AU WORKER RIGHTS; LABOR AND THE ENVIRONMENT; ”THE EDGE OF ANARCHY”

DC’s call-in show about worker rights: those you have, those you don’t, how to get them and how to use them.

Hosted by Chris Garlock and Ed Smith

This week's guests:
ANTHONY RANDOLPH from UNITE HERE LOCAL 23; Tens of thousands more laid off workers filed for unemployment assistance in the DMV last week, for a total of nearly half a million claims over the last five weeks. A small fraction of those workers are lucky enough to be members of a union, and at American University that membership might literally mean life or death. When Compass Group, an American University subcontractor, laid off campus food service workers, UNITE HERE Local 23 sprang into action to ensure members continued to get pension and medical benefits. Without those medical benefits, laid off workers would have little means to access care if they got sick. WPFW reporter Chris Bangert-Drowns spoke with AU employee and UNITE HERE 23 member Anthony Randolph on Monday to get the details.

JOE UEHLEIN with the Labor Network for Sustainability on Earth Day at 50; labor and the environmental movement. The first Earth Day in 1970 had very significant support from the United Automobile Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which included money, staff time, printing, and other related resources. Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day told Labor Network for Sustainability President Joe Uehlein that the first Earth Day would not have happened without labor support. Some of the larger Earth Day planning retreats/meetings were held at the UAW’s Black Lake training center in upstate Michigan.

JACK KELLY: "The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America”
At the peak of the Gilded Age a conflict in one of America’s largest factories exploded into the most extensive and threatening labor uprising in American history. The Edge of Anarchy tells the story of this epoch-making event. The book transports the reader from the fabulous White City of the 1893 World’s Fair to the nation’s industrial heartland, where unprecedented hard times are brewing rage across the continent. In the summer of 1894, more than half a million desperate railroad workers went on strike. Riots broke out in Chicago and other major cities. The nation’s commerce ground to a halt—famine threatened isolated towns. The U.S. Attorney General declared the country to be on “the ragged edge of anarchy.”

Music: You Can't Giddy Up By Sayin' Whoa: The U-Liners (with Joe Uehlein).

Produced by Chris Garlock; engineering by Michael Nasella and Shepsu Baker