The 800 office-technical and administrative-technical employees in Tulsa, Okla., now have a voice on the job after joining AFSCME Local 1180.

Says Laureen Gilroy, who works in the city’s Public Works Department:

Forming a union is our legal and democratic right, and we decided to exercise that right. Having a union means that we can work to improve conditions on the job and give employees a voice at work.

Indian workers from the Signal International shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., rallied in front of the White House last month.

Guest workers who risked everything to come from India and work on the Gulf Coast, only to find abuse and injustice, now are risking the only thing they have left—their lives—to gain the justice they have been denied on the job.

The water-only hunger strike began today in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, with six of the more than 500 workers who came to this country beginning in 2006 in what turned out to be a human-trafficking scheme under the guise of the H-2B guest worker program. Some 30 more workers will join the hunger strike in two waves, on May 21 and on May 28.

The workers, who are welders and pipe fitters, paid $20,000 to recruiters who promised permanent residency and citizenship under the H-2B guest worker program, which business interests want to expand. When they got to this country, they say their employer, Signal International, held them in modern-day forced labor at its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. Signal makes the huge floating oil rigs for the offshore fields in the Gulf.

As the climate of fear and intimidation against union members continues in Colombia, the U.S. Congress must not approve the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), lawmakers and Colombian union leaders said today.

Seven Colombian trade union leaders traveled to the United States to lobby Congress to oppose the agreement. They say despite claims by the Bush administration and Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe that progress has been made in stemming the violence against union members, the reality is that violence has increased against labor leaders in Colombia.

Intensive care nurse Geri Jenkins says that a 67-year-old male patient with a history of four heart attacks, a quadruple bypass and an implanted defibrillator and about to take a high stress job "would be uninsurable for having a pre-existing condition."

Unless, of course, he was Dick Cheney and about to become the vice president of the United States in 2001. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/ National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), says Cheney

can have the choice of doctors. He can go to any hospital. He can have excellent standard of care. And he's alive today because of it. And there are a lot of people who aren't….We, as the public, pay for Dick Cheney's care. Why not—why is the government not providing the same type of care to all Americans?

New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech describes yesterday's municipal election victories by union members across the state.

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is proud to announce the victories of four union members who were elected to public office yesterday, bringing the total number of rank-and-file union members elected to public office in New Jersey to 499 since 1997.

For the fourth time this year, an AFL-CIO-endorsed candidate has won a special congressional election. Last night, Travis Childers won a striking (54 percent to 48 percent) victory in Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District (CD), by emphasizing the issues that matter most to working families.

The Mississippi AFL-CIO endorsed Childers, a Democrat, for the seat left open by the appointment of Republican Rep. Roger Wicker to the Senate. Childers pledged in his campaign to support affordable health care for working families and to fight bad trade deals that would cost Mississippi jobs. He also pledged to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Colorado working families yesterday hit the streets, gathering the first of the 76,000 signatures needed to put what The New York Times calls the "nation's toughest corporate fraud law" on the November ballot.

Union, community, environmental and other activist members of the Protect Colorado's Future coalition also began collecting signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot, a measure to protect workers from being fired for no reason.

The corporate fraud measure would make CEOs and top execs personally liable if they commit fraud or condone it by not reporting it. It establishes both civil penalties and criminal—i.e., jail time.

Robert Masciola, deputy director of the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research, describes the current efforts of the Building Justice Campaign. The campaign, which seeks to raise standards in the residential construction sector, currently is focused on Pulte Homes and its Del Webb subsidiary to increase Pulte’s accountability for the actions of its subcontractors. Until Pulte does so, the campaign is cautioning union members and retirees before purchasing a Pulte or Del Webb home.

Arizona and Nevada are two of the fastest growing states in the country as retirees flock West for warm weather and lower taxes. The retiree housing boom has been profitable for Pulte Homes, which owns Del Webb, the biggest national builder of “active adult” (55 years and older) communities.

Around the country this Saturday, thousands of union members will get a visit from their fellow union members and have a chance to learn about the issues they care about in November’s elections.

This weekend’s door-to-door canvass is at the center of the AFL-CIO union movement's effort to mobilize more than 6,000 union volunteers to knock on 200,000 doors and engage union members in 20 states this spring. These volunteers will discuss issues such as health care, jobs, the economy and trade, and how John McCain's pro-Bush voting record in the Senate has worked against the interests of America's workers.

Saturday’s door-to-door walks to educate and energize union members are part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 political program, set to be the largest union mobilization in history.

The U.S. Senate today moved a step closer to approving legislation that would protect the collective bargaining rights of tens of thousands of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and other public safety officers.

By a 69–29 vote, the Senate killed a filibuster led by several extreme anti-worker Republican senators against the workers' rights bill. Eighteen Republicans joined all Democrats in backing the move to end the filibuster. The vote on final passage is expected later this week.

Union activists from across the state came together in Philadelphia in recent days for a two-day training session in getting out the vote as part of the union movement’s Labor 2008 political mobilization program.

Members of more than a dozen unions participated in presentations that overviewed key working family issues like health care, the economy and Sen. John McCain’s anti-labor voting record. Attendees engaged in dynamic discussions about effective communication, worksite visits and activist recruitment.

The Philadelphia training is one of a series of Labor 2008 trainings that have taken place around the country in key states like Missouri, Ohio and Colorado.

Here's one from the "just-when-you-think-you've-seen-it-all" file.

California is facing a $20 billion budget shortfall. Teachers are getting pink slips. Health care, social service, education and other budgets are being slashed to the bone. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) warns that all Californians should get ready for some budget belt-tightening.

Well, almost all Californians.

Republican legislators twice this year blocked moves to close a tax loophole for their super-wealthy friends—the ones who just can't live without yachts or jet planes. The loophole let's the uber-rich buy their floating and flying palaces tax free!

Survivors of the cyclone in Burma line up to receive donated food and supplies.

Despite the refusal by Burma’s military dictatorship to allow relief agencies to deliver food, medical care and supplies to survivors of the devastating May 2 cyclone, the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB), the country’s underground democratic union movement, is delivering aid to some affected villages. We cannot report exactly which villages are receiving the aid for fear the government will intercede to stop the assistance. But AFL-CIO Solidarity Center representatives in the field confirm that FTUB unions are delivering some aid. But much more help is needed.

Click here to make a donation to help Burmese workers.

Patrick O'Meara, corporate finance specialist in the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, updates us on recent shareholder action at Verizon by union members and retirees.

Union members and retirees continue to challenge Verizon to become a better company. Sporting red T-shirts, some 50 current and retired members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), including members of the Association of BellTel Retirees, traveled to Lincoln, Neb., last week for the annual Verizon shareholders meeting.

This week, May 11–17, is National Women's Health Week. Beginning on Mother’s Day, Women’s Health Week encourages women to make their health a top priority and take simple steps for a longer and healthier life. Families, communities, businesses, government, health organizations and other groups will work to educate women about steps they can take to improve their physical and mental health and prevent disease.

With women making up nearly half of all union members, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is encouraging union members across the country to promote women’s health by urging women to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In addition to engaging in some form of physical activity most days of the week and eating a nutritious diet, CLUW, one of six AFL-CIO constituency groups, is urging women to avoid risky behaviors such as smoking or not wearing a seatbelt.

With 7 million U.S. workers unemployed, why do employers clamor that they need to import foreign workers to work in low-wage jobs as dishwashers, hotel maids, crab pickers and landscape laborers? The answer is simple, according to Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):

There isn't a shortage of workers willing to do these jobs. There's a shortage of employers willing to pay a decent wage.

In a recent op-ed column in Newsday, Eisenbrey points out that at a time when hundreds of thousands of families are facing foreclosures on their homes and wages are stagnant, corporate interests and their allies in Congress on both sides of the aisle are pushing to expand the number of foreign guest workers.

Hundreds of AFL-CIO union members in three states kicked off the first round of door-to-door, member-to-member walks this past weekend as part of the AFL-CIO's massive get-out-the-vote political mobilization program. They distributed fliers and educated union members about the real record of Sen. John McCain, including McCain’s health care plan, which would tax health benefits and could lead to millions being pushed out of their existing coverage.

State federations and central labor councils in Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin organized the walks, part of the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 program to educate and energize union members to get to the polls and vote. More walks are set around the country this Saturday, May 17, involving hundreds of union members in more than a dozen states.

Some 2,500 workers at a General Motors facility in Kansas are on strike and more news from "Bargaining Digest Weekly." The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

Work Stoppages and Actions

UAW, General Motors: More than 2,500 workers, represented by the UAW, went on strike at General Motors' (GM's) Fairfax facility in Kansas after no agreement was reached on issues such as management at the plant, job security and seniority rights. The striking workers build the Chevrolet Malibu, one of GM's most popular vehicles. GM says it will boost Malibu production at its Orion, Mich., plant. The Kansas workers join the Lansing GM plant on strike over local conditions.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.

Economics is scary. Or boring. Or both. Say the word and watch people yawn.

But what's going on around us right now—the U.S. mortgage crisis, skyrocketing oil and food costs, tanking wages and disappearing health care and retirement benefits, to name a few of our current traumas—makes the need for understanding a few fiscal fundamentals critical for most Americans.

So how do we dislodge people from watching "American Idol" long enough to see that the reason they are having trouble paying bills, affording health care or sending their kids to college is not because they are only working two jobs instead of three. Rather, there's something really wrong with the way our nation's economy is being run. And it's in their interest—and the interest of all of us—to understand why.

This Mother's Day, we’d like to wish every mother a Happy Mother’s Day. Today is the day we show how much we appreciate the innumerable contributions that mothers have made to our lives and our country in a big way. This is one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants, florists and the phone companies.

But here's something lawmakers and corporate bosses can give moms they can really use—time off from work with pay so they can spend time with their children, whether they are newborns or are just suffering from childhood ailments.

The United States doesn’t make it easy for mothers to raise their children. First off, if a mother works, she likely is going to get paid less than a man in the same job—about 77 cents for every $1 a man makes to be exact. And paid time off after a child is born is available in many western nations—but not here. In the United Kingdom, for example, a new mother can take a year off from work and be paid for about nine months. In Norway, she can take 26 weeks and about 20 weeks of that is paid.