There is a deep and personal reason AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is passionate about enacting immigration reform that provides a real pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants who call this country home. In a post today on Daily Kos , he writes:

When people use the word 'immigrant' like an epithet, I take it personally. I come from a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania’s coal country called Nemacolin. It was not easy when my family came to this country. My parents and grandparents fled poverty and war from different corners of Europe. 

Mike Hummell says the men and women who made the iconic baked goods at Hostess Brands’ Lenexa, Kan., plant turned out quality products and “it was something everyone who worked there had a lot of pride in.”

That was until  years of mismanagement  coupled with  unprecedented corporate greed  bankrupted the company, stole the  workers’ pensions  and closed dozens of bakery plants’ doors in November. In this video, Hummell, a 14-year veteran of Hostess, and other members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 218, say they want to set the record straight.    

This week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler joined Daily Kos GOTV (Get Out the Vote) Blogathon . 

The good folks at Daily Kos this week launched a new blog that will “focus on the issues of importance to working people.” The new Daily Kos Labor is managed by Laura Clawson, who you might remember from her time at Working America ’s Main Street blog.

Laura Clawson from Working America is now at Daily Kos writing full-time about issues key to working people. Here’s her latest on the involvement of former District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in limiting collective bargaining for Michigan teachers.

Education blogger At the Chalk Face has obtained an internal briefing document from Michelle Rhee’s Students First and makes clear just how extensively Students First collaborated with Michigan Republicans on four education bills targeting teachers, including one limiting collective bargaining. The 30-page PDF is available here .

During the height of the Wisconsin protests against Gov. Walker’s attacks on workers’ rights, chants of “the people, united, will never be defeated” pulsated through the Wisconsin state House. The shaking walls could be heard not just inside the Capitol, but for quite a distance outside. And thanks to the power of the Internet, they could be heard around the world.

Netroots Nation , the annual conference for online activists, is on next week, June 16-19, in Minneapolis. The union movement has a big presence there, as we seek to work more closely with our progressive allies in the netroots community. Here are some highlights:

• AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler is taking part in a June 17 lunch panel to talk about breaking down economic barriers that keep many Americans from moving ahead, especially young people, women and communities of color. She is joined by communications consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio and hip-hop artist Rha Goddess.