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Transit strike still on after Keolis' "insulting" contract offer
Labor Photo: Starbucks workers strategize
Labor Quote
Today's Labor History
 
Today's Labor Calendar
[link removed] Click here for the complete calendar and details. Got something to add or update? Email us at mailto:
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2-minute audio version of the Metro Washington Labor Council's Union City newsletter.
AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference: Jan 13 - 15, 2023
Visit [link removed] TheMLKConference.org for more information and to register.
NOTE: County Council District 6 member Wala Blegay reports that the Prince Georges County Council is sponsoring a MLK Jr Day of Service on January 16, collecting pillows, Twin bedsheets, face masks, soap, washcloths and t-shirts for the Promise Place Mens Shelter. [link removed] Donate online or drop off to 10586 Campus Way S in Largo, MD (inside of Starbucks) on Jan 16.
Donna Brockington's Going Away Ceremony: Fri, January 13, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Maryland National Memorial Cemetery - 13300 Baltimore Avenue, Laurel, MD. ([link removed] map)
2023 MLK "Gonna Take Us All" Ball: Sun, January 15, 8pm - 11pm
Silver Spring Civic Building * 1 Veterans Plaza, Silver Spring, MD 20910 US ([link removed] map)
[link removed] Click here for info/tickets.
NOTE: Metro Washington Labor Council, Community Services Agency and Claimant Advocacy Program offices will be closed Monday in observance of the MLK holiday. Union City will next appear on Tuesday, January 17.
Transit strike still on after Keolis' "insulting" contract offer
Striking Loudoun County Transit workers walked out of contract negotiations on Thursday after their contractor Keolis put an "insulting" contract offer on the table and refused to set new bargaining dates. "Keolis' contract offer was insulting and shameful," said ATU Local 689 President Raymond Jackson. "This company continues to treat our members with disrespect and disdain and continues to bargain in bad faith." He also called Keolis' "last, best, and final" offer "an insult to our riders, who Keolis has abandoned with this contract offer." "We can't afford to live here (in Loudoun County) anymore," said one driver. "We're loyal to the county, we're loyal to our passengers, we want to be able to provide services to them. I didn't want to leave my passengers, they're family to us." ATU International President John Costa vowed that "Our members will be out there on the picket for as long as it takes," urging Keolis to "come back to the table and put a serious offer on the table that recognizes our members for the important role they play in the county." [link removed] Watch the strike video here.
PLUS: Striking Loudon County paratransit driver Lisa Saunders reports live from the Keolis picket line on this week's Your Rights At Work radio show: [link removed] catch the podcast here!
Labor Photo: Starbucks workers strategize
"The Mid Atlantic Region partners bargaining committee getting together last night to strategize for the upcoming negotiations w/ #Starbucks!" [link removed] tweeted Workers United MARJB on Wednesday. About 30 attended from around the region in person or by Zoom.
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Labor Quote: Raymond Jackson
"Bring (Keolis) negotiators to the table and negotiate fair wages. I was there when (Keolis) said `we got the money, but we're going to give ourselves a raise.' Well, here's what the raise got you!"
Jackson is President of ATU 689, which represents the striking Loudoun County transit workers at Keolis.
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Today's Labor History
This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] The Cambridge Movement. Last week's show: [link removed] "No Labor Dictators for Us".
January 13
Chicano citrus workers strike in Covina, CA - 1919
January 14
Some 14,000 General Electric employees strike for two days to protest the company's mid-contract decision to shift an average of $400 in additional health care co-payments onto each worker - 2003
January 15
Wobblie Ralph Chaplin, in Chicago for a demonstration against hunger, completes the writing of the labor anthem "Solidarity Forever" on this date in 1915 (sung above by Tom Morello). He'd begun writing it in 1914 during a miner's strike in Huntington, W. Va. The first verse:
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong - 1915
January 16
Thousands of Palmer Raids detainees win right to meet with lawyers and attorney representation at deportation hearings. "Palmer" was Alexander Mitchell Palmer, U.S. Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer believed Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and Socialists were causing most of the country's social problems - 1920
David Prosten
 
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Published by the Metropolitan Washington Labor Council, an AFL-CIO "Union City" Central Labor Council whose 200 affiliated union locals represent 150,000 area union members. DYANA FORESTER, PRESIDENT.
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