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Service + Solidarity Spotlight: North Carolina State AFL-CIO Issues Workers First Agenda for State

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

North Carolina State AFL-CIO President MaryBe McMillan (IUOE) reported the state federation and its affiliated unions have announced a Workers First Agenda for the 2021–22 legislative session. The priorities include requiring the state’s Department of Labor (NCDOL) to respond to COVID-19 related complaints about unsafe working conditions, ensuring safe and adequate housing for migrant farmworkers, maintaining a stable workers’ compensation program, and more. In the agenda, the North Carolina State AFL-CIO explained:

“Our priority is ensuring that working people receive adequate resources to survive the pandemic. Ultimately, however, we want working families to do more than just survive. Beyond the pandemic, we want working people to be able to thrive, to build better lives for...

Black History Month Profiles: E.J. Jenkins

This year, for Black History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently active making Black history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country. Today's profile is E.J. Jenkins.

United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1014's Jenkins is the epitome of a union activist. He got involved through the USW's Next Generation program for young members and has since been active in civil rights, election and organizing work, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute. He won the Jefferson Award in 2018 for starting Black Labor Week, a program dedicated to educating, empowering and uplifting the community. The program began in Gary, Indiana, and has since expanded under Jenkins' leadership.

Kenneth Quinnell
Mon, 02/22/2021 - 09:30

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Black History Month

Black History Month Profiles: Rochelle Palache

This year, for Black History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently active making Black history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country. Today's profile is Rochelle Palache.

Rochelle Palache leads SEIU 32BJ's Connecticut District. Like many of the union’s members, Palache moved to the United States for a better life, leaving her native Jamaica after finishing high school. She attended Smith College on a scholarship and began working at the SEIU Connecticut State Council soon after graduating. Over the next 15 years, she lead successful campaigns for a $15 minimum wage, paid family medical leave and several immigrant rights bills. In 2020, she helped guide the union as members suffered layoffs in the economic downturn and faced the pandemic as essential workers. She also worked to engage the union on issues related to Black Lives Matter.

Kenneth Quinnell
Sun, 02/21/2021 - 08:54

Pathway to Progress: The Charleston Hospital Strike

Wikimedia Commons

History has long been portrayed as a series of "great men" taking great action to shape the world we live in. In recent decades, however, social historians have focused more on looking at history "from the bottom up," studying the vital role that working people played in our heritage. Working people built, and continue to build, the United States. In our new series, Pathway to Progress, we'll take a look at various people, places and events where working people played a key role in the progress our country has made, including those who are making history right now. Today's topic is the Charleston hospital strike.

In the late 1960s, Charleston, South Carolina, was NOT primed to be the next city to be a touchstone in either the civil rights movement or the labor movement. Much of the progress and activism seen elsewhere had passed Charleston by. And the White power structure was as equally entrenched against labor unionism as it was against the expansion of Black people's rights. But the hospital strike of 1969 became as important to the Southern Christian...