On March 4, 2024, Richmond Public Schools terminated Richmond Education Association President Neri Suarez in a move that REA is describing as retaliation for union activities. REA represents the largest bloc of RPS employees, who are organized into seven bargaining units represented by four unions.
The Virginia Defender
Established in 2005 as The Richmond Defender, The Virginia Defender is a free community newspaper, published quarterly for the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. Print distribution is currently 12,000 and statewide. The online publication launched in Summer 2020.
Postal workers press for decent contracts
On Oct. 18, the USPS and the largest union representing its employees, the National Association of Letter Carriers, came to a tentative agreement on a new contract. The NALC represents some 295,000 active and retired non-rural letter carriers. This was a long time coming. NALC members had been working without a contract since their last collective bargaining agreement expired in May 2023.
Pensions the big issue as Boeing strike continues
On Sept. 12, some 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in California, Washington and Oregon rejected a tentative contract agreement with the troubled aerospace giant and voted to go on strike. At issue: 10 years of wage stagnation and, the major sticking point, the stripping away of workers’ pensions.
ILA flexes worker power in East Coast dock strike
At one minute past midnight on Oct. 1, some 50,000 workers represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association went out on strike, bringing 36 ports from Maine to Texas to a virtual standstill. It was their first walkout since 1977.
(RTD) Corrections
Editor’s Note: In our 20 years of publishing, The Virginia Defender has never once been asked to correct a fact or a quote. We’re very proud of that record. But since other publications publish corrections, we’d like to do the same – in our case, corrections to factual errors that have appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Here are our first offerings.
Neo-Nazis back in Richmond, spreading racist hate
The same fascist gang that vandalized the Arthur Ashe mural in Richmond’s Battery Park a few years ago was back in town in October, pasting posters and fliers designed to try and whip up hatred against immigrants.
Richmond ordinance would partially protect neglected Black cemetery
A proposed Richmond ordinance calls for a 1.3-acre section of the more than 31- acre Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground site to be formally established “as a cemetery to assure its perpetual protection from disturbance and to memorialize it as a solemn and sacred landmark in the City of Richmond and for all residents and visitors to the city of Richmond.”
The Virginia Defender 