As part of  Wednesday’s national day of action to repeal the sequester, “Building Unions,” a weekly radio show from the Connecticut AFL-CIO and Greater Hartford Central Labor Council will discuss sequestration, its impact on working families and the drive to repeal the across-the-board budget cuts.

The show airs from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on WATR 1320 AM. Click on the “Listen Live” button to stream the show that will feature Connecticut AFL-CIO President John Olsen, labor council President Peggy Buchanan and members of AFGE, AFT and the Machinists (IAM).

The technical workers at the Boeing Co.’s Northwest facilities have voted to approve a new four-year contract, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)/IFPTE Local 2001 announced Monday night.  

Last month, the technical workers narrowly voted to reject the tentative contract, while the professional workers unit of engineers approved their contract. This latest vote, said SPEEA, was on the same pact the technical workers previously rejected.  

Pointing to a New York City nanny who is undocumented and has spent years raising, nurturing and keeping other people’s children safe and attended today’s Senate immigration reform hearing, Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), told lawmakers:

If immigration reform doesn’t help Pat and domestic workers and undocumented moms throughout our country, then we can’t really call it reform….It’s time we make our immigration policy work for domestic workers.

All but one of the 22 workers at Brooklyn Cablevision, who the Communications Workers of America (CWA) says were illegally fired in January, are now back on the job, according to Erin Mahoney, organizing coordinator for CWA District 1.

Through emails, Facebook likes, petitions, rallies and other means, more than 100,000 people showed their support for the workers who have been attempting to negotiate a contract with Cablevision for more than a year. The workers vow they will continue to demand a fair contract.   

In Miami Gardens, Fla., last night union leaders, immigration activists and elected officials called for comprehensive immigration reform—including a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million aspiring citizens—in another in the series of actions that are part of the AFL-CIO’s immigration reform campaign. 

Dozens of Georgia union members urged their state lawmakers to block several anti-worker bills now before the state House and Senate in the Georgia AFL-CIO’s annual Lobby Day Thursday. At the same time, they celebrated the passage of a resolution that honors Hurricane Sandy relief workers from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 84 and Georgia Power who traveled to New Jersey and elsewhere to help repair and recovery efforts.

The safety issues the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uncovered in a July 2012 inspection of ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge, La., refinery are the same issues that are prevalent in many U.S. refineries, including those that were the sites of two fatal disasters, say the United Steelworkers (USW).

The former president of a Massey Energy subsidiary, who also served for 20 years in top positions throughout Massey, implicated former Massey CEO Donald Blankenship in a long-term scheme to hide mine safety violations from federal inspectors.

Holding out for ransom demands in the form of benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Senate Republicans today again refused to surrender their hostages—the nation’s economy and working families who will be hurt by the upcoming Republican sequester.

Republicans led the charge to defeat a Democratic plan that would have eliminated the across-the-board sequestration budget cuts for the remainder of 2013, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would cost 750,000 jobs.

More than 400 locked-out North Dakota American Crystal Sugar workers got some good news this week when the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled they were eligible to collect unemployment benefits. When the lockout began in August 2011, North Dakota Job Service ruled the workers were ineligible for the benefits.