What's the reward for hard work, creativity, teamwork and loyalty? The Transport Workers (TWU) say it may be pay cuts and givebacks for you and record bonuses for the CEO.

Trayvon Martin's shooting rightly provoked widespread indignation and outrage throughout America. Yet this weekend, our government could certify that Colombia has fulfilled its workers' rights obligations and allow the U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia to fully take effect.

That, says Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in a post at AlterNet, would be turning "our backs on the 30 trade unionists slain in Colombia last year and the six that Justice for Colombia reports have been murdered already this year."

An editorial in today's New York Times says as the election gets closer, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may try to roll back some of his ardor for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Walker's extreme agenda. But "but voters should be skeptical. As Mr. Walker’s actions show, they are at the core of Republican ideology."

Don't miss this one.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election, quietly repealed a state law making it easier for pay discrimination victims to seek justice. Amanda Terkel reports in The Huffington Post that Walker signed into law a bill passed in party-line votes by Republicans in the state legislature that rolls back the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act. The act had allowed workers to challenge pay discrimination in state rather than just federal courts.

The U.S. economy added 120,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.2 percent, according to the Labor Department report released this morning. Economists had predicted stronger job growth, in line with recent months when 200,000 or more jobs were created.

The experience of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America has shown that working people—union and nonunion—“hold closely to the belief that workers need to have power and a voice,” reports Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars, based on an interview with Working America’s Executive Director Karen Nussbaum. “….There is strength in numbers and…working families and their allies have numbers they can mobilize to make positive change.”

MIT's Paul Osterman has a provocative piece in the Boston Review about some myths standing in the way of turning lousy, low-wage jobs into good jobs. The convention wisdom, he says, is "to let the economy generate jobs of whatever quality firms choose and then, if necessary, compensate by enabling people to avoid the bad ones or by shoring up people who are stuck. The nature of available jobs is a given." His arguments bolster the union movement's case that we need direct intervention in the labor market to make bad jobs into good jobs through collective bargaining, labor standards, public-sector leadership, training and career ladders and more.

The U.S. Department of Labor has added three products to the list of goods produced by forced labor, child labor or both. The list now includes 133 products from 71 countries, ranging from bamboo in Burma to zinc in Bolivia. Added to the list yesterday are bricks in Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Republican-controlled Georgia state legislature ended its session. In a victory for working families—and for the Bill of Rights—the anti-free speech bill (S.B. 469), that brought union, faith and tea party activists together to protest the proposal to subject picketers to big fines, died. But not before lawmakers, in a last-ditch attempt to pass the bill in some form, stripped the picketing provisions and turned S.B. 469 into a purely anti-union bill that would affect dues deduction for public employees. But the bipartisan coalition opposed to the S.B. 469 held firm, and lawmakers decided not to take up the bill.

But the victory was bittersweet. Republicans still managed to pass bills that cut jobless benefits severely and require some welfare applicants to pass drug tests.

The rally today at the Georgia state Capitol protesting extreme bills proposed by extremist state legislators went waaaay beyond bipartisanship.

The hundreds of ralliers, shouting, "We Own the Dome," represented a strange-bedfellows coming together of union activists, tea party members, faith activists and others, united against S.B. 469—the anti-free speech bill that would impose serious penalties for picketing a business or a CEO's home if it interferes with his or her "right of quiet enjoyment."