Apple (like many giant, multinational corporations) has been avoiding paying the taxes they owe to the country by setting up foreign “subsidiaries” in tax-haven countries and moving jobs and profit centers out of the country. They have accumulated billions upon billions of dollars in these tax havens. Now they want a special tax break to reward them for doing that.

Check out the AFL-CIO's new Innovators website feature, " Ironworkers Tap for Savings ."

Steve Lehmann used to drive hundreds of miles each week shuttling around paperwork; now he flips back the cover of his iPad.

“Sometimes I’d drive an hour and 45 minutes from the office to the job site, then go back and forth with new blueprints,” Lehmann says. “That’s just a lot of time.”

Lehmann, an ironworker working as a project manager at Bennett Steel Inc. in Sapulpa, Okla., can access updated sets of blueprints or revised drawings on his tablet through a handful of apps—a big change in how paperwork is handled in the construction industry.

At a time of economic turmoil and austerity measures in many countries, Brazil is getting deserved recognition for its successes in lifting nearly 40 million of its citizens out of extreme poverty over the past 10 years while fostering economic expansion for the nation.

A well-attended brown bag discussion at the AFL-CIO this week provided background on Brazil’s transformation, insights about the work needed to continue improving conditions for Brazilian workers and unions and food for thought about the examples Brazil has set for the United States and the world.

As we've written here , Apple's record-breaking success in selling iPhones, iPads and iPods have come at a terrible cost .Take a minute to sign our petition to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. Tell him to ensure that people integral to Apple’s success—workers who manufacture Apple’s  electronics—are treated fairly.

Outraged at the inhumane treatment of workers in China who make iPads, iPhones and other Apple products, protesters visited a half-dozen Apple stores around the world yesterday to deliver petitions calling for reforms in the working conditions at factories run by Apple’s suppliers, accroding to Democracy Now !

More horrors out now from the Chinese serf-labor system involved in creating Apple products like iPads and iPhones. It turns out many of the workers churning out millions of the devices in unendurable conditions at Foxconn and other factories are also forced laborers as young as 16.

Hours after Apple released its first quarter earnings, which showed a mind-blowing 44.7 percent profit , The New York Times published another in a series of articles illustrating some of the reasons behind Apple’s profit margin. Describing the conditions in which Chinese workers assemble iPhones, iPads and a panoply of Apple products, the report states :

A much-discussed  report in the Sunday New York Times on why iPhones are made in China highlights the transition of Apple guru Steve Jobs who, a few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, bragged it was “a machine that is made in America.” Today, millions of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Kindles are made in China sweatshops like Foxconn.

Stumping for president, Republican candidates have finally figured out that the public cares more about job creation than deficit reduction. But their solutions involve luring corporations back to this country from overseas by eliminating regulatory policies that could make working conditions here a lot more similar to those offshore. A recent Jon Stewart segment shows just what that would entail.