| Monday, June 21, 2010
ON THE LINE TODAY: Join hundreds of OPEIU members, the DC Union Summer interns and  two giant inflatable rats at the 1p Red Cross picket line today and then catch up on all the latest local labor news - including reports on the 8-week Teamsters strike against Daycon and contract negotiations at the Washington Hospital Center - at the 6:30p Metro Council Delegate Meeting (last one before the summer break!). Also on the agenda: DC, P.G. and Tri-County COPE candidate endorsement recommendations, Labor Night at the Nats, DC Labor FilmFest & more!
- photo: striking Daycon workers walking the line in May;
photo by Adam Wright
NURSES URGED TO VOTE DOWN CONTRACT AMID LEADERSHIP CRISIS AT WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER: Nurses at Washington Hospital Center are being urged to vote down "insulting contract proposals" after 13 weeks of fruitless negotiations. Meanwhile, as contract talks c ollapsed last Thursday, the hospital announced that interim president Harry Rider is leaving office early and senior vice president for nursing Elizabeth Wykpisz is unexpectedly leaving June 30. "Their leadership is in crisis," says Nurses United of the National Capital Area Chief Steward Steven Frum. Members of Nurses United last week collected hundreds of signatures from hospital employees informing MedStar, the Maryland chain that owns the hospital, that it has no confidence in the surviving management team. Washington Hospital Center (WHC) "continues to demand contract changes that devalue nurses and our profession," the Nurses United negotiating team reported after the final negotiating session last Thursday. The contract expires at midnight Saturday, June 19. Citing patient safety as their top priority, the union said that "Nurses are not willing to settle for massive wage cutbacks coupled with a lack of commitment to improve staffing. We need the best and brightest nurses to stay at WHC, (but) this will not happen with the proposals (WHC) has on the table. Quality patient care is in great jeopardy." The contract vote is set for June 25-26 and is separate from a possible future strike vote. - Chris Garlock; photo: almost 2000 nurses rallied in May for a fair contract outside the Washington Hospital Center; photo by Adam Wright
STRIKING IRON WORKERS TAKE BATTLE TO NEXT LEVEL: Striking iron workers took their 8-month battle for justice to La Plata on Friday. Accompanied by representatives of DC Jobs with Justice and six Union Summ er interns, the iron workers - who have been on strike against Wings Construction since October 2009 -- demanded to speak to the owner of Facchina Construction, a general contractor that subcontracts work to Wings. The workers, who say they're treated "like slaves," want Facchina to stop hiring Wings until their demands for improved job safety, health insurance and better wages are met. When no-one from Facchina was available to meet with them, the workers left information about their concerns and plan to follow up in the coming weeks with the company, as well as with other general contractors who use Wings. "Enough is enough," said one of the workers. - Jasmine Butler & Ryan Carty, AFL-CIO Union Summer Interns; photo by Ryan Carty
CARPENTER TRAINEES BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: After three months of carpentry, math and job readiness training, seven DC residents graduated last Thursday from the DC DOES-funded Carpenters Employment Training Program at Phelps High School in the District’s Northeast. The graduates learned about the tools of the trade and safely used the m to build quality bookcases and tool boxes - some of which were donated to the school. "This program was very helpful!" said graduate Melvin Knight, "I learned a lot about the trade and look forward to becoming a carpenter!” Asked what he built at the program, graduate Raymond Whittington replied enthusiastically, "I built relationships - I learned skills for life." Instructors Paul Isom, from the Baltimore Carpentry School, and Kevin Hughes, from DC Joint Carpentry Apprenticeship Committee, received rave reviews from training participants with whom - day in and day out - they shared their craft and love of the trade. Grads also expressed their appreciation for Yvette De La Cruz, a consultant for the Community Services Agency, who spearheaded the job readiness component and prepared participants to be successful in today's workplace. "Thanks to the instructors, DC-DOES, the Community Services Agency, and the school that hosted us, for making this program a huge success!" added Whittington. – report by Sylvia Casaro Dietert; photo: graduates present a bookcase to Phelps High School Principal Michael Johnson (second from right); photo by Yvette De La Cruz
LEARNING ABOUT U.S. LABOR THROUGH THE NATIONAL PASTIME: A group of Russian labor professionals will be among the crowd at the July 9 Labor Night at the Nats. The Russians will be here "to meet with their counterparts and learn more about labor relations," says Michael Ginsberg of the Center for International Programs, who calls the labor baseball event "a spectacular networking opportunity for them!" Tickets ($10 each) are still available: email kmckirch@dclabor.org - photo by Chris Garlock
LABOR PROFILE: Union Summer Intern Joseph Daniels: It’s no surprise that DC native Joe Daniels (below) is fascinated by politics. After following the 2004 election, Daniels – one of seven Union Summer interns at the Metro Council -- was hooked and wanted to “learn more about how our government ticks and how it affects the people.” Since then, he’s followed politics closely in his hometown and is majoring in politics at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. He was looking for a political job this summer and sees his Union Summer internship as a chance to learn how politics are related to the labor movement. He recently interviewed an unemployed member of IUEC Local 10 at the Navy Yard, an experience that showed Daniels how workers can be positively affected by a law ensuring that government-funded projects in the District hire local workers. Looking ahead to the rest of his Union Summer, Daniels says he wants to see "the work we do build to a successful result" advancing the Employee Trade Stimulus Act. In his free time Daniels enjoys playing baseball, learning about cars and visiting the Smithsonian museums, especially political exhibits in the National Museum of American History. - report/photo by Ryan Carty, AFL-CIO Union Summer Intern
LABOR QUOTE QUIZ: "Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." Which coach said it? Phil Jackson, Vince Lombardi, Pat Summit or John Wooden? Click here to vote now and you could be a winner! LAST WEEK'S QUIZ: Robert Byrne was last week's winner, drawn at random from those correctly identifying US Congressman Barney Frank (D - MA, at right) as saying in 2008, "A year ago, we were being told, you have to deregulate more. Now, we are going to have to save capitalism from the capitalists." "This was a tough one," said Susan Flashman, "as I think at some time, any one of these people might have said it." - photo courtesy Associated Press
TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY: In England, a compassionate parliament declares that children can't be required to work more than 12 hours a day. And they must have an hour's instruction in the Christian Religion every Sunday and not be required to sleep more than two in a bed (1802); 10 miners accused of being militant "Molly Maguires" are hanged in Pennsylvania. A private corporation initiated the investigation of the 10 through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested them, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. "The state provided only the courtroom & the gallows," a judge said many years later (1877); The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right of unions to publish statements urging members to vote for a specific congressional candidate, ruling that such advocacy is not a violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1948); 100,000 unionists and other supporters march in solidarity (above) with striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press newspaper workers (1997); More info & ammo for unionists is available online from Union Communication Services.
- photo by Paul Felton
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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. JOSLYN N. WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT.
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ment recommendations by the DC, Prince George’s and Tri-County COPE committees, both bodies voted to meet again in special session on Monday, July 19 for the sole purpose of finalizing the Council’s endorsements. Please save the date: details on time, location and the specific COPE recommendations will follow. The Council did make endorsements in Tri-County and also voted to take “no position” in DC’s Ward 1 race, and to recommend Mary Cheh in the DC Ward 3 race; 
negotiated a “ground breaking agreement” with ABC that will add over 3,700 “man days” for local union members. “When ESPN’s popular weekday programs, Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn, begin broadcasting in High-Definition this fall,” reports NABET 31 President James Carl Mayers, “the studio and control room crews, editors, and other workers will be represented by NABET-CWA.” Both shows were previously produced at a non-union shop. Mayers calls the agreement, which was signed on May 28, “represents a major opportunity for work for NABET-CWA represented employees at the ABC News Bureau Washington” and credited Sector President Jim Joyce for his role in securing the agreement.
S "THINKING JEWISHLY": 2010 Labor On The Bimah:
etween factions of the miner’s local there. It didn’t go well. Gunfight in the union hall killed one man; Moyer and other union officers left the building, which was then leveled in a dynamite blast (1914); Congress overrides President Harry Truman's veto of the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act. The law weakened unions and let states exempt themselves from union requirements. Twenty states immediately enacted open shop laws and two more did so later (1947); OSHA issues standard on cotton dust to protect 600,000 workers from byssinosis, also known as "brown lung" (1978); The newly-formed Jobs With Justice stages its first big support action, backing 3,000 picketing Eastern Airlines mechanics at Miami Airport (1987); A majority of the 5,000 textile workers at six Fieldcrest Cannon textile plants in Kannapolis, N.C., vote for union representation after an historic 25-year fight (1999); More info & ammo for unionists is available online from 
tside national Red Cross headquarters under the blistering afternoon sun yesterday to expose the aid agency's poor treatment of both its workers and the nation's blood supply. The Red Cross has been “reprimanded numerous times for their unacceptable policies," one demonstrator told Union City, "yet this organization continues to turn a blind eye to their mistreatment of their workers and the mismanagement of their blood supply." The picketers - delegates to this week's OPEIU convention in DC - carried signs reading “Tell the American Red Cross: Qualified Staff Means A Safe Blood Supply!” to protest their “extreme dissatisfaction” with the aid agency. The Red Cross “refuses to adhere to staffing requirements and workers’ rights,” said another demonstrator, adding that the agency has been under Congressional decree for over 15 years “with no sign of improvement.” Frank Hornick - a business representative for SEIU - said, “These issues lead to the dangerous distribution of untested - or ‘bad’ - blood, which many times has not even been tested for diseases such as syphilis.” The leadership of the Red Cross needs to “either change now or leave,” said OPEIU Local 459 Business Representative Joe Marutiak, noting that the Red Cross has been fined over 16 million dollars in the last week alone for mismanagement of distributed blood.
ly cheering on the Nationals. Workers at the Nationals Stadium - members of Local 25 - overwhelmingly approved a new agreement Monday afternoon. "It's a great contract," said UNITE HERE Local 25 Executive Secretary-Treasurer John Boardman. "Money was not the issue," said Boardman, noting that the Nationals readily agreed to wage, benefit and pension improvements. "The major issue was subcontracting," Boardman said. "We had three tough months of negotiations, a great negotiating committee and a membership that was well-aware of what was at stake. In the end, we not only preserved more than 500 existing union jobs at the stadium, but as the Nationals build out more facilities in the future, they've agreed that workers at existing vendors will be covered and a card-check neutrality agreement will cover those at new vendors. We couldn't be more pleased." The Local 25 members work at the concession stands throughout the Nationals ballpark. 
ndations the 
equality and referenced the labor movement” says Ablavsky, “it really captured my interest.” The New College of Florida student – a Massachusetts native -- interned last summer in Boston with UNITE HERE, registering union members to vote, training as an organizer and campaigning for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. “I just want to get a broader understanding of the labor movement” this year, she says, “everything from politics to organizing.” The Union Summer internship interested Ablavsky “because there are not a lot of formal programs that deal with the labor movement.” This Fall, Ablavsky, a sociology major, will travel to Mexico to study with the Mexico Solidarity Network, working with social movement organizations including the Zapatistas. 
orkers, frustrated at being targeted for layoffs and furloughs, are striking back creatively. "Make a video-serious or funny, in verse or in song-rap, parody, satire or comedy," urges their union, UFCW Local 1994, Municipal & County Government Employees Organization (MCGEO). "Tell the world what you think of Montgomery County's budget process." The union is awarding $600 in prizes and the results will be posted on YouTube. The 
contract," says Karl Furbush, Local 1900 business representative. While the Mirant workers won six weeks of vacation after 30 years of service and an additional floating holiday, the new contract did not include lower medical costs for retirees, which was one of the main issues. 
KERS SEE RED: Red Cross workers and their supporters are bringing their battle for justice to the aid agency's national headquarters on 
ate sophomore already knows that "when you are at a job and employers aren't treating you right," you have a right to organize. Butler learned about the Union Summer program from a fellow church member at Kettering Baptist Church in Prince George's County and was inspired by a presentation on labor history at last week's Union Summer orientation, connecting workers' past and present struggles. A native Washingtonian, Butler studies communications and runs track at Bowie State. The 10-week Union Summer internship is her first paid internship and as she looks forward to her work this summer, she says she looks forward to a wide range of activities with the Council and its affiliates, from journalism with Union City to campaigning in local political races. Whatever Butler does this summer, she says she knows one thing for sure: "I want to be a part of educating more people about the labor movement." 
orking conditions for construction workers employed on government projects. The agreement protected union wage and hour standards for the duration of World War I (6/19/1917); The first important sit-down strike in American history is conducted by workers at a General Tire Co. factory in Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers union was founded a year later (6/19/1934); The Women’s Day Massacre in Youngstown, Ohio, when police use tear gas on the women and children, including at least one infant in his mother's arms, during a strike at Republic Steel. One union organizer later recalled, "When I got there I thought the Great War had started over again. Gas was flying all over the place and shots flying and flares going up and it was the first time I had ever seen anything like it in my life..." (6/19/1937); ILWU begins a four day general strike in sugar, pineapple, and longshore to protest convictions under the anti-communist Smith Act of seven activists, "the Hawai’i Seven." The convictions were later overturned by a federal appeals court (6/19/1953); The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene Debs, is founded. In the Pullman strike a year later, the union was defeated by federal injunctions and troops, and Debs was imprisoned for violating the injunctions (6/20/1893); Henry Ford recognizes the United Auto Workers, signs contract for workers at River Rouge plant (6/20/1941); Striking African American auto workers are attacked by KKK, National Workers League, and armed white workers at Belle Isle amusement park in Detroit. Two days of riots follow, 34 people are killed, more than 1,300 arrested (6/20/1943); The Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act, curbing strikes, is vetoed by President Harry S Truman. The veto was overridden three days later by a Republican-controlled Congress (6/20/1947); Oil began traveling through the Alaska pipline. Seventy thousand people worked on building the pipeline, history's largest privately-financed construction project (6/20/1977); Evelyn Dubrow, described by the New York Times as organized labor's most prominent lobbyist at the time of its greatest power, dies at age 95. The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union lobbyist once told the Times that "she trudged so many miles around Capitol Hill that she wore out 24 pairs of her Size 4 shoes each year." She retired at age 86 (6/20/2006); More info & ammo for unionists is available online from