The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional “is only beginning of the next phase of health care reform,” said the AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement from its August meeting in Washington, D.C., this week.

The path forward should be clear: First, we must move full speed ahead to implement the ACA; second, we must firmly reject efforts to undo the progress that already has been made with the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare; and third, we must build upon the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare to achieve our goal of quality health care for all.

House Republicans shed crocodile tears about the deficit in the same breath they cast votes for legislation like the Ryan budget plan, which asks the poor to pay for deficit reduction. The Ryan budget ends Medicare as we know it, guts low-income programs and gives millionaires another tax cut they don’t need.

As much as the GOP claims they are the party willing to tackle the deficit (mainly by gutting federal programs), the House Republicans voted 33 times to increase the deficit. That’s right: 33.

The nearly 100,000 members of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and Kaiser Permanente reached agreement Monday, July 23, on a three-year national contract. The pact covers workers in 28 unions at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente health care facilities in nine states.

This is from the Occupational Health Branch (OHB), California Department of Public Health's newsletter by Barbara Materna, chief of OHB. 

The AFL-CIO, several unions, employer groups and a number of large corporations—all major purchasers of health care benefits—are working together to bring down the cost of health care and improve quality through a new Buying Value initiative. The goal is to change the way health benefits are purchased, away from volume to value.

This is a cross-post from Huffington Post by Harold Schaitberger, general president of  the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). 

There's an oft repeated myth being fed by many that claims the defined benefit pension plans available to most public employees are going bankrupt.

While a new report by the Pew Center for the States feeds those myths, Pew's research paints a false picture of pensions. Here are five oft-peddled myths about public pensions followed by the facts.

BP is slated to pay a hefty fine for willful violations of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) process safety management standard at its refinery in Texas City, Texas: $13,027,000.

New York’s Consolidated Edison Power Co. made $1 billion in 2011 profits and its CEO Kevin Burke raked in a nearly 40 percent pay hike over the past several years, making it “hypocritical and inhumane for Con Ed to propose cuts in employee health care and retirement benefits,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Con Ed locked out some 8,500 workers after contract negotiations stalled July 1. The power company wants to replace pensions with a 401(k)-type savings plan. After locking out the workers, members of Utility Workers UWUA Local 1-2, Burke cut off health care for all of them.

The number of new jobs rose by 80,000 in June and the unemployment rate stayed at 8.2 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out this morning. The boost in jobs is less than the 100,000 needed per month to keep up with the growing workforce, and far short of what’s needed to replenish the millions of jobs that have never been regained since the recession’s onset.

Private employment, which excludes government agencies, increased by 84,000 in June, the weakest in 10 months. In fact, the number of those working for public-sector jobs decreased by 4,000.

According to a Cornell University study of janitors and security guards, when service sector jobs are outsourced, even within the United States, workers in those jobs are paid lower wages and receive fewer health benefits.