A beat-up van pulls to a stop just up the road. A creaky screen door opens from the apartment at the end of the building. A young African American girl runs out toward the van, barely hanging onto a large gym bag that was obviously not meant for such a pint-sized carrier. The driver of the van, a middle-aged white man with glasses and a beard, throws the passenger door to the van open and the little girl tosses the bag onto the floor before climbing in. The apartment door, which had banged shut in the meantime, creaks open again as the girl’s mother waves goodbye.

“Be good. Have fun,” she tells her daughter.

“I’ll have her back by eight,” the driver replies, as the little girl shuts the van door and waves goodbye to her mom.

Last year, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) pulled a classic political flip-flop when he proclaimed that "right to work" for less legislation wasn’t on his agenda. But late last year, he spearheaded the drive to ram the anti-work bill through a lame-duck legislative session that shut out the public.

This morning, as the law went into effect, nearly 100 Michigan union and community activists demonstrated outside the Detroit Athletic Club where Snyder was the main speaker at its annual "Pancakes & Politics” breakfast, in an action organized by the coalition We Are Michigan.

Talk about quality, union-made work. 

When Cedar Point, an amusement park nestled on the banks of Ohio's Lake Erie, wanted to add to its stable of roller coasters a 4,164-foot monster called the GateKeeper, it turned to quality union labor to get the job done. The Sandusky Register reports that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), standing before the coaster's blue tracks, not only said he was proud that so much of its construction used labor from his home state of Ohio, but that it was union labor. 

A new study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) shows states that cut tax rates do worse in terms of economic growth than other states.  Numerous Republican governors have pushed for tax cuts under the premise that lower tax rates lead to greater economic growth, but the CBPP study concludes that this premise is wrong. 

With corporations and the wealthy pulling the strings and puppet politicians dancing on command, the outcome of battles in Congress and state legislatures over tax fairness is fairly predictable. But the North Carolina State AFL-CIO may have an answer. On April 15—Tax Day—the state federation is sponsoring a unique “Fair Fight” to stop state lawmakers from continuing to shift the tax burden of the Tar Heel State’s wealthiest and corporations onto middle- and low-income working families.

Chances are you may not have heard of tip theft. And if you have, it's probably not what you think. Tip theft is when restaurant owners and managers systematically steal restaurant and hotel workers hard-earned money. 

Check out this video from Rhode Island activists asking their state to pass legislation to end tip theft. 

Sign the petition: Pass the Bill to End Tip Theft in Rhode Island; and if you're in Rhode Island, call your state and local representatives. 

Earlier this year, it looked as if the Virginia Legislature was headed down the same anti-worker road several Republican-controlled legislatures have recently traveled when legislation was introduced in the state House and Senate that would reduce labor representation on the 29-member Virginia Workforce Council to just one person.  

Since 2010, right-wing governors and legislators have attacked workers’ rights across the Midwest. These attacks have come in different forms: from stripping public workers’ collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin to an all-out ban on fair share contracts in Michigan and Indiana.

In Missouri, extremist legislators and their corporate backers are taking a different tactic. They are pushing paycheck deception bills, which limit how union workers can make their voices heard in the political process.

In the largest minimum wage jump in the United States, the city of San Jose will increase the income for the lowest-wage workers to $10 per hour starting Monday. The increase passed with 59% of the vote in November. Ben Field, executive officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, and Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association, wrote for the Mercury News that economic analysis shows the increase will add $70 million to the city's economy, as consumers will have more money to spend on local businesses.

The Portland City Council approved unanimously a measure today to allow employees to earn paid sick time off.