philippines: Sat, November 9, 3:30pm - 5:00pm
1600 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036-2210

Veterans United for DC Statehood - Fighting for DC Voting Rights in the U.S. Congress: Mon, November 11, 2pm - 4pm
Freedom Plaza, 1455 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004

photo: Tuesday's ATU rally at WMATA HQ (photo from [link removed] Friends of the Earth). Show your support for the strike: [link removed] download the sign here, post on Twitter and tag @ATULocal689

Follow us! With local labor news happening virtually 24/7 these days, follow us on [link removed] Twitter and [link removed] Facebook and check the [link removed] website to stay on top of fast-breaking developments!
Closed Monday: The MWC and CSA offices will be closed Monday for the Veterans Day federal holiday.

This Just In: Administrative law judge decries Hogan's attempt to violate constitutional rights of largest state employee's union and employees
The Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings has delivered a significant victory to AFSCME Maryland in ruling on competing unfair labor practice complaints filed by the union and the Hogan Administration in relation to negotiations in 2018. Administrative Law Judge Brian P. Weeks dismissed the Hogan Administration's complaint and upheld AFSCME's complaints that the Administration interfered with the union's rights. "The ground rules at issue in this case strike at the heart of a union's constitutional and statutory right to speak, to think, to communicate, to organize, to petition," the ALJ said in summing up the Administration's misconduct. "Governor Hogan and his Administration need to follow the law and treat hardworking state employees with the dignity and respect they deserve," said AFSCME Maryland President Patrick Moran. [link removed] Read more here.

Report: Private equity greed threatens Safeway workers' retirement
If Cerberus Capital Management has its way, local supermarket clerks will shoulder the burden for the private equity firm's debt. In its current bargaining with members of UFCW Locals 400 and 27, Cerberus -- which owns Albertsons-Safeway -- is refusing to honor Safeway's previous commitment to secure pension benefits. "Cerberus is taking a page straight out of the private equity playbook," said UFCW Local 400 president Mark P. Federici. "Borrow other people's money to make an acquisition and strip the company you acquire of its assets to pay off your debt, while charging unconscionable, undeserved management fees. Paying the steepest price are the employees whose hard work makes the company profitable. But our members will not sacrifice their retirement security, so a handful of greedy billionaires can get even richer." Details are included in a [link removed]'s-Biggest-Retail-Gamble-Albertsons-Safeway.pdf report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project and UFCW Local 400. Supermarket workers and their supporters staged a series of actions on Thursday to protest the harm private equity is inflicting on American workers and to demand that management fulfill its pledge to protect their pension. "We're the reason our customers come back to Safeway to shop," said Michelle Lee, a 32-year veteran of Safeway who works at store #1283 in Alexandria, VA. "We're making Cerberus their profits. The workers who stick around and help this company become a multi-billion dollar company need to be taken care of when we retire. The CEO gets a pension and so should we."

WMATA GM literally ducks responsibility
While hundreds of striking Lorton bus drivers and their supporters rallied in front of WMATA headquarters Wednesday, WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld snuck out the back of the building in order to avoid the crowd. "Once again, WMATA management has chosen to ignore its responsibilities to the riders and workers," said ATU 689. "This is shameful," said Local 689 president Raymond Jackson. "We went to WMATA's headquarters for our rally in order to let them know that the workers and riding public are not going to stand by and let Wiedefeld ignore this strike. Now we know that even if we take this fight to his office, he'll just run away. Well, he can't ignore this issue any longer." The striking drivers work for WMATA contractor Transdev. photo from [link removed] ATU 689 Twitter feed

CORRECTION: Mallard narrowly loses in Bowie
In Maryland, bus operator Derrick Mallard narrowly lost (not won, as we erroneously reported in Wednesday's Union City) his race for Bowie Maryland's 4th District Council seat, garnering third place with 697 votes, 20 behind winner Roxy Ndebumadu and just four votes less than Leon Buck. This was the first time running for public office for Mallard, a veteran WMATA worker and a Local 689 member for more than 20 years.

Today's Labor Quote: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

On this date in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, FDR announced plans for the Civil Works Administration to create four million additional jobs for the unemployed.

Today's Labor History

Labor History Today (11/3): Precarious work in the movies
[link removed] Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. Tom Zaniello talks with Sherry Linkon about his next book, an exploration of media accounts of precarious work, ranging from Edward R. Murrow's famous 1960 documentary "Harvest of Shame" to the storytelling of modern video games.
Kalmanovitz Associate Director Lane Windham on "The Uprising of the 20,000" in 1909.
October was LGBTQ History Month, and for this week's Cool Things from the Meany Archive, Chloe Danyo digs into the archive's Pride At Work collection and comes up with a historic pamphlet on organizing for lesbian and gay rights in unions.
Last week's show: (10/27/19): [link removed] Cannabis organizing; 2007 Writers Guild Strike

November 8
20,000 workers, black and white, stage general strike in New Orleans, demanding union recognition and hour and wage gains - 1892

In one of the U.S. auto industry's more embarrassing missteps over the last half-century, the Ford Motor Co. decides to name their new model the Edsel, after Henry Ford's only son. Ford executives rejected 18,000 other potential names - 1956

November 9
Committee for Industrial Organization founded by eight unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The eight want more focus on organizing mass production industry workers - 1935

Philip Murray, first president of the United Steelworkers Organizing Committee, first president of the United Steelworkers of America, and president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations for 12 years following the death of John L. Lewis, dies at age 66 - 1952

November 10
Sit-down strike begins at Austin (MN) Hormel plant with the help of a Wobbly organizer, leading to the creation of the Independent Union of All Workers. Labor historians believe this may have been the first sit-down strike of the 1930s. Workers held the plant for three days, demanding a wage increase. The governor mediated a settlement - 1933

The ship Edmund Fitzgerald - the biggest carrier on the Great Lakes - and crew of 29 are lost in a storm on Lake Superior while carrying ore from Superior, Wisc. to Detroit. The cause of the sinking was never established - 1975

November 11
Haymarket martyrs hanged, convicted in the bombing deaths of eight police during a Chicago labor rally - 1887

A confrontation between American Legionnaires and Wobblies during an Armistice Day Parade in Centralia (WA) results in six deaths. One Wobbly reportedly was beaten, his teeth bashed in with a rifle butt, castrated and hanged: local officials listed his death as a suicide - 1919

57 crewmen on three freighters die over a three-day period when their ships sink during a huge storm over Lake Michigan - 1940

Labor history courtesy David Prosten. photo: Pennsylvania members of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in front of their office, from [link removed] THE BIRTH OF THE CIO

Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit Union City as the source for all news items and www.unionist.com as the source for Today's Labor History.

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. JACKIE JETER, PRESIDENT.

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