Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison staged a sit-in in Chancellor David Ward's office Tuesday to demand that the school cut ties with Palermo's Pizza because of an on-going strike at the pizza company based on allegations of attacks on workers' rights. A dozen students participated in the sit-in before voluntarily leaving at police requests.  One student, Maxwell Love, refused to leave and was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.  Hundreds of supporters of the sit-in rallied outside and a number of them blocked a police van when Love was arrested.

As we approach International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, it's hard not to wonder about the future of the labor movement, and whether or not young people in the United States will wake up and see that joining labor unions could be a part of the solution to the nation's 22.9% youth unemployment rate.

The Letter Carriers (NALC) will be holding its 21st annual “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive on May 11. The food drive is the largest annual food collection day in the United States. In 2012, the drive collected more than 70 million pounds of food and it has collected nearly 1.2 billion pounds of food since it began in 1993.

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. 

Around the United States and across the globe today, workers, unions, activists and allies are celebrating International Workers' Day. May Day is a national holiday in more than 80 nations that honor workers and workers’ rights and celebrates the significant role unions play. May Day actions in the United States this year will place a special emphasis on immigrant rights and the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

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.

AFT President Randi Weingarten is calling for a moratorium on the tests under the new Common Core education standards until teachers have been given adequate preparation to teach what students need to know to tackle them. She says that the high-stakes nature of the tests makes implementing them too soon potentially a problem for both teachers and students. A delay would allow for mid-course corrections where needed and would allow for aligning the standards, school curricula, teacher training, instruction and assessments.

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.  

A new Bloomberg article notes that the CEOs of the Standard and Poor's 500 corporations make 204 times as much money as their own employees. The article highlights the most extreme disparity in the S&P 500, where former J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson received a total compensation package 1,795 times that of former fashion jewelry saleswoman Rebecca Gonzales in 2011.

The joint effort known as the “Oregon Organizing Project” has helped more than 3,000 Oregon workers win a voice on the job in the past several months. In the most recent campaign, several Oregon unions pitched in and worked together to help more than 300 Head Start workers at Mount Hood Community College who wanted to form a union to address serious workplace concerns.