Union members from around the Detroit metro area rallied Tuesday in support of the Bring Jobs Home Act (S. 2884), a common sense bill authored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)  that would incentivize American companies to bring jobs back to America from overseas. The bill would also close tax loopholes that reward corporations that continue to outsource in the pursuit of outsized corporate profits. Stabenow told the crowd:

The time is now for my Republican colleagues to stop stonewalling this common sense legislation and do what’s right for the American people.

Good jobs should be as American as apple pie, but U.S. corporations have shipped some six million American jobs overseas in the past decade. Yesterday in Pittsburgh, some 200 union members told U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that it’s time to “Bring Jobs Home.”

Hoping to talk to Sen. Toomey (R-PA) or his staff to urge support for the Bring Jobs Home Act (S. 2884), the activists from 19 unions and labor groups marched to Toomey’s home office. But even the offering of an All-American, union-made apple pie (courtesy of Food and Commercial Workers [UFCW] Local 23) couldn’t get the group in the door.

Things looked bleak for United Steelworkers Local 10-1 last September when Sunoco Inc. announced it would shut down its Philadelphia refinery if a buyer was not found.  But after a hard-fought, ten-month campaign waged by the local and international union, USW Local 10-1 members ratified a contract with a new owner, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which is a joint partnership between The Carlyle Group and Sunoco.

USA

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve highlighted American products, jobs and stories for our Made in America series, and we asked for your thoughts. Earlier in June, we rounded up what you told us are your favorite USA-made goods, here. This time around, there have been lots of great comments supporting Buy American, and a few questions.

Los Angeles carwash workers are getting health care—all because of a dynamic partnership between the United Steelworkers and members of the local community who have joined forces to help carwasheros gain a voice on the job.

Click here to see a video clip that highlights how this partnership improves the lives of workers.

As carwash worker Oscar says: "Now, thank God my life has changed. If I get sick and feel bad, I have a clinic to go to. This is all because of the campaign."

Summer Olympic Games medal supplier, Rio Tinto—a union-busting global mining conglomerate with a track record of worker and environmental abuse—should be kept off the podium in London, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. In a letter sent to the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), Trumka points to Rio Tinto’s Jan. 1 lockout of 750 USW members in Alma, Quebec.

The AFL-CIO and several individual unions, including the Machinists, the Steelworkers, Mine Workers and Food and Commercial Workers in recent days met with leadership of the new Colombian Labor Inspectorate and Department of Labor officials, to discuss how the inspectorate is working to promote and protect workers' rights in Colombia—and what it is doing to make sure workers who exercise their rights can do so without putting their lives on the line.

United Steelworkers (USW) members at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash., have voted to accept the company’s latest contract offer. Shortly after USW members protested May 3 outside Tesoro’s shareholder meeting in San Antonio, the company presented a revised “last-and-final offer” that reportedly included some key concessions on workers’ benefits.

If you work in the hydraulic fracturing industry—better known as “fracking”—you may be exposed to high levels of crystalline silica, putting you at risk of developing silicosis, lung cancer and other debilitating diseases, according to a letter sent today from the AFL-CIO, Mine Workers (UMWA) and the United Steelworkers (USW) to the top federal safety agencies.

Leon Lynch, a former vice president of the United Steelworkers (USW) and the AFL-CIO Executive Council, died Friday in Memphis, Tenn. He was 76 years old.