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On Nov. 8, Ohio voters repealed SB5, which took away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined working families at the phone bank and walking door to door to get-out-the-vote against the law, pushed by Gov. John Kasich and passed early in 2011.

Earlier this year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed some modest rule changes to streamline and modernize the way union elections are conducted. While those rules are still under review, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee today approved a bill that would add months- or years-long delays to union elections.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) says the Republican bill (H.R. 3094) would “encourage employers to spend thousands of dollars on attorneys to file frivolous appeals to gum up the election process.”

The bill’s clear intention is to wear down workers so that they give up fighting for a better deal.

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Governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey have justified their attacks on public workers and their unions as necessary to balance state budgets. Indeed, they and copy-cat officials, mainly Republican but frequently Democratic, and a hallelujah chorus of pundits have insinuated that a bloated, overpaid state and local government workforce caused the record string of deficits over the past four years.

It’s a good story, conveniently reinforcing right-wing hostility to government. But there’s one little problem. It’s dead wrong. The facts simply don’t support it. That shortcoming may not stop the right-wing crusade, but it’s important for anyone concerned about state and local government to know.

And they can find the research neatly, graphically summarized in “The Wrong Target: Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits,” by Sylvia Allegretto, Ken Jacobs and Laurel Lucia of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics and the Labor Center, both at the University of California, Berkeley.

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During the recent People’s Road Trip across Ohio, workers of all stripes from all parts of the state sounded off about how Issue 2 is unsafe, unfair, and hurts all our communities.

From Santa Rosa to Fresno and from Sacramento to San Jose, 23,000 registered nurses walked picket lines, joined rallies and sent a strong message yesterday to three large employers that they will not accept reductions in patient services or cuts to nurses and other caregivers. The one-day strike by members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) ended this morning at 7 a.m. PT.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who joined nurses on the picket line at Sutter Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, praised the RNs as “the last line of defense for patients.” Trumka said the 23,000 nurses who took a stand were joined by “millions of patients” and had the support of working people across the country.

The walkout affected Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente, as well as Children’s Hospital in Oakland.

Sutter nurses protested up to 200 sweeping demands for concessions they say would restrict their ability to effectively advocate for patients. They say Sutter managers’ focus on the bottom line effectively forces nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing extremely ill patients to infection.

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Workers deserve a “fair, clear system for protecting their rights and making themselves heard in union elections,” four top Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) strongly supporting the board’s proposed changes in the way elections to form unions are conducted.

Noting that the current election procedures are “outdated and contain unnecessary delays…that run anywhere from three and a half years to 13 years,” the lawmakers say:

The longer an election is delayed, the more likely it is that workers will face harassment and unlawful retaliation for exercising their rights. In today’s workplace one in five workers who exercise the right to organize is illegally fired. In that environment, workers stop trying to organize, leading to a country where tens of millions of Americans who want a union do not have one.

The four are: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairman of the Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee; Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee; and Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.), ranking member of the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee.

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Scott Walker Blues from Bonobo Secret Handshake on Vimeo.

An inspirational protest video about the policies of the current Wisconsin government. This video is a snapshot of the protests in Madison during the winter and spring of 2011.

If you like this video, please share it with the world! And if you agree with the message, please keep working for the movement!

Saying “a worker is a worker,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), and several taxi drivers from New York City today told the AFL-CIO Executive Council they want to be a part of the national labor federation.

They said drivers work 60 to 70 hours a week in one of the most grueling and dangerous jobs around—at minimum wage. They have no job security. Employers routinely misclassify them as “independent contractors” and deny the drivers protections given to traditional employees, including the freedom to form a union. They risk their health and safety daily, from sitting in a stationary position for hours to the real possibility of being assaulted, robbed or even murdered by a passenger or street thugs. And they’re completely uninsured, unprotected.

Formed in 1998, the NYTWA is now a powerful dues-based membership organization for taxi workers that is widely recognized as the representative of drivers in the New York City taxi industry and as an increasingly powerful voice for taxi workers in Philadelphia. They led the fight for legislation that raises the penalties for assaulting a taxi driver in New York and are working hard to gain health care benefits for drivers.

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When Republican House leaders forced a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week, they not only forced the layoff of 4,000 FAA workers, they also put at risk nearly 90,000 construction jobs at airports around the country.

FAA funding expired after midnight Friday because Republicans blocked temporary funding in an effort to overturn a new rule making union elections among rail and airline workers more democratic.

With a long-term FAA funding bill stalled, Congress could have passed temporary spending authority, as it has 20 times in the past without controversy. But like their tactics on debt ceiling negotiations, Republicans  are demanding their way at any cost. Says AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) President Edward Wytkind:

Here we go again. House Republican leaders are playing political games at the expense of vital services and thousands of good jobs….Unfortunately in this game there are no winners. Republican leaders are holding hostage a simple funding extension of vital air safety programs, forcing furloughs on 4,000 FAA employees, jeopardizing thousands of construction jobs as airport projects are at risk and even sticking it to rural America by threatening their air service.

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GOP anti-union fervor threatens FAA – Rachel Maddow reports on why the usually routine legislative re-authorization of the FAA may not happen as Republican recalcitrance and its union-busting agenda come into play with the deadline just days away …