LABOR CALENDAR; click here for latest listings
Union City Radio: 7:15am daily
WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; click here to hear today's report
Building a Diverse, Equitable Infrastructure Workforce; Mon, January 31, 1pm – 2pm
RSVP HERE
Solidarity Call with Bessemer, Alabama; Mon, January 31st, 2:30 pm
RSVP by registering on this link.
“The Persistence of Private Power: Sacrificing Rights for Wages": Tue, February 1, 9:00am – 10:30am
Register here.
Talk: Black Labor in Richmond (online): Tue, February 1, 7pm – 8pm
Zoom via Facebook; details here. Wednesdays with Warner; Wed, February 2, 8:15 am
Windmill Hill Park, 500 South Lee St., Alexandria, VA.
Arts Union Caucus; Wed, February 2, 3 pm
Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, February 3, 1pm – 2pm
WPFW 89.3 FM or listen online.
Labor Book Club, Thu, February 3, 7pm
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Missed last week’s Your Rights At Work radio show? Catch the podcast here. Erica Smiley (Jobs with Justice) and Sarita Gupta (Ford Foundation's Future of Work) on their new book, “The Future We Need, Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century,” plus 1199SEIU organizer James Crosby on “Low-wage workers prop up the nursing home industry. They’re quitting in droves.”
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Union Kitchen workers seek to unionize
Looking to put the union in Union Kitchen, a majority of workers at three of the local company’s locations in the District are seeking to unionize with UFCW Local 400. Employees with the union organizing committee cite several concerns leading up to the union effort, including understaffing, retention, pay discrepancies and COVID leave policies. Workers presented signed union authorization cards to management last week, and requested voluntary recognition of the union. The three locations forming a union include 1625 Eckington Pl NE, 538 Third St NE, and 1251 9th St NW.
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GMU janitors protest
Over 70 George Mason University students, faculty and non-union contracted janitors rallied last Thursday outside of the President’s house to protest charges against the school’s cleaning contractor for making janitors endure physical pain to take on extra work cleaning the President’s house during a severe staffing shortage. Among many of the problems with previous GMU contractors and subcontractors, according to SEIU 32BJ, are charges of bounced checks and late paychecks that companies settled with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rather than go to trial over charges by janitors who filed three sets of labor charges. Last year, over 220 faculty, staff, students and alumni among others signed a George Mason University-American Association of University Professors resolution to support GMU contracted janitors.
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Hospitality workers expose “shadow bosses”
Hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE last Thursday called on major hotel owners called REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) to stop pushing for job cuts and asked leaders in DC to close the tax loophole that enables REITs to avoid paying taxes on billions paid to investors. Hotel workers across the U.S. organized the Jan. 27 National Day of Action to shine a light on the "shadow boss" hotel owners they say are driving cuts to jobs and services in the hospitality industry.
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Today’s labor quote: Union Kitchen worker Rob Ballock
“I’ve seen too many excellent coworkers leave, because they feel they have no choice but to move on to different jobs in different industries to finally get the pay and respect that everybody deserves in the workplace.” |
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This week’s Labor History Today podcast: “America Works” launches new season. Last week's episode: The Bread Uprising.
January 31
12,000 pecan shellers in San Antonio, Tex. – mostly Latino women – walk off their jobs at 400 factories in what was to become a three-month strike against wage cuts. Strike leader Emma Tenayuca (in photo above) was eventually hounded out of the state - 1938
After scoring successes with representation elections conducted under the protective oversight of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the United Farm Workers of America officially ends its historic table grape, lettuce and wine boycotts - 1978
Union and student pressure forces Harvard university to adopt new labor policies raising wages for lowest-paid workers - 2002
February 1
John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009, dies at age 86. The son of Irish immigrants — his father was a bus driver, his mother a domestic worker — Sweeney worked for the Intl. Ladies Garment Workers then the Service Employees, where he served as president, before his time at the AFL-CIO. 2001
Led by 23-year-old Kate Mullaney, the Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, N.Y, raises earnings for female laundry workers from two dollars to 14 dollars a week - 1864
25,000 Paterson, NJ silk workers strike for eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. 1,800 were arrested over the course of the six-month walkout, led by the Wobblies. They returned to work on their employers’ terms - 1913
- David Prosten
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