The 1,300 registered nurse at the University of Chicago Medical Center who last year voted to join National Nurses United (NNU), this week overwhelmingly ratified their first contract with the University.

The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent in May, a slight increase from April’s 9 percent rate, according to the latest government figures. The monthly payroll survey shows the economy added just 54,000 net jobs overall last month, down from the average 220,000 in the previous three months. While the private sector added 83,000 jobs, even that anemic growth was tempered by disappearing government jobs. Local government employment has dropped by 446,000 since its peak in September 2008.

A HT to our friends at Media Matters for catching Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) comparing electricians, teachers and other workers to bushels of soybeans and corn.

King, in a House floor speech calling for the elimination of prevailing wage laws on federal Department of Homeland Security construction projects, argued that the Davis-Bacon Act is an intrusion on the free market and that workers were merely commodities whose worth fluctuates up and down, according to supply and demand—like a pound of pork.

Two years ago, the U.S. auto industry was on the verge of collapse. General Motors Corp. (GM) had filed for bankruptcy and had just begun to reorganize with $30 billion from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Chrysler, also with TARP support, reached a partnership deal with Fiat and began its climb from bankruptcy.

After intense criticism from mine safety advocates, lawmakers and others, a former Massey Energy Co. executive tied to the Upper Big Branch explosion that killed 29 miners will not be part of the newly merged company.

In Orchard Park, N.Y., just about 600 yards from the Buffalo Bills’ Ralph Wilson Stadium, where as many as 73,000 football fans gather on fall Sundays, sits the Big Tree Inn. Owner Dan DeMarco tells ESPN.com those Sundays account for 30 percent of his annual revenue.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R)—the same LePage who was so incensed about a labor history mural that included a depiction of the fight for strong child labor laws that he ordered it taken down—signed a bill yesterday that weakens Maine’s child labor laws.

Max is in deep trouble. His bosses have seen him meeting with “union types” and they want a word with him. Privately. Behind closed doors. Now!

Two top-ranking Republican legislators in the New Hampshire House have resigned their leadership positions to protest House Speaker Bill O’Brien’s extreme anti-worker agenda and strong-arm tactics. The two are six-term state Rep. and House Deputy Majority Leader Matt Quandt and House Whip Tim Copeland.

The former Massey Energy Co. chief operating officer who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to be interviewed by the West Virginia commission investigating the Upper Big Branch explosion that killed 29 miners, will play a role overseeing safety at the corporation taking over Massey’s mines.