While President Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery, Republican presidential candidates have pledged their loyalty to Wall Street and the 1%. Today the AFL-CIO General Board “voted proudly and enthusiastically” to endorse Obama for a second term.
James Callahan, general president of the Operating Engineers (IUOE), and DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), were elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning at the council’s annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
This past week, I had the privilege of joining with thousands of people from Alabama and around the country who walked from Selma to Montgomery to commemorate the historic march 47 years ago that forced Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act and that changed our country forever. Hundreds of leaders from the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), the immigrant rights coalition convened by the Center for Community Change (CCC), came to Alabama from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Illinois, Florida, Tennessee, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Kansas and Colorado. We joined with thousands of members and leaders from civil rights organizations, immigrant rights organizations and AFL-CIO unions and other unions in a powerful, diverse show of strength and unity that transformed the hearts and minds of everyone who was a part of it. I believe that this week’s events will go down in history as a turning point in our efforts to build a broad-based coalition to advance progressive change.
On March 1, President Obama released his 2012 Trade Policy Agenda and reiterated his commitment to move “full-speed ahead” in finalizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP). You may never have heard of the TPP—millions of your fellow Americans certainly haven’t.
That is why the American Prospect’s special report on the TPP, “Pacific Illusions,” is so important. ”Pacific Illusions” shows how, so far, it doesn’t look like the TPP fixes the problems with U.S. trade policy that have been hurting workers for the past 20 years, which means the TPP could be a big mistake.
More than 1,500 Minnesota working men and women packed the state Capitol hallways Monday to protest a corporate-backed bill that would put a so-called right to work (RTW) state constitutional amendment on the November ballot. The state Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill by a 7-6 vote.
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