Today, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) took steps to enforce workers’ rights as guaranteed by U.S. law. The board advised the attorneys general of Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah that so-called secret ballot amendments to their state constitutions are pre-empted by the National Labor Relations Act, which offers workers two paths to choosing a union.

Every day across the country, millions of workers in low-wage jobs are being robbed of billions of dollars they are owed by their employers. A new video by Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) shows how the practice of wage theft is a national epidemic no one is paying attention to.

Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate this weekend, died fighting for the freedom of Memphis sanitation workers to form a union with AFSCME. For King, economic justice went hand in hand with civil rights and the right to join a union was critical to gaining economic justice.

Children working in factories, picking crops and hauling lumber on construction sites is a vision Mike Lee, the Republican senator from Utah, apparently wants to make a reality again in the United States. In a lecture on his YouTube channel, Lee explains in great detail why he believes U.S. child labor laws are unconstitutional.

When Teresa Laws takes the bullhorn this evening, she will raise her voice to speak out for some of our most vulnerable citizens: children and those who need constant home care.

Across the country, newly elected Republican governors and state legislatures are trying to gut pro-worker, consumer and workplace safety laws and pass new legislation to weaken workers’ and consumers’ rights. Wisconsin AFL-CIO field communications coordinator Karen Hickey sends this report on a recent hearing on the so-called tort reform bill. If you are a Wisconsin resident, scroll down to find out how to take action.

Companies that do not allow union elections violate human rights, said Bob King, president of the UAW, which is talking with some foreign auto companies that have plants in the United States about a set of principles aimed at ensuring fair elections. Such principles are necessary, King said, because National Labor Relations Board procedures are outdated and allow companies to intimidate workers and spread misinformation. Transplant companies are foreign-owned companies that have plants in the United States.

Rather than helping working people to save their homes, banks foreclosed on more than 1 million properties last year, which will slow the economic recovery and obstruct job growth, especially in construction.

Be careful what you wish for, it might come true—with lots of bad consequences.  The leader of a Big Business group says CEOs and other corporate leaders joining the Republican call for the repeal of health care reform should heed that warning.

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

One year ago, a massive earthquake shattered Haiti, violently disrupting the lives of more than 1 million people and killing more than 200,000. Workers in the island nation faced extraordinary challenges as they struggled to find loved ones, bury their dead, and secure shelter for their families amid the rubble.