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Jeter to step down from Metro Council's leadership

SPLC staff vote to unionize

Season's solidarity: IUOE 99 digs deep for ATU 689 strikers

2019 Evening with Labor award-winners announced

Today's Labor Quote: Beyonce

Today's Labor History

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

Union City Radio: 7:15am M-F; [link removed] WPFW 89.3FM

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] ATU 689 tweet yesterday: "We met with Transdev again yesterday. They continue to play games and waste time. Despite only bargaining every other week, they take multiple long breaks throughout the day. Transdev is unserious about getting a contract and is a threat to public transit everywhere they operate."

DCNA Community Holiday Party for tots in Wards 7&8: Fri, December 20, 6:30pm - 9:00pm
The Rise Demonstration Center, 2730 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE.

Holiday schedule: The last Union City of the year will appear next Monday, December 23, returning on Friday, January 3. Be sure to follow us on [link removed] Twitter and [link removed] Facebook and the [link removed] dclabor.org website for breaking news over the holidays. Union City Radio will continue through the holiday break, weekdays at 7:15a on WPFW 89.3FM. Best wishes for happy, healthy and safe holidays!

Jeter to step down from Metro Council's leadership
Metro Washington Council president Jackie Jeter is stepping down from the Council. Jeter, elected to a second 3-year term earlier this year, retired from leading ATU 689 late last year and says she's now ready to fully retire. "When I retired from the ATU, I promised myself that I would give back to those who have given me energy, strength and unconditional love all these years, and that's my family," Jeter said. "My tenure at the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO has been a special experience capping a long career in the labor movement and I'm especially grateful to the Council's board and staff as well as to all of our wonderful affiliated locals who work so hard and so effectively every day for working men and women throughout the region." Jeter's resignation is effective January 28, 2020; details on the election for a new president will be released soon.
photo: Jeter accepting the J.C Turner Labor Leader of the Year Award in March, 2011

SPLC staff vote to unionize
A majority of Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) staff across 11 offices in five states and Washington D.C. have voted to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. "We celebrate this momentous victory,
which comes after nearly nine months of tireless organizing," said the SPLC Union Organizing Committee. "This is a historic moment in the history of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and in the history of labor organizing in the Deep South." The vote was 142 to 45. The SPLC Union is the third largest unit in WBNG and the union's largest non-profit unit. [link removed] Read more here

Season's solidarity: IUOE 99 digs deep for ATU 689 strikers
Thanks to the big hearts of IUOE Local 99 members, striking members of ATU Local 689 will have a brighter holiday. Local 99 donated six large bags of toys for the kids of Lorton bus drivers who have been on strike for more than two months. "What a wonderful expression of solidarity," said Community Services Agency Executive Director Sonte DuCote. "Our members are thrilled to be able to contribute to our striking brothers and sisters this holiday season," said Local 99 Business Manager Don Havard. "Local 689 is very grateful for the solidarity and generosity of Local 99 and the Community Services Agency," said Local 689 president Raymond Jackson.
photo: ATU 689 strikers Marie McKenzie, Mary Yirenkyi, Messay Alemu, Zinabu Nigatu, Feseha Ambaye, Tsegaye Habte; photo by Michelle Peterson

2019 Evening with Labor award-winners announced
The highlight of the Metro Washington Council's annual Evening with Labor - set for April 4, 2020 at Martin's Crosswinds -- are the awards recognizing outstanding achievement in the local labor movement. This year's winners include Saul Schniderman (AFSCME 2910) for the
Joslyn N. Williams Vanguard Award; ATU 689 and IUOE 99 won Organizing awards, and this year's Golden Picket Sign winners include ATU 689/ATU 1764 (for the Transdev strikes) and DCNA and SEIU1199 (for the UMC/Howard Univ/East End Campaign). Community Services awards were won by IUPAT District 51 and its Finishing Trades Institute; Eastern Atlantic States Regional Carpenters Council, Sisters in the Brotherhood and its MACTC in Upper Marlboro; Plumbers and Gasfitters Local 5 and it's JATC and Apprenticeship Training Center.
Andrew Washington (AFSCME Council 20) and Laura Fuchs (WTU 6) won DC COPE awards, and Tom Killeen (SMART 100) won the Suburban Maryland COPE award.
The 2019 Outstanding Ally is Rev. Graylan Hagler.
Nominations are now being accepted for the JC Turner Award; [link removed] click here for the nomination form and criteria for nominations.
photo: ATU 689 strike rally at WMATA

Today's Labor Quote: Beyonce

"We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn't a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more--commensurate with their qualifications and not their gen der. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect."

Today's Labor History
This week's [link removed] Labor History Today podcast: Hidden in the Fields
Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez on Invisible Agricultural Child Labor in the American Southwest and the Limits of Citizenship, from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. Plus Lane Windham on the Willmar 8, who organized the first strike against a bank in U.S. history.
Last week's show: (12/8): [link removed] Collective actions

December 20
Delegates to the AFL convention in Salt Lake City endorse a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote - 1899.

The first group of 15 Filipino plantation workers recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association arrive in Hawaii. By 1932 more than 100,000 Filipinos will be working in the fields - 1906

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) takes effect today - 1970

Thousands of workers began what was to be a two-day strike (photo) of the New York City transit system over retirement, pension and wage issues. The strike violated the state's Taylor Law; TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint was jailed for ten days and the union was fined $2.5 million - 2005

December 21
Powered by children 7 to 12 years old working dawn to dusk, Samuel Slater's thread-spinning factory goes into production in Pawtucket, R.I., launching the Industrial Revolution in America. By 1830, 55 per cent of the mill workers in the state were youngsters, many working for less than $1 per week - 1790

Supreme Court rules that picketing is unconstitutional. Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft declared that picketing was, in part, "an unlawful annoyance and hurtful nuisance..." - 1921
December 22

A group of building trades unions from the Midwest meet in St. Louis to form the National Building Trades Council. The Council disbanded after several years of political and jurisdictional differences - 1897

21 Chicago firefighters, including the chief, died when a building collapsed as they were fighting a huge blaze at the Union Stock Yards. By the time the fire was extinguished 26 hours after the first alarm, 50 engine companies and seven hook and ladder companies had been called to the scene. Until Sept. 11, 2001, it was the deadliest building collapse in American history in terms of firefighter fatalities - 1910

Amid a widespread strike for union recognition by 395,000 steelworkers, approximately 250 alleged "anarchists," "communists," and "labor agitators" were deported to Russia, marking the beginning of the so-called "Red Scare" - 1919

- David Prosten

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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