McDonnell, Scott Move the Right Way on Medicaid is a cross-post from Working America's Main Street blog. 

Over the past week, we’ve had a big and welcome surprise. Two of the loudest opponents to ensuring more people get health care coverage through Medicaid have been Virginia’s Gov. Bob McDonnell and Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott. Now, both have moved—grudgingly—in the direction of accepting the Medicaid funds allocated to states.

You can help save more than 250 good, family-sustaining United Steelworkers (USW) refinery jobs, along with more than 2,000 other related jobs, by signing a USW petition urging state and local officials to work with Tesoro Corp. to find a buyer for its Kapolei, Hawaii, refinery.

The company announced earlier this year that it planned to close the refinery in Oahu, where the USW represents some 250 production and maintenance workers. Click here to sign the petition.

If New Hampshire’s lawmakers are “serious about encouraging New Hampshire's economic development, they will consider re-establishing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation,” writes New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie in a column on SeaCoastOnline, a website for several state newspapers. 

In 2011, Republican legislators repealed the state’s minimum wage law. Rep. Carol McGuire (R) went so far as to suggest that there should be no wage floor at all and if an employer wanted to pay $5 an hour that was just fine with her.

The nation’s broken immigration system is creating a crisis for workers and employers in the Texas construction industry. A new study by the Workers Defense Project (WDP) and the University of Texas finds that as many as half of the Lone Star State’s construction workers may be undocumented. Says WDP Executive Director Cristina Tzintzun:

Our immigration policies are broken. They’re not working for businesses, they’re not working for our workers and they’re not working for our state.

The recently opened Chobani yogurt plant—the world’s largest—in Twin Falls, Idaho, and several major construction projects—including a new steel mill—in the Youngstown, Ohio, area have been a boon for the skilled Electrical Workers (IBEW) members there who have been a blessing for the construction managers tasked with getting the jobs done quickly and efficiently.

Of all the reasons a path to citizenship is vital for our nation's 11 million aspiring citizens, one powerful reason stands out: It's the right thing to do. Check out this great new video from Seattle, where DREAMer Elizabeth Lara explains why she's excited to become a citizen. Lara was joined by union members and community leaders who gathered to support comprehensive, commonsense immigration reform this week. 

Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed a bill Tuesday that will make life much harder for North Carolina's unemployed workers. Beginning July 1, new claims will be reduced from $535 to $350 as the maximum benefit per week. And while current recipients can get unemployment insurance payments for 26 weeks, that number will be cut to a maximum of somewhere between 12 to 20 weeks, the duration varying depending upon the state's unemployment rate. If the maximum fell below 19 weeks, North Carolina would offer the lowest maximum number of weeks in the country. The bill also rejects extra benefits allowed under federal law, which means that 170,000 residents will lose $780 million in current weekly payments.

Voters from across the state of Missouri wrote letters to their state senators this week, urging them to reject "right to work" for less and paycheck deception legislation. Both proposals are currently before the state's General Assembly.

By the end of 2013, Latinos will make up 40% of California's population. By the end of 2050, that number will rise to 48%. The growing Latino and immigrant communities in California are changing the way Californians view immigration reform, New York Times' Jennifer Medina writes. In a state where, a generation ago, voters passed what is considered one of the most anti-immigrant ballot initiatives, recent polls show a dramatic shift in perception of aspiring Americans. Californians now say that "immigrants are a benefit to the state, according to public opinion polls from the Public Policy Institute of California."

Georgia's working families, including the Georgia AFL-CIO and the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council, joined several lawmakers at the state Capitol today to present a resolution that supports a pathway to citizenship for 11 million aspiring Americans.