The one-two punch of a crippling recession and widespread anti-worker legislation has left many working families in the United States and Canada battered and on the ropes.

But many young IBEW members are just lacing up their gloves for round two.

This is a cross-post from the California Labor Federation's Labor's Edge blog.

California was built with a vision that prioritized investments in our future. From creating a world-class infrastructure to seeding innovation through our schools and universities, investments fueled the economic miracle that once was our state. But as those investments dried up in recent years, we’ve risked tearing the very fabric of California.

It’s time to chart a different course.

[On Tuesday], the California Labor Federation and the state Building and Construction Trades Council unveiled labor’s new “Invest in California” jobs plan, which focuses on renewing the state’s commitment to innovation and investments that built an economy of broadly shared prosperity.

Eight California carwashes agreed to a historic $1 million settlement with the state’s attorney general for routinely failing to pay minimum wage or overtime, creating false records of work hours and not paying money owed to employees who quit, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Sempra Energy’s proposal to build a new transmission line to import electricity into the United States from green energy generators located in Mexico would cost as many as 15,000 U.S. jobs and nearly $300 million in lost local, state and federal tax revenue, according to a new report.

The improved jobs figures out last Friday obscured the ongoing decline in public-sector jobs. As the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted when releasing the March unemployment data:

Employment in local government continued to trend down over the month. Local government has lost 416,000 jobs since an employment peak in September 2008.

Nearly 20,000 working people marched through downtown Los Angeles Saturday, making it clear they will fight any attempt to launch a Wisconsin-like attack on workers in cash-strapped California. The march stretched for several blocks and included nurses, telephone technicians, electricians, truckers, screenwriters, actors, longshoremen, teachers and others. This is the largest action by Los Angeles workers in recent history.