Faced with a misleading, anti-union media report and continuing attacks by a right-wing foundation against Trade Adjustment Assistance, union activists in Seattle are defending the program as a productive and worthwhile effort to help small businesses build their exports and assist displaced workers obtain career counseling, retraining and extended health care benefits during their job search.

Senate Republicans who nearly worship at the feet of free trade agreements—to heck with their devastating impact on U.S. workers—boycotted an opportunity to move the most recent free trade holy trinity of South Korea, Colombia and Panama deals closer to a vote.

Until Congress acts on renewing an enhanced Trade Adjustment Assistance Act (TAA) for workers who have lost their jobs because of outsourcing, offshoring and unfair trade deals, the Obama administration will not submit three pending trade deals to Congress, the White House announced yesterday.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told tens of thousands of workers that if they lose their jobs because of unfair trade practices tough luck, just pull yourselves up by your Chinese-made bootstraps.

The House leadership continues to show its “blatant lack of concern for American workers who have lost their jobs because of unfair trade deals,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today. In the latest bold move against working people, House leaders abruptly refused to schedule a vote yesterday on extending expiring Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs.

Last week, we highlighted a move by House Republicans who are so incensed at the word “labor”—because some folks might complete the phrase with the word “union”—that they ripped out the word “labor” from the name of the House Education and Labor Committee.