Not everything is OK in Oklahoma and as far as Sooner State working families are concerned, that includes the extremist and corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  This afternoon hundreds of union and community activists will join the Fire Fighters (IAFF) for a rally and march in Oklahoma City to ALEC’s annual meeting at the city’s Cox Convention Center.

A live stream of the rally, which will include IAFF President Harold Schaitberger, will begin at 4 p.m. (CDT).  

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that two Missouri paycheck deception bills are not necessary to protect workers and they would limit the free speech and political spending of unions and organized workers, while allowing unlimited corporate spending on political causes. 

Despite testimony overwhelmingly opposing the bill and universal opposition from the committee's Democrats, the Missouri legislature's House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee passed S.B. 29, a paycheck deception bill, which is now headed to the House floor. Missouri working families went door to door last week to tell their neighbors about the problems with the bill, held numerous public rallies in opposition and flooded the Capitol with thousands of emails, letters and phone calls telling legislators to oppose the bill, which shut state workers out of the political conversation in Missouri.

Earlier this week, we told you that a coalition of unions and community groups were able to move a paid sick leave bill to near fruition in New York City, while we also brought you a column by Ellen Bravo, director of Family Values @ Work, that explored the momentum behind the growing paid sick leave drive in cities across the country.

Chalk one up for Arizona’s workers and put another black mark up for state legislators obsessed with attacking workers and their unions for their corporate sponsors. A federal judge yesterday ruled 2011 laws on paycheck deception and restricting workers’ right to picket were unconstitutional.

Corporate-backed and extremist Missouri lawmakers are continuing their attacks on workers with hearings on a paycheck deception bill. In front of a Senate committee this morning, according to AFSCME Council 72, which is tweeting the hearing, witnesses told lawmakers the bill is part of a nationally driven agenda to “silence workers.”

Clark Brown of @seiu against #sb29: this is nationally driven agenda by corporate CEOs. This is about silencing workers. #moleg

— Missouri AFSCME (@MOAFSCME) April 3, 2013

A new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) shows that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is engaged in a widespread campaign to suppress the wages of already low-wage workers. ALEC has created model legislation that is designed to weaken or repeal state minimum wage laws, reduce minimum wages for young workers and tipped workers, weaken overtime compensation rules and stop local governments from passing living wage ordinances.

Last week we told you that paycheck deception and other anti-worker legislation formulated in the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC's) corporate-backed laboratories were moving in the Missouri legislature. Now paycheck deception is close to a Senate vote, and the Missouri AFL-CIO is urging Show-Me State voters to call their state senators—1-888-907-9711—and urge them to oppose S.B. 29.

A new voter ID law threatened to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters who are mostly people of color in South Carolina last year. Florida officials tried to curtail early voting that could have kept African Americans and others from the polls. Texas went for a twofer in voter suppression with a restrictive voter ID bill and a redistricting plan that put the voting rights of millions of African Americans and Latinos at risk.

Thanks to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the federal government was able to step in and preserve the people’s right to vote. But now the same forces behind the nationwide voter suppression effort are looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to repeal Section 5 and arguments begin Wednesday.

It was no charming third time for former New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R) as the state House of Representatives decisively defeated (212-141) a "right to work" for less bill sponsored by O’Brien who no longer holds the speaker’s post.  

New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie called today’s vote “a strong rebuttal of ex-Speaker O'Brien's attacks on the middle class.” O’Brien championed the anti-worker measure in the past two sessions only to see it die both times.