Labor

LOS ANGELES — “At Work” is an artistic chronicle of labor in California, not a dead past, but a living history that continues to evolve and grow. To make its point, the exhibit presents a balance of paintings, prints and drawings alongside a number of photographic works, with contemporary artworks shown alongside creations from times past.

The labor upsurge sweeping the U.S. and the world has not left Houston behind. On June 30 at about midnight, union representative Cesar Calderon announced that the Fiesta Mart Inc. bakery commissary workers here voted 54-52 to join the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Local 163.

ST. LOUIS — Over 600 trade unionists, community activists, peace activists and students protested President Bush’s visit here June 28. Bush was in town for a $2,000-a-plate fund-raiser for right-wing Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, who faces strong opposition from Democrat Claire McCaskill, the state auditor.

You might be a Bill Withers fan without realizing it. If you ever grooved to Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us,” sang along with “Lean On Me” or thought to yourself, “Ain’t No Sunshine” when she’s gone, you know Withers’ timeless musical touch.

Florence Reece, wife of a rank-and-file organizer for the old National Miners Union in Harlan County, Kentucky, was at home one day in 1931 when High Sheriff J. H. Blair and his gun-toting “deputies” invaded her home looking for Mrs. Reece’s husband. They poked their rifles into closets, under beds, even into piles of laundry before they left.

HOUSTON — Bakery commissary workers at the Fiesta Mart grocery store on Wirt Road in Houston will vote June 30 on whether to join the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 130. Concurrently, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Locals 408 and 455 have started an organizing drive among the grocery workers at Fiesta Mart stores.

What has changed in our schools? Well the toilet paper dispensers at the special education headquarters in Brooklyn, have changed — three times in one school year — while the city closed down 800 seats for the most needy in public education. Go figure!

WASHINGTON — The House and Senate refusal to approve a small increase in the minimum wage proves that the Republican majority is “morally bankrupt” and should be removed from office next Nov. 7.

United for National Health Care and Whatcom County (Wash.) Jobs with Justice held a successful Health Care Day of Action in Whatcom and Skagit counties June 7. During evening rush hour, 70 people participated at 15 overpasses on Interstate 5 with banners proclaiming: Health Care for All — Now!

Big business tried to keep the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) from becoming law in 1993. Now the business lobby is trying to dismantle one of this era’s most family-friendly reforms, says the Coalition of Labor Union Women.