Move On Up!

Dallas labor is moving up with increased solidarity and election/legislative work. At the Central Labor Council meeting on November 17, the Transport Workers announced that they were able to get a delegation of leaders to support the pickets of the American Airlines flight attendants. Everybody was looking for ways to support the nationwide Starbucks workers on strike. 

Marilyn Davis reported that we had over 2,000 election conversations by block walking, over 8,000 phone calls, and over 2,000 post cards. One union member flipped a state rep seat in Collin County. Mihaela Plesa, a member of the Texas State Employees Union, defeated the Republican in District 70. Davis summarized, “That definitely makes some waves.” 

Vice President Bonnie Mathias commented, “Dallas County is bluer than ever.” As always, the fight goes on. Retiree leader Judy Bryant reported that the state legislature convenes on January 10. City council elections are in May. Before any of that, we need to help win the senate race in Georgia. National AFL-CIO has set up ways to join the fight:

Virtual Phone Banks:

The AFL-CIO will have a virtual phone bank up and running starting Friday, November 18. They will be operating from a Zoom room that will be staffed from 10am - 8pmET every day excluding the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving next week.  Volunteers should join the zoom to get connected to the OpenVPN link for the phone bank. The zoom link is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85865321562 

Letter Writing: 

Working America is continuing their successful letter writing program for volunteers to write letters to voters in GA.  Interested volunteers can sign up for this activity at this link: workam.org/LettersWA

Joe Montemayor told the Central Labor Council delegates that they could also volunteer from this link: https://txt.democrats.org/runoffGA.

Upcoming Fights

Our Texas state employees and school employees need to fight inflation with cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) on their pensions. More broadly, all working families need to get pensions with COLA.

The amazing 8.7% raises that Social Security recipients will get in January would come to all retiree pension programs if they had COLA, but very few do. At the Central Labor Council meeting, only the delegate from American Federal Government Employees Local 1003 could report that their retirees already get COLA raises when inflation rises. 

This is a fight for everybody!

MORE ACTIONS COMING UP

Nov 26: People’s Thanksgiving at Pan African Connection

Dec 6: Runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia

Dec 7, 12:30P: Dallas Chapter of TARA meets at AFT Hall, Bishop & Centre in Oak Cliff. Everyone invited. RSVP to judy4tara@aol.com or 214-729-0063

Dec 15, 7:30P: Dallas AFL-CIO Christmas Party at 1408 N Washington

Jan 13-16: Labor’s Civil and Human Rights Conference in Washington DC. Register