Check out the heartbreaking story of some of the many workplace deaths where companies are found liable and penalties are issued but never collected as corporations game the bankruptcy system, lawyers aggressively fight and, sometimes, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fails to follow through. Peg Seminario, director of safety and health at the AFL-CIO, is quoted in the article. 

Read Even After Workplace Deaths, Companies Avoid OSHA Penalties.

Just in time for yesterday's celebration of International Migrants Day, a federal court jury ruled on Monday that Universal Placement International of Los Angeles and its owner, Lourdes Navarro, must pay $4.5 million to 350 Filipino teachers who were forced into exploitative contracts. According to the AFT, the Filipino teachers were brought to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and taught in public schools under H-1B guest worker program. This became the first positive jury verdict in a federal labor trafficking case brought forth by workers (as opposed to the government) involving workers who are not domestic workers. It is a clear example that workers can fight back against corporate greed and that when allies join forces on behalf of working families, victories can be achieved.

Money that was intended for employee pensions was used by Hostess Brands management to cover operating expenses and workers were never compensated for the lost payment, Yahoo News reports. An undetermined amount of money that Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Miller (BCTGM) members were supposed to receive as part of their contract with the company was used to keep the company running after mismanagement led to significant losses and eventual bankruptcy.

A group of corporate CEOs, known as the Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition, sent a letter to Congress asking for the corporate tax rate to be lowered. CEOs from 17 of the largest U.S. companies say, in the letter, that the corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest of any industrialized nation and that it leaves American companies unable to compete.

More than 100,000 American consumers signed a petition asking Macy's Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren to drop out of the "Fix the Debt" Coalition. Fix the Debt portrays itself as dedicated to lowering the national debt, when the reality is that it is lobbying to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and give more tax breaks to the wealthiest 2%. The consumers are part of Progressive Congress, the nonprofit foundation of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or CREDO, a progressive activist organization.

The Yahoo Finance show "The Daily Ticker" uses its latest episode to lay out the case for why labor unions are important, particularly in the current economy. Really. The show isn't exactly pro-working families—and it runs through a litany of false and misleading attacks on unions—but the hosts, Aaron Task and Henry Blodget, argue that owners and management have gone too far in accumulating wealth and power and it's important for unions to counter-balance that. They argue that not only are growing inequality and exploitation of workers bad for society, they're bad for business.

A new study of proposals from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) shows that policies the organization promotes do more to harm the economy than help it, despite the claims of the group's lead researcher and author, Arthur Laffer. States that are highly rated in ALEC's annual Rich States, Poor States report actually do worse economically than states ALEC rates poorly, according to Selling Snake Oil to the States, by Good Jobs First.

Attention "Unionmade": We're not flattered by imitation.

What happens when a company that acknowledges its clothing is not union-made names itself "Unionmade" anyway? Count on union members proud of their reputation for quality work to say "Give it up." In a  letter  Thursday, the AFL-CIO demanded that the apparel company Unionmade—which also has a logo suspiciously like the historic AFL-CIO “handshake” logo—stop its trademark infringement and unfair competition.

While Hostess Brands Inc. is shedding 18,000 of its workers' jobs, top level executives who ran the company into the ground are asking for bonus pay to the tune of $1.8 million. 

In April 2010, 29 mine workers were killed in an explosion in what's known as the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in Raleigh County, W. Va. Today, federal prosecutors charged Massey Energy mine manager David C. Hughart with covering up defiance of safety regulations and resulting dangerous conditions from government inspectors. The Charleston Gazette reports that this is the "first time in their probe of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster that prosecutors have filed charges alleging Massey officials engaged in a scheme that went beyond the Raleigh County mine...."