"We're All Working People"

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

More than 50 locked-out nurses joined the hotel workers’ Madison Hotel picket line Monday afternoon after their own picket line at the Washington Hospital Center. “We’re here to show our solidarity with all workers,” said RN Joe Cassidy, a member of National Nurses United, surrounded by a sea of locked-out nurses in NNU’s red hospital scrubs. “We’re all working people with a common need to survive with a living wage.” Also joining the picket line were a dozen fired-up Georgetown students on a special “Worker Justice DC Alternative Spring Break” sponsored by the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service at Georgetown University and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. The hotel workers – who have been picketing and boycotting the hotel because of its new owners’ refusal to accept the terms of the existing contract with UNITE HERE 25, which represents 150 workers at the Madison -- will join the WHC nurse’s picketline today at 4P as the nurses celebrate Mardi Gras’ “Fat Tuesday” and prepare to return to work Wednesday morning.
- report/photo by Chris Garlock