When you hear anyone from the big multinationals or Wall Street using the word “reform,” watch out! The way they use the word, it means give them more and We, the People, get less. They want to “reform” Social Security, “reform” Medicare and “reform” the income tax code. And now they want to “reform” the taxes corporations pay on money made outside the United States. It’s like “reforming” an oak tree with an ax.

My career is invested in the aerospace industry, so it was very sobering to me when the Federal Aviation Administration ordered that 787 airplanes be grounded.

Friends ask me to explain the situation— what lessons can we draw from the 787? Invariably, we start with "outsourcing."

We hear two views about the high-tech workforce.

On one hand, employers warn of a dire labor shortage. On the other, recent high-tech graduates can't find jobs. Many face crushing student loans that they may never pay off. Mid-career high-tech workers are steadily being let go. Discouraged mid-career workers take lower-paid service jobs after months of searching for a job as good as the one they lost.

Some 450 office clerical workers—members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 63—are back on the job this morning in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., after the ILWU and port employers reached a tentative agreement Tuesday night that will prevent the outsourcing of jobs.

We expect tonight’s debate will include more fantastical claims from Mitt Romney, and to inoculate you against “Romnesia,” we include some notes on the actual Romney-Ryan record. Despite Romney and Paul Ryan’s history of enthusiasm for outsourcing American jobs to China and elsewhere, they claim they would somehow be “tougher on China” than the Obama administration has been. We want to make sure you know about the real Romney-Ryan record on China before Romney tries to “etch-a-sketch” it away this evening.

Mitt Romney won’t come to “Bainport” and meet with the workers whose jobs are being shipped overseas by Sensata Technologies. Sensata is owned by outsourcing pioneer Bain Capital, where Romney was a founder and former CEO.

But Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) visited the tent city set up across the street from the Freeport, Ill., Sensata plant that will shut down as soon as the rest of the equipment follows the 170 middle-class jobs on the way to China—where Sensata workers earn about 99 cents an hour.

This new video from the United Steelworkers (USW) exposes how Mitt Romney and Bain Capital are profiting by selling out America's workers and shipping U.S. jobs to China.

In 2010, the Bain Capital-controlled Sensata Technologies bought Honeywell’s automotive onboard sensor business, including a Freeport, Ill., plant, where 170 workers were making a middle-class living. Says Tom Gaulrapp:

They came in and introduced the transition team, and the next bullet in the meeting was, “By the way, by the end of 2012 all the jobs in this plant will be moved to China.” 

More than 13,000 workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 13 Western and Midwestern states are fighting for a fair contract at CenturyLink. Their contract was set to expire at midnight on Oct. 6, but workers stayed on the job under a temporary extension while they try to win a fair contract.

The workers—customer service agents, network technicians, Internet support workers and others—voted earlier by 88% to authorize a strike if a fair contract cannot be reached.

Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R) portrays himself as a pickup truck-driving, Boston Bruins jersey-wearing friend of union workers and working families. He paints his opponent in the Senate race, Elizabeth Warren, as a woman who is an elitist college professor. Both points are untrue. 

Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka set the record straight on Brown and Warren in an address in Boston to New England union members and leaders that media and political observers are comparing to his 2008 speech on the role race played in some workers’ opposition to President Obama’s candidacy.

Michael Frank headed over to a rally in East Grand Forks, Minn., last night, one of many he’s taken part in over the past year. Frank, along with 1,300 other workers, was locked out of the American Crystal Sugar factory a year ago, and last night’s event was part of the workers’ ongoing efforts to urge the sugar beet processing company return to the bargaining table.

“They don’t want to sit down with us,” said Frank, a 33-year veteran with with company and currently day warehouse foreman. “We didn’t do anything to deserve this.”