"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.

In the latest edition of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, the majority of respondents said they oppose benefit cuts to Medicare and Social Security. An overwhelming 79% said that they wanted no cuts to Medicare at all. Only 17% said they favored some cuts; only 3% said they favored significant cuts. The numbers were similar for Social Security.

The survey polled 1,003 adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 points. 

A group of corporate CEOs, known as the Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition, sent a letter to Congress asking for the corporate tax rate to be lowered. CEOs from 17 of the largest U.S. companies say, in the letter, that the corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest of any industrialized nation and that it leaves American companies unable to compete.

More than 100,000 American consumers signed a petition asking Macy's Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren to drop out of the "Fix the Debt" Coalition. Fix the Debt portrays itself as dedicated to lowering the national debt, when the reality is that it is lobbying to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and give more tax breaks to the wealthiest 2%. The consumers are part of Progressive Congress, the nonprofit foundation of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or CREDO, a progressive activist organization.

Michigan is poised to become the latest state to pass "right to work" for less legislation, a mislabeled policy that is designed to weaken the rights and wages of working families. As is often the case in recent years, extreme anti-worker legislation, like the law in Michigan, can be traced back to Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the group's founders Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who fund a host of extreme right-wing organizations.

The current state of the U.S. Congress—marked by gridlock and bad legislation—is attributable, in large part, to understaffing and a lack of bipartisan expertise, according to a new report from the New America Foundation.  Representatives and senators are barraged with an overwhelming amount of information and the methods they use to handle that flood of data is antiquated the report says.

More than 1,300 Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa have been locked out by American Crystal Sugar for more than a year and a half. These working families are being denied incomes and health care benefits.  

White House spokesperson Matt Lehrich said Thursday the president opposes "right to work" for less laws like legislation proposed in Michigan.

Reports coming in from Twitter, via #saveMI and other hashtags, say that the Michigan state Capitol is locked down and protesters are being denied access. MLive confirms that several of the 3,000 protesters on hand have been arrested and that mace was used on several of them after they tried to enter the Senate chambers. Police say no one else is being allowed in the building because they fear that the structural integrity of the building was threatened. At least eight arrests were made, according to police, for "impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic." Working families and their allies are rallying at the Capitol in opposition to a new "right to work" for less proposal being put forth by Gov. Rick Snyder and legislative Republicans.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka condemned the actions of Gov. Rick Snyder and the radical Republicans in Michigan who announced today that "right to work" for less legislation would be pushed forward in the state's "lame-duck" session. Working families filled the Lansing Capitol building Thursday, outraged at the attempts to strip them of their voice in the workplace. Snyder is the latest in a line of extreme Republican governors, such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Scott of Florida, who are assaulting the rights of working families.