Hundreds of Michiganders flooded the state Capitol building in Lansing on Thursday to tell their legislators to reject a "right to work" for less proposal currently before a legislative committee. Working families oppose the legislation that would make it easier for corporations to take advantage of their employees and weaken workers' ability to bargain with management.

Imagine a time when a professional baseball player was technically "owned" for life by his team and couldn't play for any other team unless the change was approved by his owner. Imagine a time when professional athletes had few rights beyond whatever their owners granted them—low pay, weak pensions, no real compensation for the wear-and-tear on their bodies, no freedom of movement or ability to determine where they lived or for what team they played. Imagine a time when the system made team owners very wealthy off the hard work of the players without allowing the players to share in the revenue their efforts produced.

In the recently convened "lame-duck" session of Congress, senators and representatives will take on a number of issues that could have major consequences for working families and retirees. Congress is considering benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare and members are looking at cutting taxes for the wealthy even further. Any deal that Congress makes, though, should be based on facts and not the myths that have sprung up around taxes, the deficit and the earned benefit programs. Here are a few of the key myths and the truth behind them.

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the CEOs who make up the "Fix the Debt" campaign sit on massive retirement funds of their own while calling for the retirement programs that working families rely on to be cut as part of a deficit-reduction package. Furthermore, those same CEOs have been shortchanging pension funds for working families at the corporations they run.

As President Obama meets today with Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is calling for improved rights for Mexico's working families. In recent months, Mexican workers have faced a series of challenges to their basic rights.

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

Advocates for working families from 33 states are in Washington, D.C., Nov. 27 and 28 to ask members of Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% expire and to reject cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Local AFL-CIO leaders will be joined by hundreds of advocates from other labor and progressive organizations.

A powerful ally has joined in the fight to protect Medicare and Medicaid benefits. AARP President A. Barry Rand wrote a strongly worded letter to President Obama and Congress, stating that the organization's membership overwhelmingly opposes benefit cuts to Medicare or Medicaid as part of any deal to lower the deficit by the end of the year. A survey of members of the AARP shows that more than 70% of members said they want Washington to focus on improving and strengthening health care for seniors. They also are opposed to any changes to the programs that would weaken benefits for seniors who live on limited, fixed incomes. 

While the election and other stories have taken Superstorm Sandy out of the headlines, millions of Americans who were in the storm's path are still in need of assistance. Don't let the the short attention span of the news cycle delay necessary aid to those whose lives have been permanently altered.

As part of its liquidation filing, Hostess is requesting approval to pay $1.75 million in bonuses to executives—the same executives who ran the company so poorly it is closing its doors and liquidating its assets.

A new annual report from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) showed increased worker productivity and a declining operational deficit, despite a larger amount of money lost by the organization based on a unique congressional requirement that USPS prefund retirement benefits for decades into the future. No other agency or private company in the country faces such a requirement. Congress passed the provision in 2006 and could repeal it at any time, solving most of the deficit problems the service faces.