This Thanksgiving, Leslie Martes, program and outreach director at The Voter Participation Center, is thankful her father, John, had access to union retiree health care benefits. Without that health care plan, it's likely John wouldn't have lived to celebrate the holiday with his family.  

This is an excerpt of Through the Eyes of a Union Member: The Slow Demise of an American Baking Company, which appeared on the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) blog. 

The following story was sent to us by a retired BCTGM Local 24 member. It is a true account of a dedicated bakery worker who grew up in and with Interstate Bakeries Corp. (IBC), in its various forms. Like his father before him, he spent his career working hard and supporting his family with good wages and the protection of a union contract. And like his father, he watched as the company was mismanaged and began the spiral of demise.

This is a cross-post from the California Labor Federation’s blog, Labor’s Edge, by Communications Director Steve Smith.

As the election results came in late Tuesday night, it became abundantly clear that the handful of billionaires and CEOs who sought to silence our voice were in for a rude awakening. Their deceptive measure, Prop. 32, didn’t just fail, it tanked -- by a 12-point margin.

In a massive display of the power of working families, 40,000 volunteers in California are finishing up a massive get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. The activists have distributed more than 5.1 million worksite fliers and made more than 3 million direct voter contacts. In the past week, they completed more than 1 million voter contacts. While the presidential election is a foregone conclusion in the state, the massive contact program could be decisive in a number of ballot initiatives, including Prop. 32, which would silence the voice of working people.

This is a cross-post from the California Labor Federation’s blog, Labor’s Edge, by Communications Director Steve Smith.

We’ve seen a lot of big numbers this election. The Koch brothers' super PAC spent $4 million to back the deceptive Prop 32. Billionaire Charles Munger Jr. kicked in $35 million against Prop. 30 and for Prop. 32. A shady Arizona group that refuses to disclose its donors funneled $11 million into our state to attack California schools and workers. But now, there’s only one number that matters: 35,000. That’s the number of union volunteers fanning out across the state, in communities big and small, to fight the big-money interests behind the attacks on Prop. 30 and the fraudulent ads backing Prop. 32.

Do your part in getting friends and family out to vote for pro-working family candidates this Tuesday. Sign up for the Workers' Voice Friends and Neighbors (FAN) online social phone bank tool that is available in key battleground states. 

Start phone banking here: http://go.aflcio.org/Phone-Bank.

San Francisco cab driver Brad Newsham does not believe that corporations are people and that money is free speech. And he wanted to do something big to get his point across. So he went to the beach, brought a helicopter and 1,000 friends. This video shows what happened next.

This is a cross-post from the California Labor Federation’s blog, Labor’s Edge, by Communications Director Steve Smith.

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka wasn’t about to let a little airplane mechanical trouble stop him from getting out the vote in California. Despite being delayed in Chicago for several hours, Trumka arrived in Sacramento fired up and ready to hit the doors with union volunteers.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor is making creative use of modern technology to fight the anti-working families Prop. 32, a law that would prevent unions from using any money raised through payroll deduction on political causes. People who have iPhones or iPads can download an application that allows them to take a photograph of themselves and turn it into a representation of the effects of Prop. 32, if it were to pass—the silencing of people's political voices.

This is a cross-post from the California Labor Federation's blog, Labor's Edge, by Danielle Tipton. 

Latinos are among the fastest growing groups of the electorate. About 5 million more Latino voters are eligible to vote this year than in 2008—but historically, voter turnout among Latinos hasn’t been particularly strong. In 2008, only 50% of eligible Latino voters showed up to the polls (according to the Los Angeles Times). But that’s all going to change this year in California, as more and more Latinos are discovering what’s really at stake in the upcoming election if Prop. 32 becomes law.