After 8,000 utility workers were locked out earlier this summer, Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 1-2 in New York City approved a new labor contract with Consolidated Edison. 

The New York Times reports:

Harry Farrell, president of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, said on Wednesday that its membership voted by a margin of 93 percent to accept a new four-year agreement with Consolidated Edison.

The Tappan Zee Bridge in New York will be replaced through a union-public-sector partnership involving 14 building trades labor bodies and the New York State Thruway, a project that will create thousands of family-supporting jobs and save taxpayers $452 million.

“That was the turning point for a lot of actors," said actor Susan Sarandon to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about the national commercial actors strike 12 years ago. "It wasn’t until we felt threatened that we realized the importance of our union.”

In a casual moment in a midtown Manhattan hotel Friday evening, Sarandon, a longtime member of SAG-AFTRA, and Trumka spoke at length before she introduced him to a gathering held by Local 1 of the American Federation of School Administrators.

Today, 285 Brooklyn-based Cablevision workers—the Cablevision 99%—will vote in a election for union representation.

Teresa Casertano in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department’s Global Campaigns section sends us this report.

T-Mobile USA workers were not surprised to learn that a recent report by the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD revealed that T-Mobile owner, Deutsche Telekom, had failed to meet its own claims about corporate social responsibility.  Under the corporate social responsibility reporting standards set by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Deutsche Telekom gives itself an A+ rating, yet it provides little evidence to justify granting itself such superior marks.

On a brisk and sunny day in New York City, Christy Thornton stood at the corner of Broadway and 31st streets.

Despite the odds, members of UNITEHERE! Local 6 won respect and a contract that boosts wages and health care coverage from a restaurant owner who likened workers to chairs—yet another victory for the 23,000 low-wage service employees who are members of New York City’s dynamic union.

The attack on public workers at the state level has been big news: the words “Wisconsin” and “Ohio” have become shorthand for a national right-wing legislative strategy designed to beat up unions and their members.

Ja-Rei Wang, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, writes about her experience with Occupy Wall Street in New York City.

I was one of more than 1,000 students, working families, parents, freelance artists, union members, health care providers and immigrants who weaved through Manhattan’s sidewalks to Washington Square Park to protest the growing wealth inequality in our country, rising unemployment, powerful corporate influence on politics and the need for financial reform, among other concerns. The marching contingent was made up of a diverse group of people of all ages, genders and ethnicities taking part over the weekend in Occupy Wall Street’s “International Day of Action.”

The attacks on the middle class and the ability of public employees to bargain collectively are spreading from Wisconsin and Ohio to Long Island’s Nassau County, where a proposed bill would gives the county executive the right to unilaterally open contracts and decide what provisions the executive wants to retain, change or eliminate.