Chris Hall, a teacher at a school in Dorchester, Mass., and a member of the Boston Teachers Union/AFT Local 66, is making art with students with autism—and his students are making impressive strides, thanks to his unique teaching gifts.

“Chris brought something out of my child and out of our kids at the Lee School. He made the impossible possible,” said Liz Gomes. Her son, nine-year-old Mason, is one of Hall’s students. Non-verbal until the age of five, Mason deals with autism and ADHD.

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. 

The Texas AFL-CIO and Texas AFT partnered this weekend with a Univision station in Houston to promote reading, immigration reform and workers' rights at the Houston edition of the COPA Univision amateur soccer tournament. The event included adult men's and women's and youth teams. During the tournament, several thousand people visited the AFL-CIO/AFT exhibit and volunteers gave out more than 1,800 books to children in attendance. Besides the ice cream truck, the exhibit was the second most popular, said Joe Arabie of the Texas AFL-CIO. 

Thousands of teachers, parents and allies rallied in Albany, N.Y., on Saturday in opposition to the use of high-stakes standardized tests that are being put in place before the state and teachers have time to fully implement the new curriculum to support those tests. More than 225 buses filled with people showed up to the rally, which was sponsored by New York State United Teachers, the New York State AFL-CIO, AFT, Citizen Action, the New York Immigration Coalition and New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness.

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.

Facing a barrage of challenges from AFT President Randi Weingarten and leaders of the United States Student Association (USAA), Sallie Mae CEO John Remondi today agreed to meet for talks on student loan debt.

When most people think about union members, they probably picture blue-collar workers in factories. Maybe teachers, police, firefighters and other government employees come to mind.

But workers in many more fields come together in unions to have a voice on the job to improve their lives and the lives of their families—from rocket scientists at NASA (members of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers [IFPTE]) to actors like Alec Baldwin (a member of SAG-AFTRA) and all across the spectrum of work that goes on in the United States.

After the Chicago Board of Education approved a proposal from Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) to close 50 of the city's public schools, the Chicago Teachers Union vowed to take legal action to stop the closures and to challenge supporters of the mayor's plan with grassroots mobilization. The closures come despite widespread opposition to the plan and five days of rallies, sit-ins and other efforts.

The AFT has been a partner in helping revitalize McDowell County, W.Va., for more than a year now, and those efforts are paying major dividends for the local education system. On Wednesday, the West Virginia Board of Education unanimously approved a community schools plan for McDowell County Public Schools. In a separate vote, the state board also voted to return the county's schools to local control. The board had taken control of the schools in an attempt to save them from the poor conditions the county was experiencing.

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.