Metro Council Supports Worker Struggles Near And Far

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Locked-out sugar workers in the Midwest, union workers at WPFW, OPEIU Local 2 members at SEIU headquarters, police officers in Montgomery County – and the Robin Hood Tax Campaign – all won the support of the Metro Washington Council at Wednesday night’s meeting. Some 1,400 workers at American Crystal Sugar in Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota, members of the Bakery, Confectionary Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) have been locked out since August 1, 2011; the Council unanimously approved a resolution encouraging affiliates to “Stand And Be Counted” by contributing to the BCTGM Lockout Action Fund. Click here for more on the lock-out. Closer to home, WPFW host Gloria Minott (below, at left) told Council delegates that station management dealt with its recent fiscal crisis by imposing “draconian wages cuts” of 50-75% on union employees at WPFW, while management may have received increases and bonuses at the same time. In addition union workers at WPFW are currently being denied health insurance, have not been paid at all some weeks, and face layoffs as soon as October 1. The Council unanimously approved a resolution demanding that “WPFW management restore all previous cuts in wages and benefits to union employees” and pledging “to work with SAG/AFTRA to ensure that the employees at WPFW be made whole.” Concerned supporters were also urged to email Station Manager John Hughes at Hughes_john@wpfw.org (and copy in union labor rep Katea Still at stitt_katea@wpfw.org). Council delegates also approved a resolution urging the officers and management of SEIU “to promptly negotiate a fair and equitable collective bargaining agreement” with OPEIU Local 2 staffers there and directing Metropolitan Council President Jos Williams to “use his good offices to help achieve such a settlement.” At the urging of UFCW Local 1994, the Council also adopted a position opposing Montgomery County Ballot Question B, which would repeal the longtime right of Montgomery County police officers to bargain over effects of the exercise of management rights. The Council also endorsed the Robin Hood Tax Campaign and the Inclusive Prosperity Act (HR 6411), just introduced in Congress by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), which would impose a small tax of 50 cents on the trade of every $100 of stocks and a lesser tax on the trade of other financial instruments, which is projected to raise at least $350 billion annually “to help alleviate the ongoing economic crisis and fund human needs, as well as help fund environmental remediation, sustainable economic prosperity around the world and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention efforts.” - photos: top right: American Sugar retirees support their locked-out colleagues (photo courtesy AFL-CIO Now blog); middle left: WPFW's Gloria Minott (photo by Chris Garlock): bottom right: at the June 19 Robin Hood Tax demo in downtown DC (photo by Chris Garlock).