Any fan of the NFL who has watched the season unfold with replacement officials because the league has locked out the skilled and veteran officials knows calls are being missed or called incorrectly and the replacements have a tenuous control of each game. But even worse, say the players, their safety is at stake.

In a letter to team owners urging an end to the lockout of the referees, the Executive Committee of the NFL Players Association writes:

Nearly one-quarter of America’s workers are in bad jobs—and the number is climbing, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). “Bad Jobs on the Rise” defines a bad job as one that pays less than $37,000 a year—the inflation-adjusted earnings of a typical male worker in 1979—and offers no health insurance or retirement plan (click on chart to enlarge).

Barbara J. Easterling is president of the Alliance for Retired Americans. She was previously the secretary-treasurer of the Communications Workers of America.  

As we near Labor Day, I want to encourage you to help younger generations better understand why labor unions are so important. Too many people either know very little about unions or only know what politicians and Fox News tell them.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are under attack by Republican lawmakers. Whether it is the Romney/Ryan budget that would end Medicare as we know it or proposals to privatize and cut Social Security, members of the Alliance for Retired Americans are pushing back and mobilizing with new “Let’s Not Be the Last Generation to Retire” campaign. Actions across the country will coincide with Medicare’s and Medicaid’s 47th anniversary July 30 and Social Security’s 77th on Aug. 14.

The Washington Post recently ran a lengthy article explaining the difficulties Americans face in providing for a secure retirement, as traditional pension plans become less common and 401(k) savings accounts prove to be frighteningly inadequate.

But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka points out that this whole discussion about retirement security fails to mention an obvious solution staring at us right in the face. It’s called Social Security.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today praised Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on public employees’ collective bargaining rights and singled out Walker’s assault on workers’ retirement security. In an expected move, Romney endorsed Walker in the upcoming recall election.

America has a retirement security crisis—not a Social Security crisis, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said today in its annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. And the answer is an across-the-board increase in Social Security benefits.

Half of working Americans have no retirement plan at all at work. Most of those who have a retirement plan are in 401(k) savings accounts where the median balances are less than $30,000. Taking into account all sources of income, it is estimated that the gap between what working Americans need to maintain their standard of living in retirement and what they actually have is $6.6 trillion.

A proposed new pension system puts the retirement security of New York firefighters, teachers, police officers and other public employees at risk, and the New York State AFL-CIO is fighting back.

A new study finds that defined-benefit pension plans are not only preferred by state employees, but  more cost efficient for state governments than defined-contribution plans like 401(k)s.

When revenue problems forced the Central Community Schools in DeWitt, Iowa, to cut back on expenses, Amanda Greubel and her husband, Josh, who both work at the schools, kept their jobs but lost $10,000 a year in income. With a five-year-old and another child due in December, a mortgage and student loans to pay, their life has changed dramatically.