Members of the 99% Power coalition disrupted Verizon's annual shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Ala., six separate times today. In each instance, a group of protesters interrupted the proceedings using “Mic Check” tactics, followed by chants such as “Shame on you!” “Verigreedy!” and “People over profit!”  After each occurrence, the chanting group was led out by security people, with many in the audience applauding them. There were no arrests.

“That was the turning point for a lot of actors," said actor Susan Sarandon to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about the national commercial actors strike 12 years ago. "It wasn’t until we felt threatened that we realized the importance of our union.”

In a casual moment in a midtown Manhattan hotel Friday evening, Sarandon, a longtime member of SAG-AFTRA, and Trumka spoke at length before she introduced him to a gathering held by Local 1 of the American Federation of School Administrators.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and AT&T agreed to continue contract talks for some 40,000 workers in four AT&T divisions after their contracts expired Sunday. CWA members at AT&T Midwest, AT&T West, AT&T Legacy and AT&T East have authorized strikes if fair contracts cannot be reached.

 Rosa Blumenfeld, an organizer with the Greater Boston Labor Council (GBLC), sends us this report on Occupy Boston actions.

The UAW and Chrysler Group LLC reached a tentative four-year agreement this morning that will create more than 2,000 new jobs and invest $4.5 billion to retool and upgrade plants to produce new and upgraded vehicles.

When Marlene Quinn first saw an ad from an anti-labor group pop up on her TV screen, she was astonished—and enraged. Quinn, whose great-granddaughter, Zoey, was rescued by firefighters who responded to a house fire, is an ardent opponent of Issue 2, the ballot measure that would essentially ratify Ohio’s anti-labor bill, S.B. 5, ravaging the collective bargaining rights of the state’s public employees. If the ballot measure fails to pass on Nov. 8, S.B. 5 is dead.

The 45,000 striking Verizon workers, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), will return to work Tuesday under the existing contract as bargaining resumes.

Liz McElroy of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO and AFL-CIO field communications staffer Nora Frederickson send us this report about a Verizon action in Philadelphia.

As 45,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and Electrical Workers (IBEW) on the East Coast continue their strike against Verizon to maintain quality, middle-class jobs, union locals in southeastern Pennsylvania decided to take their message directly to the public – at the local ballgame.

Ja-Rei Wang, a fellow in the AFL-CIO Public Affairs Department, sends us this report about a protest at Trader Joe’s in Washington, D.C.

Several dozen students, activists, farm workers, musicians and community members came together yesterday outside of the Trader Joe’s in downtown Washington, D.C., to demand the supermarket chain stop supporting exploitation of farm workers and, instead, help build a food system that respects workers’ rights. The protest was one of the first such actions across the Northeast.

Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) Executive Director Lowell Peterson describes how the WGAE model offers workers both a militant union and a professional association.

Recent ideologically driven attacks on collective bargaining have inspired a national conversation about the role of organized labor in 21st century America. The headlines have focused on teachers and other public employees, on whether it is unseemly for people who work for the government to assert any rights on the job. But the same hard-right forces that want to wipe out public-sector unions oppose the very idea that employees can band together to advance their own interests. There are so many ways to rebut the shrill complaints about organized labor—so many good things unions have done for the average American over the course of decades. But perhaps this is a good opportunity for us to take stock of ourselves, to examine where we are today and what we might need to do to remain relevant in the future.