AFSCME announced today the union has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for president.

With 1.4 million members, AFSCME is one of the largest unions in the country. The union engaged in an extensive 10-month process to choose a presidential candidate, one that included two nationally televised candidate forums and surveys by mail and phone of active and retired members.

Economic Report:

By Doug Cunningham

About 40 million U.S. jobs pay low wages and lack healthcare or pensions or both. That leaves tens of millions of Americans struggling with poverty. Yet a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research says American views about poverty continue to blame it on a lack of effort. The report says that appeals to reduce poverty that emphasize a moral duty to help the disadvantaged or lament the unfairness of poverty run into pre-existing strong perceptual screens that resist those arguments.

By Doug Cunningham

The UAW says International Truck and Engine, makers of Navistar heavy trucks, is still making unreasonable proposals at th bargaining table that would erode wages and benefits for the 4,000 striking UAW members at the company. The UAW has filed unfair labor practice charges against ITE with the National labor Relations Board because the company decided on its own to eliminate supplemental unemployment benefits and other benefits that are legally supposed to be mandatory issues for collective bargaining. ITE has nine plants in six states. The company is shifting production

Could “green jobs” be the future of job growth? Jesse Russell takes a look.

With the increased focus on saving the environment and the more Americans taking the initiative to live green, what does that mean for jobs? According to a 2006 National Renewable Energy Lab study the US will need, if it were to make a national commitment to living green, there would need an increasing need for jobs in wind-farm designers, solar power technicians, workers to run biomass plants, and more. Labor and Environmentalists alike are crossing fingers for Congress to pass the “Renewable Energy Standard” that will help kick training and implementation of such jobs into action. Terry Bonds, director of the United Steelworkers District 12 says that such a move would help reverse economic damage done by outsourcing of jobs:

By Doug Cunningham

Eight hundred nurses represented by United American Nurses will soon be in the second month of their strike against Appalachian Regional Healthcare. The hospital chain was founded by John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers of America. But it has become a union-busting wannabe outfit that employed anti-union consultants even before it started negotiations with the nurses.
Staffing, patient care, mandatory overtime and defense of health and pension benefits are all issues in the strike. The nurses are getting strong support from the United Mine Workers of America, their communities, the UAW and from the AFL-CIO. The picket lines are spirited and the statue of John L. Lewis in front of one of the hospitals being struck is even carrying his own strike sign in support of the nurses.

When children go trick-or-treating for Halloween this week, parents want to make sure they are safe. But how can we be sure? Just last week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled imported Halloween pails children might use for their treats because they contained high amounts of lead.

In the past two months alone, more than 13 million toys have been recalled after tests indicated lead levels that sometimes reached nearly 200 times the federal safety limit.

How did it get this bad? Today, the Institute for America's Future released a eye-opening report, Toxic Trade: Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer, pinpointing the problem. The report shows how the double mantra of free trade at all costs and little or no regulation at home have combined to make the products we buy toxic and unsafe.

At their state convention last weekend, members of the Maine AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Rep. Tom Allen (D) in his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate.