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White House hosts union organizers, including local IAM member

Labor Photo: WTU Local 6 celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week

UNION CITY Guest Opinion: FAA should stop trying to muzzle union leaders

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] Film: THE KILLING FLOOR (DC LaborFest): Mon, May 9, 6:30pm - 8:30pm

AFI Silver Theatre,8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910.

[link removed] AAPI Women in Labor, Forging New Paths for Safety and Power: Tue, May 10, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Presented by CLUW & APALA.

Wednesdays with Warner for the PRO Act: Wed, May 11, 8:15am - 9:15am

Windmill Hill Park, 500 South Lee St, Alexandria

[link removed] Book: STANDING UP: TALES OF STRUGGLE (DC LaborFest): Wed, May 11, 6pm - 8pm

With authors Ellen Bravo & Larry Miller; Hosted by Metro Washington Labor Council President Dyana Forester.
Busboys & Poets, 14th & V, Washington, DC

Alexandria Dems Labor Caucus: Wed, May 11, 7:30pm - 8:30pm

Meeting of Alexandria union members and friends of labor. Contact mailto:[email protected] [email protected] for the link

Airport Worker Rally in DC: Thu, May 12, 11am - 12pm

SEIU 32bj rally at the Capitol in support of federal legislation for airport workers.

Union City Radio: Your Rights at Work: Thu, May 12, 1pm - 2pm
Guests: labor journalist Kim Kelly, organizer Richard Bensinger.

[link removed] CLICK HERE to listen to last week's Your Rights At Work radio show (Thursdays 1-2p on WPFW 89.3FM), NPEU VP for Organizing Hayley Brown on "Reproductive rights are workers rights," and Visiting Professor at University College London Damon Silvers on "Labor, Climate Change, and Innovation".


White House hosts union organizers, including local IAM member

Baltimore County Public Library employee Jaimie Caldwell, a new member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), met Thursday at the White House with President Joe Biden, union organizers, Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, and other members of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. Caldwell is one of approximately 460 Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) employees who [link removed] recently organized with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). On May 1, they [link removed] voted to ratify their first union contract. The one-year collective bargaining agreement includes pay increases and paid leave, among other significant improvements. "It excites us to know we could take it further by passing statewide legislation for all Maryland library workers to unionize," said Caldwell. "We stand with them in solidarity. We are stronger together." The Baltimore County Public Library campaign is emblematic of the IAM's efforts to organize workers in a diverse array of sectors, including [link removed] veterinary workers, [link removed] non-profit workers and [link removed] Apple workers.


Labor Photo: [link removed] WTU Local 6 celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week

UNION CITY Guest Opinion: FAA should stop trying to muzzle union leaders
By Dan Ronneberg, J.D.

Last week an unfair labor practice charge was filed against the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Communications for interference with a union principal office representative's right to discuss his union responsibilities, his union history, and his representation of one of the FAA's Flight Standards District Offices.

The office representative, who was formerly a uniformed police officer before becoming a FAA Aviation Safety Inspector, has had over 40 years experience in different union roles. He was invited to be interviewed by his state level AFL-CIO. The rep sought permission to participate in the interview from the FAA's Office of Communications out of an abundance of caution. The FAA delayed substantively responding to him until he prompted them a second time, and then he was told he couldn't even divulge what agency he worked for or what he did without approval from FAA Senior Leadership. Given the amount of time and effort that would require, the office rep declined the AFL-CIO's invite. However, he also notified his Regional Business Agent, who engaged the management officials that sought to restrain the union's right to communicate through their elected union representatives. They reiterated their position, which triggered the unfair labor practice filing Tuesday.

It's amazing that management at the Federal Aviation Administration still doesn't get it. Despite clear direction from the Biden administration that federal agencies are to take a more collaborative approach with their unions, the FAA persists in attempting to muzzle union leaders. Read the room--unions are alive and well, and the federal government should be setting the example rather than taking their cues from corporate anti-union efforts.

Inspector Dan Ronneberg is the Eastern Regional Business Agent for the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, which represents among others, Flight Standards Employees at the Federal Aviation Administration. He was formerly the President of AFSCME Local 1653 which represented headquarters employees at FAA until a 2018 management initiated reorganization, and was an ALPA MEC Grievance Chair prior to that. The opinions expressed in this article are his own as a union leader.


Today's Labor Quote: Hayley Brown

"It's really important to take a stand on this and to directly engage with the people who are trying to take the rights away. Engage to make sure that those people can't take your rights away."

Hayley Brown (photo) is VP for Organizing at NPEU; she discussed how reproductive rights are workers rights on last week's [link removed] Your Rights At Work radio show (Thursdays 1-2p on WPFW 89.3FM).

TODAY'S LABOR HISTORY

This week's Labor History Today podcast: [link removed] The Haymarket Martyrs Monument: Past, Present, Future; Last week's show: [link removed] We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day.

May 9
Japanese workers strike at Oahu, Hawaii's Aiea Plantation, demanding the same pay as Portugese and Puerto Rican workers. Ultimately 7,000 workers and their families remained out until August, when the strike was broken - 1909

Longshoremen's strike to gain control of hiring leads to general work stoppage, San Francisco Bay area - 1934

Hollywood studio mogul Louis B. Mayer recognizes the Screen Actors Guild. SAG leaders reportedly were bluffing when they told Mayer that 99 percent of all actors would walk out the next morning unless he dealt with the union. Some 5,000 actors attended a victory gathering the following day at

Hollywood Legion Stadium; a day later, SAG membership increased 400 percent - 1937

May 10
Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the nation's first transcontinental railway line was finished by the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines at Promontory Point, Utah - 1869

U.S. & Canadian workers form Western Labor Union. It favors industrial organization and independent labor party politics - 1898

A federal bankruptcy judge frees United Airlines from responsibility for pensions covering 120,000 employees - 2005

- 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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