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Business and liberal elites have long invested in developing collaborative leadership. In Occupy Wall Street and beyond, grassroots progressives are now getting into the game of working together.

Something huge is happening in this country. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen this level of populist activity directed at the right targets: the big banks and the corporate elites that dominate our political system.

But there’s something else going on, behind the scenes. Though largely obscured by the Occupy Wall Street story, we are seeing a rare and welcome level of unity: progressive groups are maintaining a better level of coordination than at any time in recent memory. It’s a trend toward cooperation that should be recognized and celebrated.

With the Occupy protests, it’s been wonderful to see a wide range of labor, community and nonprofit groups come together to embrace the struggle — even though the activists who launched the new movement embody very different organizational cultures. When New York Mayor Bloomberg threatened to evict the Zuccotti Park demonstrators a couple of weeks ago, AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka declared that his federation “Stands with Occupy Wall Street” and encouraged union members to help protect the occupation from a police raid. For their part, Occupy activists have supported workers organizing at companies including Sotheby’s, Wal-Mart and Verizon. Historian and Nation writer Jon Wiener calls it an alliance of “hard hats and hippies.” And it’s not just labor. An impressively diverse coalition of community groups and nonprofit advocates have marched in solidarity as well.

But the kind of cooperation that’s been on clear display in the past month thanks to the Occupy movement didn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, coordination among progressives has been quietly growing for over a decade. (more…)

Americans need jobs and America needs work.  But corporations are not investing their $2.5 trillion in profits in the US.  Consumers don’t have money or are too scared to spend it.  President Obama promised to do what corporations won’t and consumers can’t.  However, it won’t happen if Congress is not effectively pressured to pass the President’s bill.  This is a job for organized labor.

I am no longer surprised when an otherwise intelligent individual asserts that “Unions had a role to play in the past, but we don’t need them anymore.” Has human nature changed?  Did the captains of industry suddenly overcome their greedy natures?

Even capitalism’s champion Adam Smith was a realist on the nature of capitalists: “The workmen desire to get as much, the [employers] to give as little as possible…It is not however difficult to foresee which of the two must, upon all ordinary occasions, have advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.” (more…)

The GOP can’t come up with an original ad concept?

A semi-truck stuffed with petitions delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State on June 29 in order to put union busting SB 5 up for a citizen’s veto. Thousands of Ohioans marched through the streets of the capitol in the People’s Parade to deliver the signatures, which were over five times the number needed to get the bill on the ballot for a public referendum.

National Nurses United, a 165,000 member union, is leading organized labor in the United States in a challenge to Wall Street, its practices, and what the nurses call Wall Street’s sway over politicians. The nurses want a new tax on almost all financial transactions to support U.S. health care. History and practice, however, are not on their side.

by Mike Hall
AFL-CIO Senior Writer

A new study shows that miners in unionized coal mines are far less likely to be killed or injured on the job than miners in nonunion operations. The independent study funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that “unionization predicts an 18-33 percent drop in traumatic injuries and a 27-68 percent drop in fatalities.”

The comprehensive study, conducted by Stanford University law professor Alison D. Morantz,  the John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, looked at coal mine fatality and injury statistics from 1993 to 2008.

Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts says the study “quantifies the profound differences in safety underground coal miners experience when working union versus working nonunion.” (more…)

Visit http://saveworkers.org to join the fight and download “Union Town” for free. Video by Revolution Messaging. Directed and edited by Robin Bell. Tom Morello filmed by Sean Ricigliano Wisconsin convergence footage by Matt Wisniewski as well as the Transport Workers Union. LA Unity Rally footage by Chris Kissinger.

By Richard Negri
SEIU New Media Campaign Manager – Healthcare Division

The attack on union workers is spreading like a cancer – attempting to reach every Main Street in the United States. Whether it is Wisconsin, Ohio, or a small town nestled in Pennsylvania, big business and their political allies are on the hunt to break unions and the middle class we’ve created.

But as the attacks on the middle class have spread across the country, the fight back response from workers has spread just as quickly. This past weekend, Pocono Medical Center and the quaint little town of East Stroudsburg, PA nestled in the beautiful Pocono Mountains became the latest epicenter in this struggle. 5,000 people from as far away as Colorado, Baltimore and New York gathered just a couple blocks away from the hospital for a rally and march in support of the hospital’s 550 SEIU members.