Here are some key reasons the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should level the playing field when workers are deciding whether to form a union. Employers’ anti-union campaigns begin much earlier than expected and continue all the way up to election. In fact, a new study found that almost half (47 percent) of serious unfair labor practices allegations are reported before a petition is even filed.

This is a cross post from International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) online.

In this interview, Anthony Jones, the resident representative of the ITUC and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) in Haiti, highlights the urgency of placing decent work at the heart of Haiti’s reconstruction program after the devastating earthquakes in January 2010. He also insists on the importance of training to support the Haitian trade union movement.

More than 200 academics and labor activists came together yesterday to discuss strategies for revitalizing the union movement.

There is still time to register for the Great Labor Arts Exchange and Conference on Creative Organizing, June 17–19 at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md.

The academic staff at the University of Wisconsin-Superior voted overwhelmingly yesterday for representation by AFT.  This is the first time an academic staff  has voted for a union in Wisconsin’s history and the sixth time university workers have voted for a union since Gov. Scott Walker’s  plan to eliminate public employee collective bargaining was introduced.

When it comes to maintaining and improving its roads, bridges and other transportation facilities, the United States is falling behind even developing nations and Congress is showing no will to address the crisis, according to a report released this week by the Urban Land Institute. Further:

Despite the nation’s unemployment woes, the vast job-creation potential of infrastructure projects is being sidetracked by concerns about government spending appetites and potential cost overruns.

You can help “Stamp Out Hunger” this weekend by joining with the Letter Carriers (NALC) in the largest one-day food drive in the nation. NALC asks that you collect canned goods and dry food, such as tuna, canned meat, soups, pasta, rice and cereal, and leave them in a bag or box by your mailbox on Saturday, May 14. Your letter carriers will pick them up as they deliver your mail. NALC members will deliver the goods to local food banks, pantries and shelters to help needy families in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions.

The attempts to blame the nation’s economic mess on teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public employees provide a great opportunity for working people to regain the American Dream, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said this week.

Thousands of Michigan workers, students, seniors and others are heading for the state capitol in Lansing today for a massive rally against Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) proposed budget that cuts $900 million from education, taxes pensions, raises taxes for low-income families and slashes vital services–all while, cutting business taxes by $1.7 billion.

Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) Executive Director Lowell Peterson describes how the WGAE model offers workers both a militant union and a professional association.

Recent ideologically driven attacks on collective bargaining have inspired a national conversation about the role of organized labor in 21st century America. The headlines have focused on teachers and other public employees, on whether it is unseemly for people who work for the government to assert any rights on the job. But the same hard-right forces that want to wipe out public-sector unions oppose the very idea that employees can band together to advance their own interests. There are so many ways to rebut the shrill complaints about organized labor—so many good things unions have done for the average American over the course of decades. But perhaps this is a good opportunity for us to take stock of ourselves, to examine where we are today and what we might need to do to remain relevant in the future.