The 250 members of the Panama Canal Pilots Union recently voted to affiliate with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).  The pilots guide the ships that transit the historic canal.

Deborah Dion with the Ohio AFL-CIO field program sends us this.

Machinists (IAM) President Thomas Buffenbarger electrified hundreds of working families and community activists in Cincinnati yesterday when he spoke about the urgent need to mobilize working families to get out the vote to defeat Issue 2/Senate B 5.

Virginia Hewitt has seen firsthand how bad trade deals kill good jobs. Hewitt worked for 14.5 years at the Salina, Kan., Hawker Beechcraft plant building private jets. But little more than a year ago, she and most of the nearly 600 Machinists (IAM) Local 7090 members saw their jobs shipped to Mexico.

AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends us this report.

More than 90 children received school supply bags through donations of union members in 10 locals from Saginaw County, Mich. AFL-CIO/Michigan Community Services liaison Steven Lamb reports that earlier this month, the unions gave the school supply bags to the YMCA, First Ward Community Center, Salvation Army and the Neighborhood House to distribute to area school children.

Two years after being granted tax subsidies in exchange for creating family-supporting jobs, management at Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Berkeley, Calif., steadfastly refuses to keep its commitment. Instead, it wants to outsource work done by members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6.

The Machinists (IAM) local that has charged the Boeing Co. with unfair labor practices for opening a second assembly line at a plant in South Carolina has unveiled selected internal company documents the union says shows the company moved the work to punish workers for exercising their right to strike.

Fleet service workers at United Continental Holdings yesterday voted for representation by the Machinists (IAM).

In the five-week-long election, 97 percent of the workers who cast ballots supported union representation, while 3 percent voted against representation. Of those who favored representation, 51.4 percent, or 5,572 employees, voted for IAM, while 48.5 percent, or 5,257 employees, chose the Teamsters, and a handful of workers supported other unions and individuals.

This is a cross-post from the Machinists (IAM). The labor movement and the faith community have long held shared goals of equality and opportunity. Each Labor Day, Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and the AFL-CIO sponsortheLabor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar program, which highlights these shared goals. Click here to find out more.

For two years, management at IKEA’s Danville, Va., subsidiary Swedwood fought the workers’ choice to join the Machinists (IAM). But after yesterday’s overwhelming 221-69 vote, the workers who assemble furniture for IKEA stores have that voice at work.

BREAKING: In a 221-69 vote, workers at the IKEA [Swedwood] plant in Danville, Va., voted to join the Machinists (IAM) today. The 318 employees assemble products for IKEA.