This is a cross-post by Sara Jerving of the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch .

When Dave Schumacher, 51 years old, lost his job in 2009 in U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., he wasn’t alone. Schumacher drove trucks for a supplier company that served the General Motors (GM) SUV plant, the economic heartbeat of this blue-collar town. GM consolidated production in Texas and Mexico .

When the four-million-square-foot GM plant in the southern part of town closed in 2009 after a series of layoffs, it took with it the jobs of some 2,800 employees, the single most significant economic blow inflicted upon any Wisconsin community since the economic collapse of 2008. But it wasn’t just GM workers who lost their jobs, the closure caused a ripple effect of business closings and layoffs in the area, leaving an ill-equipped safety net supporting the workers who remained in the community. 

We’ve seen this movie before. A company goes before a local or state government and promises jobs and an economic boost, but they need just one little thing first—tax breaks! But after pocketing taxpayers’ money, guess what? No jobs, just broken promises. (See T-Mobile .)

This week in Fort Wayne, Ind., the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council had enough.

A new project labor agreement (PLA) between Southern California construction unions and NBC Universal for a major redevelopment of the company’s movie and television studios and the Universal City theme park in Los Angeles will create about 13,000 local construction jobs.    

The PLA reached between the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council and NBC Universal on the 10-year project in the east San Fernando Valley was announced yesterday.

Next time you write your tax check to the Internal Revenue Service, imagine which multibillion-dollar corporation may get some of your hard-earned pay.

How about drugmaker Abbott Laboratories, which in 2011 claimed a $586 million tax refund for its 64 subsidiaries operating in 16 countries considered tax havens?

Or maybe Chesapeake Energy, a company that last year made $2.8 billion in pre-tax U.S. profits—but whose effective tax rate over the course of its 23-year history has averaged only about 1 percent?

Captain America wouldn’t take kindly to someone raking in U.S. taxpayers’ dollars and then turning around and shipping American jobs overseas. Neither does the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada ( AFM ). But that’s exactly what Marvel Entertainment did with the musical score for its blockbuster, "The Avengers," and that’s why AFM members today will picket the Wilmington, N.C., location where Marvel (a Walt Disney Co. subsidiary) is shooting "Iron Man 3."

In West Seattle, workers from the unions of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council ( SBCTC ) are in the middle of a major green construction project that will convert an area that sat vacant for more than five years into a nearly 200-unit rental property.

The $48 million Youngstown Flats project, funded by the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust ( BIT ), will be completed in the spring and is bringing a big boost to the local economy. Last week, BIT officials and local labor leaders took time off to honor the workers at a ceremony and special luncheon on site for “dedicating their time and skills to making this building project a reality.

What is it with Republicans in Congress and outsourcing?

We know Mitt Romney loves to outsource (not to mention raise taxes on the middle class).

Now, House Republicans are using bait-and-switch tactics to lure the public into believing that by outsourcing Amtrak jobs, they will reduce government waste. In reality, notes the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department ( TTD ):

these lawmakers will hurt transportation safety while taking your tax dollars and subsidizing corporations.

“Something is changing in America,” AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told delegates to the Washington State Labor Council’s (WSLC's) convention .

The pieces are coming together and the picture is getting clear. We will change America. But we won’t do it alone. As mighty as our labor movement is—and here in Washington you are a powerful force—we cannot do it alone.

This Saturday, Aug. 11, join thousands of working families who are coming together in Philadelphia in the first major action of the Workers Stand for America campaign, the centerpiece of which is America’s Second Bill of Rights :

• Full employment and a living wage.
• Full participation in the political process.
• A voice at work.
• A quality education for all.
• A secure and healthy future.

The phrase “trickle-down” economics has always been ripe for derision. Not only because it  doesn’t work —the idea that if we ply the rich with more money from taxpayers’ pockets some eventually will “trickle down” in the form of jobs and prosperity is a myth. But also because, let’s face it, “trickle down” conjures up a variety of images we won’t mention here.

Now, cartoonist Mark Fiore has created an  animated video , “Once Upon a Trickle Down,” that puts the entire corporate/Republican-backed theory and its effects into an easy-to-understand children’s rhyme. Here’s a taste: