In just a few weeks, the nation will be facing yet another manufactured fiscal crisis when a series of harsh across-the-board federal spending cuts in education, defense and all government operations go into effect unless Congress repeals them. 

Known as “sequestration,” economists say these cuts would imperil the fragile economic recovery and cost as many as 1 million of America's workers their jobs. Yet Republicans are making threats to let those cuts take effect on March 1 unless Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits are cut or drastic cuts are made to vital services.

It’s time for Southwest Airlines to share the “LUV,” and that’s the message the airline’s ground workers in contract negotiations with the airline will deliver to Southwest management Wednesday on “LUV” Day.

Members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 555, representing Southwest’s 9,000 ground workers, will be joined by TWU Local 556 members, representing Southwest’s 11,000 flight attendants, to deliver special Valentine’s Day cards wishing executives a happy “LUV Day,” with a message about serving customers, ensuring a solid future, negotiating fair contracts and keeping the “LUV” alive.

In 2008, with the global financial crisis at its peak and the world teetering on the brink of a second Great Depression, world leaders and policymakers took decisive fiscal and monetary policy actions that bolstered our economies and stopped our financial system from spiraling into chaos and dragging our economies into depression.

But today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the “Trans-Atlantic Agenda for Shared Prosperity” economic summit: 

Our work is far from done, and no progress has been easy. We have had to battle those who wanted to block the fiscal stimulus, which was so critical for halting our economic slide. And we are still battling those same opponents who now want to impose strict fiscal austerity that threatens to sabotage our economy and trigger a new recession, as those same policies have in Europe.

Edith Lauterbach, the last founding member of the first union for flight attendants, died earlier this week in San Francisco. She was 91. In a statement, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA ) said:

The flight attendant community lost our hero, our guiding light….As our heavy hearts remember our friend and trailblazing founder, we reflect on Edith’s contributions to our profession and our union each and every day.

By a better than 2-to-1 margin, the teachers, counselors and social workers at César Chávez Academy, the largest charter school in Detroit, voted Thursday to join the Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Michigan ACTS), an affiliate of AFT Michigan.

If the United States implemented trade policies to end currency manipulation—especially by China—not only would that reduce the U.S. trade deficit by $190 billion to $400 billion over three years, it would be a major first step in reviving the nation’s manufacturing sector and creating up to 4.7 million jobs, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).  

A new investigation finds “compelling evidence” that Palermo’s Pizza’s firing of 90 workers at its Milwaukee plant is directly tied to the company’s anti-union practices and was illegal under both U.S. and international labor standards. The report, by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), says Palermo's Pizza should reinstate—with full back pay—the fired workers and begin negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement.

Feb. 14 will mark the second anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA's) submission of the silica dust standard for review to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Every year that goes by without the enactment and enforcement of the proposed standard that controls workers' exposure to silica dust, 60 workers will die, AFL-CIO Health and Safety Director Peg Seminario told NPR in a story broadcast today.

There is a deep and personal reason AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is passionate about enacting immigration reform that provides a real pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants who call this country home. In a post today on Daily Kos, he writes:

When people use the word 'immigrant' like an epithet, I take it personally. I come from a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania’s coal country called Nemacolin. It was not easy when my family came to this country. My parents and grandparents fled poverty and war from different corners of Europe. 

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe’s plan to end Saturday mail delivery beginning Aug. 5 is a “disastrous idea that would have a profoundly negative effect on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and on millions of customers,” says Letter Carriers (NALC) President Fredric Rolando. Postal Workers (APWU) President Cliff Guffey says:

USPS executives cannot save the Postal Service by tearing it apart.