Workers at Sunny Day Car Wash in the Bronx, N.Y., who joined the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) last year, ratified a three-year contract this week. The pact mirrors the contract the workers made with another carwash in Queens less than two weeks ago.

Last week's debate in the special Senate election in Massachusetts shows a sharp contrast in the positions of the two candidates hoping to replace new Secretary of State John Kerry. Democrat Edward Markey and Republican Gabriel Gomez differ greatly on the rights of government workers. Markey gave a spirited defense of the collective bargaining rights of first responders and others who work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

Some 100 Chicago Sun-Times photographers who were abruptly fired last week, when the paper shuttered its entire 28-member photo department and their supporters, marched outside the Sun-Times building this morning to protest the paper’s “union-busting” and what they say was bad faith bargaining by the Sun-Times.

The photographers and photo editors the Chicago Sun-Times fired without warning last week, when it eliminated its entire photo department, will picket and rally outside the Sun-Times building tomorrow, June 6, 8–9 a.m. CDT. If you are in Chicago, you can join them at the intersection of Franklin and N. Orleans streets.

Last week in a 20-second meeting with Chicago Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief Jim Kirk, some 28 Sun-Times photographers and photo editors—the paper’s entire photo department—were told they were fired. 

Photographer John White, with 44 years at the paper, told Poynter Institute’s Kenneth Irby that the meeting was “intimidating” and said, “There was a toxic and unkind spirit in the office.”

Thousands of University of California patient care workers are back on the job today after a two-day strike at five UC medical centers demanding better patient care and safe staffing levels. Outside the centers, members of AFSCME Local 3299—the nurses, surgical and X-ray technicians, custodians, servers, cooks and others who keep one of the largest medical systems in the country running—chanted:  

What’s this about? Patient care! All day, all night—safe staffing is our fight.

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.

After 45 years of driving a cab in New York City, Beresford Simmons says the emergence of the National Taxi Workers Alliance in the past few years is helping his family and those of other drivers reach the middle class.

Simmons’ story is one of three illustrating that unions make the middle class strong, giving workers a voice in our economy, portrayed in a trio of new videos by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.

Locked-out workers at American Crystal Sugar plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa will soon be returning to work after they ratified a contract late last week. The company locked out 1,300 workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), in August 2011.