Apparently unwilling to face up to the North Carolina voters who are taking them to task each week for the extremist tea party/corporate agenda they are enacting, North Carolina legislators yesterday moved their normal Monday evening sessions back several hours to avoid the 12th Moral Monday protest at the state Capitol in Raleigh.

But once again, nearly 2,000 civil rights, union, student and other working family activists rallied yesterday evening to spotlight the legislature’s and Gov. Pat McCrory’s radical  actions, with a special emphasis on the continuing rollback of voting rights in North Carolina.   

The Michigan judge who ruled last week that Detroit’s bankruptcy filing violated the state constitution's ban against tampering with public employees’ pensions, adjourned a hearing on the case this morning until July 29. Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said:

As you all know, my decision last week was because there’s been a violation of constitution. I don’t believe the constitution should be made of Swiss cheese.

Mahoma Lopez and his mostly immigrant co-workers at the Hot & Crusty Bakery on 63rd St. and Second Ave. in Manhattan have a collective bargaining agreement that includes wage standards, vacations, sick  days and more. But organizing their independent union and winning that contract was a struggle as a new “Op-Doc” video on The New York Times website shows.

The Senate today voted (54-46) to confirm Thomas E. Perez as labor secretary. His nomination had been threatened by a filibuster, but Republicans backed down this week as Democrats were preparing to change Senate rules to allow simple up or down majority votes on executive branch nominees.

Three months ago today in West, Texas, 30 tons of highly explosive ammonia nitrate—stored in wooden sheds without sprinkler systems and near other combustible material—caught fire, exploded and killed 14 people including 10 firefighters. The blast leveled the West Fertilizer Co., plant and demolished a good portion of the surrounding town.Yet ammonia nitrate is still regulated by the same “patchwork” of state and federal standards with “many holes."

In 2012, MedStar Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center—where some 1,850 registered nurses and members of National Nurses United (NNU) work—unilaterally instituted sweeping reductions and changes in the nurses’ health benefits.

A federal judge last week upheld an arbitrator's ruling that MedStar acted unlawfully and must reimburse the nurses for any increased costs they paid and roll back the reductions and changes.  

With Senate Democrats on the verge of changing Senate rules to block filibusters on executive branch nominees, Senate Republicans yesterday relented on their obstruction tactics that have blocked votes on several of President Obama’s nominees for key Cabinet and agency posts, including the National Labor Relations Board. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

Come check out a sneak preview of the documentary film "Citizen Koch" at a free screening at noon, Friday, July 19, at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

The film by Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin explores the impact that the unlimited campaign spending by wealthy donors like the Koch brothers and corporations that was unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling had in the fight over workers’ rights in Wisconsin.

Braving southern summer heat, humidity and waving signs, including “First the Great Recession, Now the Great Regression,” more than 2,000 North Carolinians gathered at the state Capitol in Raleigh at the 11th Moral Monday to protest extreme actions of the legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory (R).

With the focus on women’s issues—especially women’s health care—more than 100 people, including about 70 women, were arrested for civil disobedience when they refused to leave the General Assembly building.

There is no single face that makes up the American portrait. A true picture of the nation is made of a wide and diverse population, almost all of whose families at one time were immigrants.  

Now a unique three-day, outdoor art exhibit in Washington, D.C., will celebrate America’s history of immigration and rally support for a road map to citizenship for our neighbors, friends, co-workers and loved ones.