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Monday, February 2,
2009
ZINN IN DC TONIGHT: Historian and author Howard Zinn will discuss the upcoming feature-length documentary “The People Speak” at Busboys and Poets tonight. The film – inspired by Zinn’s popular book “A People’s History Of The United  States” – features performances
by Matt Damon, Marisa Tomei, Viggo Mortensen and Josh Brolin
interwoven with archival footage and interviews exploring
America’s struggles with war, class, race, worker and
women’s rights, along with music by Eddie Vedder and John
Legend.MEDIA UNIONS BRAINSTORM ON JOINT
ORGANIZING, BATTLING FIRMS' ILLS: Joint organizing, the
possibility of workers’ buying media companies,
union-sponsored cross-training in each others’ fields, and
crafting proposals to help media companies’ arrest their
financial declines were among ideas at a three-day conference
convened to explore ways to enhance union influence in the
news-media industry. The January 10-12 conclave in Baltimore,
assembled by The Newspaper Guild-CWA, attracted more than 100
delegates from TNG and two other CWA media-union sectors: The
Printing, Publishing and Media Workers (International
Typographical Union) and the National Association of Broadcast
Employees and Technicians (NABET). All three CWA sector unions
face similar situations: media firms that are teetering, in part
because they are losing money and advertisers to the Internet
and other alternative means of communications. Faced with those
declines, and a deep recession from which they may not recover
any time soon, the media firms that employ the union workers
have floundered in their responses. Their usual tactic is to
demand givebacks, cut pensions and health insurance, fire
workers, and UNION CITY WELCOMES NEW
ATU 689 & IUOE 99 MEMBERS: Union City is pleased to
welcome more than 700 new readers, members of Amalgamated
Transit Union Local 689 and Operating Engineers Local 99. Both
locals are active in the Metro Washington Council and have
recently undertaken major campaigns to keep their members
up-to-date via email as part of building solidarity in the local
labor movement. Local
689 represents over 10,000 local transit workers, with 7,500
active members and 2,500 retirees (click
here to see ATU 689 President Jackie Jeter speaking out
against Metro service and job cuts on Fox 5 TV last Thursday).
Local
99’s 3,200 TODAY’S LABOR
HISTORY: Silk workers in Paterson, NJ strike (left) for
shorter workweek with no cut in pay. Sixteen thousand
participate over the course of the year (1919);
Legal secretary Iris Rivera fired for refusing to make coffee -
secretaries across Chicago |
outsource functions. After listening to
guest speakers and analysts, the union delegates held
wide-ranging discussions during which they appeared to agree on
alternative strategies to combat downsizing and not only
preserve current jobs but help create growing enterprises.
members operate and maintain heating,
ventilation, and air-conditioning systems in buildings
throughout metro Washington. For more on how your local’s
members can also participate in Union City, email 
protest (1977); The 170-day
lockout (although management called it a strike) of 22,000
steelworkers by USX Corp. ends with a pay cut but greater job
security. It was the longest work stoppage in the history of the
U.S. steel industry (1987); More info &
ammo for unionists is available online from 