Juan de Dios Sáenz Rosales, president of the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (SITRAUNAH), was killed on Aug. 22. Late last night, Honduran authorities announced that his son had been arrested for the murder.* The AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with SITRAUNAH as they mourn this loss and urges the government of Honduras to continue to investigate and prosecute this case vigorously until ensure justice has been is achieved for Juan de Dios Sáenz and his loved ones

America’s workers are existing on the edge of financial disaster: 40 percent say they live paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey. Worse, 37 percent say they sometimes need to rely on the next payday to make ends meet. Although the percentage of those literally living for payday has decreased from 42 percent in 2011 and from 46 percent in 2008, the height of the recession, this is not good news.

In addition, the survey found:

This morning in Carnegie, Pa., union activists and allies were on hand to greet Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to protest his and Mitt Romney’s plan to end Medicare as we know it and shower even more tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, with working families footing the bill.

This is a cross-post by Sara Jerving of the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch.

When Dave Schumacher, 51 years old, lost his job in 2009 in U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., he wasn’t alone. Schumacher drove trucks for a supplier company that served the General Motors (GM) SUV plant, the economic heartbeat of this blue-collar town. GM consolidated production in Texas and Mexico.

When the four-million-square-foot GM plant in the southern part of town closed in 2009 after a series of layoffs, it took with it the jobs of some 2,800 employees, the single most significant economic blow inflicted upon any Wisconsin community since the economic collapse of 2008. But it wasn’t just GM workers who lost their jobs, the closure caused a ripple effect of business closings and layoffs in the area, leaving an ill-equipped safety net supporting the workers who remained in the community. 

There are doubts about the institutions responsible for the rule of law in Honduras and the government’s protection of human rights, acknowledged the U.S. State Department in an Aug. 8 report. Unfortunately, the State Department says virtually nothing about the widespread impunity regarding violations of freedom of association or the threats and violence aimed at labor activists.

The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions have called for immediate action in Colombia around the mistreatment of the members of ASOTRECOL, an association of ex-workers and injured workers at Colmotores, a General Motors (GM) subsidiary in Colombia.

The business model on which Mitt Romney built his private-equity, outsourcing career and fortune at  Bain Capital “has made our economy weaker and our society more unequal; it has hollowed out our tax base, and it has wreaked havoc on our communities,” said the AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement from its August meeting this week in Washington, D.C.

Many U.S. workers don’t have jobs—nearly 13 million. Less known, however, is that many more don’t have good jobs—fewer than one-quarter of America’s workforce, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). The center defines a good job as one that pays at least $18.50 an hour, or $37,000 per year, equal to the inflation-adjusted earnings of the typical male worker in 1979.  A good job also includes employer-provided health insurance and a retirement plan (click on chart at left to expand).

The lack of available good jobs is not new. As CEPR finds, compared with 1979, the U.S. economy has lost about one-third (28 percent to 38 percent) of its capacity to generate good jobs.

But why?

Colombian unionists visited Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. government officials and ask for their support in ensuring the Colombia Labor Action Plan. The delegation included Miguel Conde, general secretary of the Puerto Wilches local of Sintrainagro, an agricultural worker union representing workers on palm oil plantations; Jhonsson Torres, a founding member and vice president of the cane cutters union; Sinalcorteros; and Jose Luciano Sanin, executive director of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS, National Union School). Getting assurance of continued support for implementation made the trip worthwhile for the Colombians, who are in the midst of a long-term struggle for an economy that provides workers with dignity, fair pay and benefits and respect for the exercise of free association and other fundamental rights. 

Whether it's a Katrina-like hurricane, major earthquake or devastating terrorist attack, the decline in America’s industrial manufacturing base and the nation’s reliance on foreign suppliers for goods formerly made in the U.S.A. threatens our ability to prevent, repair and recover from a major catastrophe, a new report reveals.