Recently, the bipartisan group of senators—known as the “Gang of Eight”—who are crafting immigration legislation in Congress signed off on yet another piece of the reform puzzle: a mechanism for new workers to come to the United States regardless of whether they have family living here or the ability to qualify for one of the existing visa programs.

Not that there was much choice, but today the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS's) Board of Governors announced it will not end Saturday mail delivery.

Earlier this year, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said he would end Saturday delivery in August. Congress last month passed government funding legislation that specifically barred the USPS from going to five-day delivery. But up until today’s announcement, the USPS hadn’t backed away from its plans.

Despite testimony overwhelmingly opposing the bill and universal opposition from the committee's Democrats, the Missouri legislature's House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee passed S.B. 29, a paycheck deception bill, which is now headed to the House floor. Missouri working families went door to door last week to tell their neighbors about the problems with the bill, held numerous public rallies in opposition and flooded the Capitol with thousands of emails, letters and phone calls telling legislators to oppose the bill, which shut state workers out of the political conversation in Missouri.

Talk about team work. House and Senate Republicans have come together with a unique new strategy to attack workers’ rights and shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). And their corporate sponsors are loving it.

The more than 14,000 waterfront workers at 15 East and Gulf Coast ports have ratified a new six-year master agreement between the Longshoremen (ILA) and the port employer group the United States Maritime Alliance.

Thousands of working families rallied at the U.S. Capitol yesterday to support a commonsense immigration process that will include a road map to citizenship for the nation's 11 million aspiring Americans. 

See the tweets from yesterday below from AFL-CIO Latino and AFL-CIO digital strategist Jessica Morales, along with other ally groups.

Change your Facebook and Twitter avatars. 

When this article was written last Sunday, the hunger strike was on its third day and workers were set to be fired the following Monday and Tuesday, April 8 and 9.  As of today, the hunger strike has ended as planned and the Hilton Mission Valley hotel has not yet fired the workers, although that may still occur.

We are three days into a five-day hunger strike that was called to save the jobs of nine immigrant workers at the Hilton Mission Valley hotel in San Diego. I, along with six others, have refused to eat since Friday morning. The nine workers we are supporting [were] set to be fired on Monday, April 8, and Tuesday, April 9, because after they tried to organize a union, Evolution Hospitality decided to use E-Verify. This is a program that checks immigrants' documented status—a program that isn't even mandatory with the federal government.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

The Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council has endorsed a  Mine Workers (UMWA)-sponsored resolution declaring that “as community members and leaders, we believe that Peabody [Energy], Arch [Coal] and Patriot Coal should not be using the bankruptcy process to shed themselves of providing health care and pension obligations to coal miners who put their lives and health at risk every day working for Peabody, Arch and Patriot Coal.”

While more than 2 million people signed a petition that was delivered to President Obama today urging him not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid and to abandon a "chained" CPI formula, hundreds more have left photo messages for the president. 

At a time when it seems nearly every state legislature is assaulting the rights of working families, Minnesota's House and Senate are bucking the trend and are likely to soon send Gov. Mark Dayton a series of strong pro-working family bills. According to Minnesota AFL-CIO Communications Director Chris Shields, this is the first time in 20 years the state government has been unified under one-party control, with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party holding the governorship and the majority in both houses of the legislature.