As word spreads that President Obama’s budget proposal will call for Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts, other voices are calling for increasing the successful programs instead as the medicine struggling families and a weak economy need.

A report for the New America Foundation highlights the crisis in retirement security and proposes expanding Social Security.

For a heart-breaking look at how the Republican-engineered dysfunction at the National Labor Relations Board is affecting working men and women, check out Dave Jamieson’s weekend piece in The Huffington Post.

Jamieson chronicles the nine-year ordeal of union coal miners at the Cannelton mine near Smithers, W.Va., who lost their jobs when Massey Energy (since purchased by another mining company after the notorious Upper Big Branch disaster) bought the mine.

Martina Sangster’s ceiling was on her floor. Living room, dining room and entryway—all tumbled down after what started as a small crack.

Her insurance wouldn’t cover the mess and her family couldn’t afford the extensive work that was needed. But help came from a different direction: the AFL-CIO community services liaison for United Way of the Quad Cities Area and local union members who donated their skills and also got the materials contributed.

Football is a dangerous sport by nature, but it doesn't have to be as dangerous as it is today.

The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) has awarded $100 million to Harvard Medical School for a 10-year study of player injuries and illnesses, including brain trauma. The study is funded under the collective bargaining agreement the players reached recently with the NFL. Its goal: to transform the health of current and retired players, whose lifespan averages 20 years less than men who are not professional football players.

How did we end up with all these low-wage, no-benefit temporary jobs in our economy?

Erin Hatton, of State University of New York at Buffalo, had a fascinating read in the New York Times this weekend, The Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy, tracing the rise in America of the temp industry, and how it forged "new cultural consensus about work and workers." 

The 18,000 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) who've made our Twinkies and other classic snacks have a new ally in their struggle for their jobs and pensions and the brand's survival. The bakery workers' pension fund has engaged a prominent New York investment banking firm in connection with Hostess Brands' Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, BCTGM announced.

Former Letter Carriers President Vincent R. Sombrotto died Jan. 10 at the age of 89.

Sombrotto was a letter carrier at Grand Central Station in New York City in 1970, when postal workers’ pay and working conditions were so poor they were eligible for public assistance. He became a leader and spokesman in a New York City wildcat strike of postal employees. That strike pitted the might of the U.S. government, which sent in strike-breaking troops. The resolve of the strikers never wavered and led to a new law creating the modern United States Postal Service and granting collective bargaining rights to postal employees.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “We mourn this loss of a thoughtful and creative champion of working people.”

President Obama intends to push quickly to fix America's broken immigration system, according to The New York Times, including a path to citizenship—the core of the AFL-CIO's immigration reform agenda.

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis resigned today.

The New York State AFL-CIO thanked the U.S. Senate today for approving $60.4 billion in relief for victims of Superstorm Sandy and urged the House to pass the measure as well.