Hundreds of participants in the Jobs with Justice (JwJ) national conference in Washington, D.C., this week will join with members of the Making Change at Walmart campaign, Wal-Mart employees, faith leaders and community activists to rally Friday, Aug. 5, and deliver a message to the world’s largest retailer: “Pay what you say.”

This is a cross-post from Rebecca Greenberg Band from the California Labor Federation’s Labor’s Edge blog.

Two weeks ago, the construction site of the new air traffic control tower at Oakland Airport was bustling with activity. Now, it lays completely dormant. Construction equipment sits unused. Workers wait around hoping that today will be the day they can go back to work. But they can’t—all because congressional Republicans are playing politics with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization. And now it looks like Congress won’t be acting on the FAA until members return from recess in late September.

AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends this news on George Meany Award recipients.  

United Steelworkers (USW) member Donald Comer of Decatur, Ill., and Letter Carriers (NALC) member Rick Di Silvio of Clarksville, Tenn., were recently awarded the AFL-CIO George Meany Award which recognizes union members who contributed time in service to various Boy Scout programs.

Capt. Bob Barteck, firefighter, paramedic and shift commander from Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., stars in a whitetail bow hunt on the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance’s TV show, “Brotherhood Outdoors” at 8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 4, on the Sportsman Channel.

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.

There’s still time to register online to join hundreds of activists from Jobs with Justice (JwJ) and stand together to “Build Power and Fight Back” against the attacks on America’s working people by corporate executives and politicians.

The comedy writers at the Onion News Network (ONN), who have brought us such stories as “Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans to Live Faster, Die Younger,” and “Man Becomes GOP Front Runner After Showing No Interest in Government,” have joined the Writers Guild of America, East (WAGE).

Where are the jobs? Not in the budget agreement reached over the weekend and passed 269-161 last night by the House. The budget deal, which the Senate passed moments ago, is bad  for our country and especially bad for working people. It undermines the nation’s ability to solve the real crisis—America’s jobs crisis.

Some 1,300 American Crystal Sugar Co. employees were locked out in three states yesterday after the workers, members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 167G, rejected the company’s final offer by a nine-to-one margin.

The 4,000 furloughed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers and 90,000 workers on airport construction projects stalled by the Republican shutdown of the FAA are worrying about how they will pay their bills in the coming weeks.