About 100 working men and women told congressional Republicans to “Keep Your Hands off Medicare” Monday in front of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where CBS was hosting a town hall meeting with members of Congress.

Since April 26, nearly 400 members of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 212 in Buffalo have been locked out by BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York. You can help in their fight for justice and a fair contract by telling parent company HealthNow CEO Alphonso O’Neil-White to “Do the right thing—stop the lock out.”

Last week when Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) was back home in Little Rock for a campaign fundraiser, he was met by more than a dozen local activists from Arkansas Community Organizations (ACO).

Members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA (TNG-CWA) ratified a new contract with The Associated Press, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,400 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

Check out this video from the Pioneer Valley [Mass.] Labor Council’s (PVLC‘s) Union Community Fund on relief efforts following tornadoes that hit the area earlier this month. Says labor council President Rick Brown:

This is what unions are all about, picking our brothers and sisters up when they’re down. Disaster relief is a natural fit for us because we’ve got lots of networks in the community that we can leverage and activate to find those who need our help and get them cleaned out from this mess.

Click here for a detailed look at the relief efforts and information on how you can donate.

Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance /La Alianza Nacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar, sends her observations on the International Labor Organization’s (ILO‘s) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, where a new global rule on domestic workers is set for a vote June 16.

The Mine Workers (UMWA) has reached a tentative 5.5 year agreement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), the union announced this morning.

AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends this report from the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Labor Council.

Since 1999 in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, the local labor movement has been helping teenagers and pre-teens develop leadership, teamwork and planning skills through TeenWorks. Developed by former AFL-CIO Community Service Liaison Ron Achey and funded entirely by Lehigh valley unions, TeenWorks allows young people to decide how to allocate grants for and plan community service projects.

The public workers and students in Wisconsin wore out a lot of shoe leather in their months of protest against the conservatives’ attacks on working people. Now they have a bronze shoe to honor their efforts.

Lots more great labor involvement to report at the upcoming Netroots Nation conference June 16-19 in Minneapolis, in addition to the highlights we noted a few days ago.