Upcoming Events 📅
Join us for EWOC’s second general meeting! We’ll be talking about our 2021 organizing goals, various components of EWOC and ways to get involved. Register in advance.
Today, we recognize the labor fight to include all workers. This wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, the labor movement mostly ignored issues that affected LGBTQ working people. As the gay liberation movement gained momentum, discrimination based on sexual orientation divided the ranks and weakened union organization — organized labor suffered due to it. The 1970s saw a seismic shift, with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as the first union to recognize the need to uplift LGBTQ workers, passing a resolution opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Following this lead, San Francisco’s gay community partnered with the Teamsters to support a boycott against non-union Coors Brewing Company.
By 1979, the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) openly expressed its support for gay rights by calling for federal legislation banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, and jumpstarted a momentum of LGBTQ caucuses organizing to protect their rights. This same momentum led to the organization of Pride at Work, initially founded in the 1990s as a response to the AFL-CIO’s failure to endorse marriage equality, which eventually changed seven years later.
The fight for social and economic justice through organized labor means the continued opposition to all forms of workplace discrimination. Here at EWOC, we carry on the motto, “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
World of Work 🌍
GERMANY: Verdi, one of Germany’s largest trade unions, called on workers at Amazon centers in Werne, Leipzig, Rheinberg, Bad Hersfeld, Koblenz, and Graben to go on strike on Monday, coinciding with the online retailer’s Prime Day promotion.
CA: A California law, enacted nearly 50 years ago by Cesar Chavez, that allows union organizers to enter farms to speak to workers during non-working hours for a set number of days a year failed to pass on ideological lines with a 6–3 vote against it in court.
From Our Blog 🗣
The battle for workers’ rights continues! Check out these recent wins from grocery and food service workers.
Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017, and since then working conditions have only gotten worse. We made a list of 7 things workers have lost.
