While President Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery, Republican presidential candidates have pledged their loyalty to Wall Street and the 1%. Today the AFL-CIO General Board “voted proudly and enthusiastically” to endorse Obama for a second term. 

James Callahan, general president of the Operating Engineers (IUOE), and DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), were elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning at the council’s annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council today praised the role workers and independent trade unions are playing in the popular mobilizations against corrupt, oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Saying “a worker is a worker,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), and several taxi drivers from New York City today told the AFL-CIO Executive Council they want to be a part of the national labor federation.

AFL-CIO union members and allies will engage in a fall America Wants to Work mobilization to move the national debate from the right wing’s manufactured debt crisis to the nation’s real crisis: jobs.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council welcomed three new members today: Airline Pilots (ALPA) President Capt. Lee Moak, Lorretta Johnson, executive vice president of AFT and Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) President Joseph Nigro. The Council also honored three retiring members at its annual August meeting, held this year at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md.

In one of the biggest union elections in recent years, nearly 85 percent of the transportation security officers (TSOs) voted to join a union. AFGE led the voting and will face a runoff with another union to determine who will represent the 43,000 TSOs at 450 of the nation’s airports.

Over the past five years, the Mexican government has unleashed a systematic attack on workers’ rights. Despite the continuing repression, Mexico’s independent, democratic unions organize and represent the rights of workers. Some of the most egregious attacks have been on the Mine, Metal and Steel Workers Union (SNTMMSSRM), also known as Los Mineros.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council welcomed Larry Hanley and Cliff Guffey as new members today.

Hanley was elected Sept. 30 as president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), succeeding Warren George, who retired and also resigned from the Executive Council.  

This morning, I interviewed Martin Luther King III after he spoke to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting here today in Washington, D.C.