AFSCME Council 5 sends us this exciting update from Minnesota:

After a debate that took nearly 10 hours over three legislative days, the Minnesota House of Representatives approved historic legislation Monday that extends collective bargaining rights to family child care providers and personal care attendants. The bill passed 68-66 after surviving 20 Republican amendments trying to undermine it. Gov. Mark Dayton promises to sign the bill.

Journalists are fixated on union members' donations to the Los Angeles mayoral race to elect Wendy Greuel, Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, writes in a Los Angeles Times column. But one issue is being largely ignored: the working poor. 

"But if the discussion about the role of unions in the campaign is going to focus almost exclusively on money, shouldn't we talk about money in its entirety?" writes Durazo. "What motivates me and so many others in L.A. labor when it comes to money are the hundreds of thousands of our fellow workers in Los Angeles who don't earn enough of it."

Do you care about keeping post offices open, ensuring Saturday delivery for years to come and stopping proposals to lay off postal workers?

Please sign a petition to support a bill that would end the requirement that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) pre-fund 75 years of retiree health care benefits. 

At our AFL-CIO Convention in September, the AFL-CIO needs to be ready to make decisions about how the union movement should change and what we can do together to make a better future for working people. We’re taking a hard look inward, at ourselves, and also asking for ideas from everybody who’ll share them—from people inside and outside the labor movement, from progressives, academics, student groups. We want ideas from anyone who cares deeply about building a real movement for working people.

Visit AFLCIO2013.org and join the conversation about the future of work.

Union workers, some of whom are also veterans, are rebuilding the World Trade Center. 

This week, they lifted the last piece of spire to a height of 1,776 feet. At 22 tons, the spire will house state-of-the-art lighting and a beacon, which will be visible for miles.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is inviting supporters to become “citizen cosponsors” of the Job Preservation and Sequester Replacement Act, which would repeal the sequester’s across-the-board spending cuts and ask the wealthiest 2% and corporations to pay their fair share. Warren is cosponsoring the legislation with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-R.I.). 

Sign the petition from Warren to stop the job-killing sequester here. 

Washington Nationals wunderkind outfielder Bryce Harper works hard.

Where does he get that work ethic? His father, a union ironworker from Las Vegas, who installs rebar on construction sites in sometimes extreme conditions. 

Check out this clip from ESPN's "Bryce Begins." The entire special aired Tuesday night.

Will Fischer, who leads AFL-CIO Community Services, sends us this update welcoming the new class of AFL-CIO Community Services Liaisons:

AFL-CIO Community Services is halfway through wrapping up its annual new staff training. New AFL-CIO Community Services Liaisons and community services representatives from around the country came to Washington, D.C., to receive training that provides them with skills necessary to be more effective in their jobs.

Staff are familiarized with the national AFL-CIO Community Services Network and how Community Services connects to other grassroots work of the AFL-CIO. 

We need to talk—about the future of workers and the union movement.

We've all seen the numbers: People are working harder (and have longer hours) and still can't get ahead. Staggering inequality is on the rise and fewer workers have a voice on the job.

It's been a good few years for taxi drivers gaining a voice on the job. Today in Austin, Texas, the National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) granted its first local chapter charter since it joined the AFL-CIO. The NTWA was chartered by the AFL-CIO in 2011, with New York City and Philadelphia locals as the founding members.