Working families had a strong presence at the annual Netroots Nation conference for progressive activists, with several unions co-sponsoring the event, numerous labor-sponsored events and displays and 30 panels with themes about workplace rights or union activists as speakers. Netroots Nation is the largest annual conference of progressive activists and has grown well beyond its initial creation as a get-together for lefty bloggers and fans of the Daily Kos website. 

After watching the continued decline in the number of Oregon workers winning a voice at work, the Oregon AFL-CIO “decided to do something different,” says state federation President Tom Chamberlain. That something different was unions working together. Since late 2011, Oregon unions have been able to craft a number of significant victories for workers who want a voice on the job. Says Chamberlain:

By working together, we have achieved something phenomenal.

In January 2012, some 285 Brooklyn Cablevision workers voted to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and have since been in negotiations for a fair contract, with little success. In April, two National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional directors issued complaints against Brooklyn Cablevision for failure to bargain in good faith and for illegally firing 22 workers.
 

Now the cable giant has filed a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit claiming the court’s recent ruling that President Barack Obama's recess appointments of three members to the NLRB are invalid should reach even deeper into the NLRB and invalidate decisions by the board’s regional offices. (The D.C. Circuit ruling is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

If the Senate Republican minority continues to use Senate rules to roadblock virtually every one of President Obama’s key nominees to vital government agencies, it’s time for Senate Democrats to use majority muscle to change the Senate’s rules, Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen said today.

On Wednesday, April 24, the AFL-CIO and MomsRising will be hosting a Twitter chat at 2 p.m. ET about earned paid sick leave. Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #WellnessWed. 

On Wednesday, top leaders of Brazil's largest trade union federation, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), including President Vagner Freitas, João Felicio and Artur Henrique, met with U.S. union leaders at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies for joint action, priorities and partnerships moving forward.

All but one of the 22 workers at Brooklyn Cablevision, who the Communications Workers of America (CWA) says were illegally fired in January, are now back on the job, according to Erin Mahoney, organizing coordinator for CWA District 1.

Through emails, Facebook likes, petitions, rallies and other means, more than 100,000 people showed their support for the workers who have been attempting to negotiate a contract with Cablevision for more than a year. The workers vow they will continue to demand a fair contract.   

More than 800 union members, their families, immigration advocates and community leaders rallied in front of the Arizona state Capitol yesterday to reaffirm their support for commonsense immigration reform that protects immigrants and America's workers. In a press conference before the rally, Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend announced that the organization had adopted a resolution that calls on Congress to pass immigration reform, including a practical and inclusive road map to citizenship that reflects core American values such as fairness, equality and family unity.

Communications Workers of America (CWA) has reached two new tentative agreements with AT&T divisions with some 40,000 CWA members.   

Details of a tentative four-year agreement are being sent to CWA members who work for AT&T Mobility in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The workers are customer service representatives, technicians and retail store workers. Also, the union announced a tentative agreement with AT&T West with about 18,000 CWA members at AT&T operations in California and Nevada.

Linda Nguyen-Perez, a research/policy analyst at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), works to promote America's manufacturing jobs and create career pathways for historically disadvantaged women and men, and Michelle Knapik is the director of the Surdna Foundation’s Sustainable Environments Program. This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (aka L.A. Metro) needed new, clean buses. If L.A. Metro had simply followed current buying protocol, its single focus would have been on finding a company to deliver the lowest-cost buses. In all likelihood, this would have resulted in jobs going overseas (but for some final assembly jobs on U.S. soil).