Thousands of hotel workers protested Thursday at Hyatt hotels in nine cities. UNITEHERE! says Hyatt is abusing housekeepers by cutting jobs, replacing experienced employees with minimum wage temporary workers and imposing dangerous workloads on the remaining housekeepers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced support for President Obama’s plan to nominate Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, currently is chief of enforcement at the CFPB.

In a 40-57 vote, the U.S. Senate rejected the budget passed by House Republicans. The budget would have replaced Medicare’s guaranteed health care funding for seniors with underfunded vouchers for private insurance, forcing a typical 65-year-old to spend $6,359 more a year in out-of-pocket costs by 2022. It also would have made drastic cuts to services for children and working families to pay for tax cuts that mostly would benefit corporations and the wealthy.

In New York City, Wall Street profits are skyscraper high again, real-estate developers and companies are receiving billions in public subsidies and yet a record number of full-time working New Yorkers are relying on food stamps and emergency food assistance because they do not earn enough to support themselves or their families.

Education cuts made last year by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) were so large that the state Supreme Court today ruled they violated the state’s constitutional requirement to provide a “thorough and efficient system of free public schools.”

In a race seen as a referendum on the House Republican budget plan to replace Medicare  with underfunded vouchers for private insurance, Democrat Kathy Hochul was declared the winner in Tuesday’s special election for the vacant seat in a heavily Republican congressional district in upstate New York. Hochul slammed the proposal to end Medicare as we know it during the campaign, while her opponent Jane Corwin supported it.

Talking Points Memo has interesting background on the Fitzgerald brothers, who head up the Wisconsin state Senate and Assembly.

The Wisconsin state assembly has passed the measure approved by the Senate in the dead of night last night robbing public employees of their right to bargain for good, middle-class jobs. Gov. Scott Walker said earlier he would sign the bill promptly.

Don’t let this outrage spread to other states. Take action now.

Police are expected to begin arrests in less than a half hour at the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison, following Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) order to clear the building. A group including clergy have pledged to take arrest peacefully rather than leave. Watch a live video stream here and follow breaking developments on Twitter. The AFL-CIO’s Eddie Vale on the ground in Madison says as the arrests take place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech, in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers, will be playing.

“No person should have to face the loss of their rights or the loss of their jobs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today on NBC’s Meet the Press. His remarks came in response to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) threat to begin laying off public employees if he doesn’t get his way on a sham budget bill that would strip away collective bargaining rights.