Former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Peter Schaumber, involved in an ethics probe by the board’s inspector general, no longer is an adviser to presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a report in The Hill.

“It’s hardly a coincidence that Schaumber resigned from the Romney campaign the same time that his inside source at the board was notified he was being investigated,” says AFL-CIO spokesperson Alison Omens.

This week’s reports from The New York Times that found “credible evidence that bribery played a persistent and significant role in Wal-Mart’s rapid growth in Mexico” are breathtaking, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a Huffington Post column. 

Nothing like this has happened since the collapse of Enron and Worldcom in 2002. And Wal-Mart is, of course, a more important company than either Enron or Worldcom. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States.

A Los Angeles Times column today echoes the AFL-CIO's call to increase Social Security benefits and shut down talk of benefit cuts.

Mark Ayers, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) and an AFL-CIO vice president, passed away yesterday morning. Prior to his election in 2007, Ayers served as the director of the Construction and Maintenance Department of the Electrical Workers (IBEW). A U.S. Navy veteran, Ayers also chaired the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council.

The U.S. economy added 120,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.2 percent, according to the Labor Department report released this morning. Economists had predicted stronger job growth, in line with recent months when 200,000 or more jobs were created.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the report of the National Labor Relations Board’s inspector general into allegations of improper conduct by NLRB member Terence Flynn “confirms a pattern of ethical violations that are nothing less than shocking.” Flynn should resign immediately and possibly face criminal charges, he said. The report also indicates an adviser to presidential candidate Mitt Romney used his connections to Flynn to obtain information to fuel attacks on the NLRB.

The federal budget proposal President Obama introduced today “puts us on the right path towards building a solid foundation for our economic future,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address tonight made clear that he hears the people who aren’t being heard by the 1%, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Obama’s speech showed he “listened to the single mom working two jobs to get by, to the out-of-work construction worker, to the retired factory worker, to the student serving coffee to help pay for college.”

Today is the second anniversary of Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down restrictions on independent campaign spending by business corporations and their supporters.

The 72-page report, issued yesterday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, makes many solid suggestions for how to address our nation’s jobs crisis, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. But Trumka says the fundamental focus is so flawed that, as a member of the council, he issued a dissent to the report.