The AFT has been a partner in helping revitalize McDowell County, W.Va., for more than a year now, and those efforts are paying major dividends for the local education system. On Wednesday, the West Virginia Board of Education unanimously approved a community schools plan for McDowell County Public Schools. In a separate vote, the state board also voted to return the county's schools to local control. The board had taken control of the schools in an attempt to save them from the poor conditions the county was experiencing.

I can’t remember how old I was before I knew my father was undocumented. By the time I was 5 or 6, my father’s long and arduous journey from Michoacán, Mexico, to our small American town of Redwood City, Calif., had already become part of our family lore. I heard how hard and exhausting it was for him, as a young boy and then a teen, to have to work every day picking cotton, strawberries and grapes in 100-degree heat. His stories captured my imagination when I considered how hard he worked and how far he had come to make a better life for himself.

Union members in Swampscott, Mass., this week showed just how grassroots democracy works when a coalition of unions from the North Shore Labor Council mobilized to turn back an attack on public employees’ health care and retirement security.

Tomorrow is the final day of the Letter Carriers' (NALC) 21st annual "Stamp Out Hunger" Food Drive. It is the largest annual food collection day in the United States. In 2012, the drive collected more than 70 million pounds of food, and it has collected nearly 1.2 billion pounds of food since it began in 1993.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO hosted the first Youth Economic Forum in its Washington, D.C., headquarters. Young leaders in the labor movement gathered with leaders of youth organizations to discuss ways to improve the economic reality faced by the millennial workforce. The goal of the forum is to produce a shared economic policy platform for the millennial generation.

Income inequality is the defining issue of our time, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told a group of young progressive activists at the AFL-CIO headquarters yesterday. Ellison joined a panel of distinguished guests that included AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler, Rep. Kevin Killer (D-S.D.), Special Assistant to the President for Labor and Workforce Policy Portia Wu and Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) Gregory Cendana, at the Youth Economic Policy Forum (YEPF) hosted by the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., Wednesday.

A stunning 73.4 million young workers are estimated to be jobless in 2013, an increase of 3.5 million between 2007 and 2013, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO) report released Wednesday. Even worse, the number of unemployed young workers is likely to increase through 2018, with the long-term impact felt for decades, the report forecasts.

By a near party-line vote, the House yesterday approved a bill, pushed by Republican leadership, that if it ever became law, would mean many workers would work more hours for less pay. By a 223-204 vote, the House passed the so-called Working Families Flexibility Act (H.R. 1406).

In a perfect gift for mothers, just short of Mother's Day, House Republicans have once again introduced legislation with a charming title and a potentially devastating impact for working women and families. According to the bill's sponsors, the "Working Families Flexibility Act," or H.R. 1406, would give employees the "freedom" to determine work schedules and time off. In reality, this bill would provide more work and less pay.

New York City workers will receive, starting next year, five paid sick days a year to care for themselves or an ill family member under a measure the New York City Council passed (45-3) this afternoon. The vote culminates a four-year effort by a powerful coalition of workers, unions and community groups.