AFSCME President Lee Saunders finds some dangerous parallels between the crushing austerity measures that have “left the Greek economy dangling on a ledge, threatening to prolong the recession and sending unemployment skyrocketing,” and Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) economic prescription for Wisconsin. In a column at The Huffington Post, Saunders writes:

She said she’d get a Mohawk. She got a Mohawk.

“I’m sporting a new ‘do,’” says Alice Phillips, business manager for Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 483 of Tacoma, Wash. “It feels…light. It’s different.”

The shaved head and spiked hair came about because Phillips wanted her union local to double last year’s donation of union-made peanut butter as part of the Letter Carriers’ (NALC's) National Food Drive. The 21st annual drive to combat hunger is the nation’s largest single-day food drive and is held annually on the second Saturday in May in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 2012, letter carriers collected 70 million pounds of food donations along their postal routes.

Penny Pritzker is President Obama’s nominee to be the next secretary of commerce. She is also a longtime member of the board of directors of the Hyatt hotel chain and heir to the Hyatt fortune. But her nearly decade-long record on the board, says UNITE HERE President D. Taylor, shows why the U.S. Senate should not confirm her. In a letter to Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Taylor writes: 

Under her leadership, Hyatt has exhibited a broad pattern of labor abuses, including aggressive outsourcing, low wages and the mistreatment of housekeepers. Together these practices single out Hyatt as the worst hotel employer in the United States.

Homeowners supported by the Home Defenders League (HDL) and Occupy Our Homes participated in a third day of protest Wednesday, this time at the law firm Covington & Burling, which represents several major U.S. banks and is the former workplace of Attorney General Eric Holder, a key target of the week's protests. Eight more protesters were arrested, bringing the total for the three days to 34. A message on the HDL Facebook page Thursday said that all of those arrested were released and will not face charges stemming from the protests.

After the Chicago Board of Education approved a proposal from Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) to close 50 of the city's public schools, the Chicago Teachers Union vowed to take legal action to stop the closures and to challenge supporters of the mayor's plan with grassroots mobilization. The closures come despite widespread opposition to the plan and five days of rallies, sit-ins and other efforts.

New technologies and social media are increasingly important and effective ways to communicate and they can open doors for the labor movement to build stronger relationships with the Latino community. But, says Elianne Ramos, there are several key points to keep in mind when using tech to reach Latino workers—the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. workforce—and the community.

In the third of the AFL-CIO's series of live online discussions on how we build the movement for the future of working people, Ramos, principal and CEO of Speak Hispanic Communications and vice-chair of communications and PR for Latinos in Social Media (LATISM), outlines several of those points.

The fight over President Obama’s five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is headed to the U.S. Senate floor after the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee voted today to send the five to the full Senate. Now the question is, will Senate Republicans filibuster?

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.

Carmen Castillo is a UNITE HERE union steward, immigrant and 19-year veteran hotel housekeeper. In November 2011, the single mother of three from the Dominican Republic won election to the Providence, R.I., City Council. Since then filmmaker Margo Guernsey and her crew have been following Castillo at home, work, on the council and in the community.

Over the weekend, young people watched or read about President Obama speaking at Morehouse College and first lady Michelle Obama addressing the graduates of Bowie State University. Hopefully they were inspired by seeing so many young and gifted people finishing the course they chose to follow. Well, here is a little known set of facts.