"Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work" is a new film, by award-winning filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, that documents employee-owned businesses that compete in the economy, while giving their workers secure and dignified jobs in democratic workplaces. The movie tells the story of several companies who are dealing with changes to the global economy by rethinking the way businesses run in order to promote more sustainable communities.

Working people across the United States in more than 100 events last night called on their representatives to reject benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and to stop tax giveaways for the richest 2%. 

View photos from events around the country on the AFL-CIO Facebook page. 

For the past several years, the Southern California CLEAN Carwash Campaign has raised awareness of the serious exploitation faced by thousands of carwash workers—known as carwasheros—including violations of health and safety laws, wage and hour laws and anti-discrimination laws.

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.

James Vetato planned to spend Black Friday wearing out shoe leather on a picket line at the Southside Walmart in Paducah, Ky.

"Now I'll be there Thanksgiving night, too," Vetato said. "Walmart has announced it will be open at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night, which will prevent a lot of the associates from spending the holiday with their families.”

Help spread the word about Walmart strikers by sharing the United States of Walton infographic (above) on Facebook. 

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.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan remind Jeff Wiggins of the old story about the fox guarding the hen house.

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 hours are long but, says Kentucky United Steelworkers (USW) member Chris Ormes, “I'm loving it. I'm at ground zero, and that's where I want to be."

Ormes, 37, president of USW Local 1241 in Bardstown, Ky., says ground zero is Ohio. The state's electoral votes likely will decide who wins the presidential election. He is a foot soldier in a small army of union volunteers who are toiling 12- and even 14-hour days to help President Obama take the Buckeye State.

The workers at Sensata Technologies, who’ve established the tent city “Bainport” across the street from the Bain Capital majority-owned plant that is shutting down and shipping the 170 U.S. jobs to China, filed unfair labor practice charges Wednesday against Sensata.

The workers charge that the company has threatened to shut down the plant before its end-of-the-year scheduled closure if the workers continue to organize to stop the outsourcing of their jobs to China.

A plan by the major mineral company, Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., with ties to a Louisiana salt mine (North American Salt Co.), to expand its mineral extraction production at the Great Salt Lake, poses a threat to Utah’s Great Salt Lake ecosystem, says the United Steelworkers (USW).

North American Salt Co. also has a record of safety and health violations (enter Mine ID 1600358, to view to view violations) and unfair labor practices.  

Students at the 19 schools in Jefferson Parish, La., are getting more than 50,000 new books and, best of all, those books are free. Last week, the Jefferson Federation of Teachers (an AFT affiliate), union and community volunteers began sorting the 2,000 boxes of books that will be distributed during the next month. The book distribution is part of a nationwide joint project between AFT and First Book, a nonprofit organization that distributes books to children from low-income families

AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow Luis Santoyo sends us this report from the battleground state of Virginia. 

Since June, workers with United Steelworkers (USW) Local 8888 have diligently passed out election-related fliers to their co-workers outside the Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard in southeastern Virginia.

True to their commitment to get worker-friendly candidates elected on Nov. 6, Local 8888 members stood outside the shipyard early Saturday ready to greet and encourage their fellow co-workers to vote for former Gov. Tim Kaine and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) who, respectively, are running for the U.S. Senate and Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District. Both candidates joined the shipyard workers early Saturday morning.