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AU workers picket today

Study: UMD boosts management, cuts teachers

Solidarity Center Report: Workplace Gender Violence Requires Worker-Led Solutions

Today's Labor Quote

Today's Labor History

 

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

Union City Radio: 7:15am daily

WPFW-FM 89.3 FM; [link removed] click here to hear today's report

[link removed] AU CAMPUS-WIDE PICKET: Stand Up For Real Change, Not Spare Change: Mon, April 25, 11am - 1pm (Meet at Katzen)

[link removed] Stopping Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work: The Campaign for an ILO Convention: Tue, April 26, 10am - 12pm

[link removed] Gig Economy in Europe: Examples from Sweden, Netherlands and Germany: Tue, April 26, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

[link removed] Equity in Focus: Investing in Childcare Careers: Tue, April 26, 12:30pm - 2:00pm

[link removed] Metro Washington Council Delegate meeting: Tue, April 26, 5pm - 7pm
Latest local labor updates and reports.

Building Trades Workers' Memorial Day Mass: Tue, April 26, 5pm - 6pm
St. Camillus; 1600 St. Camillus Drive, Silver Spring MD.

Every year in the United States roughly 5,000 workers die from injuries sustained on the job. Workers' Memorial Day honors those who died of occupational injuries. This year Cardinal Wilton Gregory and "labor priest" Fr. Brian Jordan OFM will mark the occasion by celebrating a special Building Trades Workers' Memorial Day Mass. All are welcome! [link removed] Download the flyer here.


[link removed] CLICK HERE to listen to last week's Your Rights At Work radio show: [link removed] Earth Day 2022: Fight For Our Future.

AU workers picket today

Adjunct faculty, graduate student workers and Academic Affairs staff at American University will picket at AU this morning at 11a (see Calendar). "We have been working hard at the table for over a year to negotiate contracts that secure a living wage, affordable healthcare, and job security," said SEIU Local 500, which represents the workers. American University has proposed $1.67/week raises for Adjuncts, minimum wage for Graduate Student Employees, and has yet to propose anything for Academic Affairs Staff, the union reports. "Now, the University is refusing to provide adequate dates for bargaining before the end of the semester. We know that taking action is the only way to get the contract that we deserve." The picket will begin at 11:00am on the last day of classes at Katzen, and proceed throughout the AU campus.


photo: TA's and adjuncts hold office hours outside of AU president Sylvia Burwell's house last Thursday "as a reminder of all we do for AU students."

Study: UMD boosts management, cuts teachers

A recent independent financial analysis of UMD, College Park reveals that, despite frequent claims of austerity, from 2013 to 2022 UMD upper administration increased the number of management and financial employees while reducing workers in other categories. "As the saying goes: `Show me your budget, and I will show you your priorities'," said Sabrina Alcorn Baron, UMD principal lecturer and member of AAUP, the American Association of University Professors, whose University of Maryland Chapter commissioned the analysis, with the support of its [link removed] members, the UMD staff union, [link removed] AFSCME Local 1072, and the [link removed] Fearless Student Employees. Fatemeh Keshavarz, the Roshan Chair in Persian Studies and former director of UMD's School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures called the report "alarming," noting that it reveals a "systematic trend toward hiring poorly paid precariously employed contingent faculty with expanded teaching loads." Fearless Student Employees (FSE) member Nate Beard said that "This report--and other organizing efforts--gives me hope. Faculty, staff, students and grad workers are coming together to collectively show that the university can better support us."

Click here for UMD AAUP's [link removed] press release and an [link removed] executive summary of the analysis.

Solidarity Center Report: Workplace Gender Violence Requires Worker-Led Solutions

Labor leaders, policymakers and stakeholders from around the world discussed efforts to prevent gender-based violence and harassment at the workplace at last week's panel discussion, "Ending Violence and Harassment in the World of Work." The panel was part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Global Deal conference, "A Better Future for Essential Workers." "In our experience, violence and harassment is the norm across global operations and supply chains. To combat it, we need worker-led solutions and contractual obligations," said Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.


Today's labor quote: Ralph David Abernathy, Sr.

"Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around."

Ralph Davis Abernathy Sr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister and was an executive board member of the [link removed] Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), becoming president of the SCLC following the [link removed]. assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968.


TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] The death of "Big Steve" Sutton; Last week's show: [link removed] Working on Earth Day.

April 25

The New York Times declares the struggle for an eight-hour workday to be "un-American" and calls public demonstrations for the shorter hours "labor disturbances brought about by foreigners." Other publications declare that an eight-hour workday day would bring about "loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery and drunkenness" - 1886

The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and 100 others are arrested while picketing a Charleston, S.C. hospital in a demand for union recognition - 1969

Supreme Court rules that employers may not require female employees to make larger contributions to pension plans in order to obtain the same monthly benefits as men - 1978

April 26

The U.S. House of Representatives passes House Joint Resolution No. 184, a constitutional amendment to prohibit the labor of persons under 18 years of age. The Senate approved by the measure a few weeks later, but it was never ratified by the states and is still technically pending - 1924

On the orders of President Roosevelt, the U.S. Army seizes the Chicago headquarters of the unionized Montgomery Ward & Co. after management defies the National Labor Relations Board - 1944

- 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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