Tributes continue to come in for Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), who died unexpectedly April 8 at age 63. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls Ayers an “extraordinary leader and friend.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a long record of opposing critical public safety programs and training for firefighters, including Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) and Assistance to Firefighters (FIRE Act) grants.

A year ago, thousands of Wisconsin workers filled the statehouse and streets of Madison protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attack on their collective bargaining rights. The battle reverberated beyond the borders of Wisconsin, triggering a nationwide dialogue on collective bargaining.

This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

Working families in southwest Florida are standing in solidarity with Wisconsin workers and protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) visit to Naples. Walker spoke this morning at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., as part of the James Madison Institute think-tank luncheon.

AFL-CIO communications staffer Nora Frederickson sends us this report.

Workers in New Hampshire took over the floor of the New Hampshire House chamber yesterday to testify against a spate of anti-collective bargaining bills debated in the House Labor Committee. The hearings were relocated to the people’s chamber after the hearing rooms were flooded past their capacity by more than 600 firefighters, state workers, truck drivers, teachers and community members protesting the most recent anti-worker onslaughts in the Granite State.

Michael J. Smith, AFL-CIO Community Services Liaison in Monroe, Mich., sends us this report.  

For the past 20 years, Monroe (Mich.) Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 326 has held an annual holiday dinner serving those in need in the city of Monroe.

Andrew Pantelis, a lieutenant with the Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department in Landover, Md., says that taxing employer-provided health care benefits—a proposal before the so-called budget deficit “Super Committee”—would “hurt millions of working class Americans.”

With the fight in Ohio to defeat Issue 2 coming down to its final days, the Fire Fighters (IAFF) have launched ads featuring firefighters who are war veterans urging voters to vote “No on Issue 2.”  A “No” vote on Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, the law passed this spring that takes away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.

In May, on the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week in Broward County, Fla., Cherine Akbari was honored “with a fancy embroidered jacket and handed a pink slip.”

Across the country, tens of thousands of firefighters, paramedics and teachers have been laid off and the jobs of tens of thousands more are under threat. As this nationwide ad from the Fire Fighters (IAFF) shows, those first responder cuts are threatening public safety.