With the barrage of orchestrated extremist attacks on public employees, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reminds us today of a study it commissioned last year that disproves one of the biggest lies by anti-workers–that public employee make excessive pay.  In short, public employees are paid less than private-sector workers, even when factoring in employer-provided benefits.

The new year started with better but not great news on the jobs front. The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Labor released this morning show that unemployment dropped from 9.8 percent in November to 9.4 percent in December.

In this cross-post from http://robertreich.org/, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich shames those who attack public employees and questions why Republicans never include the richest people in America when they talk about sacrifice?

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released numbers that should make any deficit-fearing Republican stop dead on his or her way to vote to repeal health care reform.

Last fall, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) conducted a 12-city “Keep it Made in America” town hall tour that brought candidates and voters together to talk about the tough issues revolving around reviving American manufacturing, lowering unemployment and getting the U.S. economy back on track.

Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican.

Here’s something that certainly isn’t going to be highlighted when Republicans begin their let-no-facts-get-in-the-way show trial of health care reform. Small business owners say the Affordable Care Act will spur them to provide health insurance for their workers.

New Republican governors, old right-wing radio windbags, Fox News and extremist hacks continue to stoke the noise machine that’s belching blather about public employees.

When the Apollo Alliance released its Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) in October (click here for detailed coverage) one of its key job-creating recommendations was ensuring that American manufacturers and U.S. workers supply the rail cars, tracks and other mass transit equipment to modernize the nation’s mass transportation system.

Happy New Year from the 12 million members of the AFL-CIO.

I wish all the best for you and your family, for our unions and for our nation in 2011. And I know you share that wish.