Apprentices develop, and experienced workers refresh, skills at the International Union of Operating Engineers' state-of-the-art training center in Wilmington, Ill. The Local 150 center houses classrooms, testing labs, welding facilities, an equipment simulator lab and an indoor training arena large enough for 18 pieces of equipment to be used simultaneously.

In this video, meet the apprentices who now hold a promising future and the employers eager to receive a trained workforce.

An Atlanta TV station’s investigative report uncovered a Paulding County construction company’s efforts to circumvent federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws and then, when caught by the U.S. Department of Labor again, attempt to avoid paying workers a fair wage for their work by changing their job descriptions to lower-paying classifications.

Laura Bliss-Morris of the Union Sportsmen's Alliance sends us this report.

As part of a Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA) Boots on the Ground project, volunteers from Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 30 helped put the finishing touches on a new facility that will host youth educational programs at the Torstenson Family Youth Conservation Education Center.

Earlier this year, in our AFL-CIO website’s Innovators section, we profiled the work Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 49 in Minneapolis is doing to reduce health care costs and improve health care delivery for the union’s 12,000 members and 21,000 dependents. This week, MSNBC’s "The Dylan Ratigan Show" put the union’s work in the national spotlight.

James Callahan, general president of the Operating Engineers (IUOE), and DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), were elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning at the council’s annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Whether you’re a regular reader of AFL-CIO Now or a first time visitor, we certainly hope you’ll find our blogs and those from a growing number of outside contributors to be informative, helpful and sometimes even entertaining. But we also want to encourage you to click around the newly revamped AFL-CIO website, especially two new sections that highlight the innovations union members and unions are bringing to their jobs and communities and their work in their communities, from helping those in need to working in partnerships for economic justice.

On this week’s episode of “Brotherhood Outdoors,” Jesse Mondragon, a member of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 564 in Richwood, Texas heads to Montana’s Northern Rockies for a whitetail deer hunt in Paradise Valley, just north of Yellowstone National Park.

Operating Engineers (IUOE) General Counsel Richard Griffin is among the three new members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) President Obama will appoint through recess appointments, the White House announced.

AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends us this report.

More than 90 children received school supply bags through donations of union members in 10 locals from Saginaw County, Mich. AFL-CIO/Michigan Community Services liaison Steven Lamb reports that earlier this month, the unions gave the school supply bags to the YMCA, First Ward Community Center, Salvation Army and the Neighborhood House to distribute to area school children.

AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer reports on the flood relief efforts unions are mounting in Montana.

Montana has been hit hard by a series of recent severe storms coupled with runoff from mountain snow melt. The combination has caused serious flooding across the state. Forty-eight of the state’s 56 counties have declared flood emergencies and federal disaster declarations have been issued for 31 counties, plus four American Indian reservations.