We've all seen the charts. As union membership rates go down, so goes the middle class and people's ability to bargain for living wages and a voice on the job. 

David Madland and Karla Walter from the Center for American Progress (CAP) say, in Top 6 Policies to Help the Middle Class that Won’t Cost Taxpayers a Penny, that strengthening people's ability to organize unions and to bargain collectively will go a long way in rebuilding the middle class. 

The Healthy Families Act, a federal bill that would allow workers to earn seven paid sick days a year, was just introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Portland, Ore., was the most recent city to pass an ordinance granting workers earned paid sick leave. Will New York follow suit?

Visit the MomsRising/AFL-CIO blogger carnival. 

In most of the developed world, when people get sick or have a sick child, they take a sick day and take care of themselves and their families, keeping their co-workers, customers and clients safe. And they rest comfortably, knowing that getting sick won’t mean they can’t pay the rent or provide their children with needed school supplies. That’s the way it should be. In most of the advanced world, paid sick days are a right that protects working families, while at the same time boosting businesses and the economy.

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.”

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that in 1965, and African Americans still hear his quote ring.

A new report, Blacks in Unions: 2012, by the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education, finds that black workers are 19% more likely to be in unions than non-black workers. In the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas, African Americans are 42% more likely than non-blacks to be in unions.

On Wednesday, April 24, the AFL-CIO and MomsRising will be hosting a Twitter chat at 2 p.m. ET about earned paid sick leave. Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #WellnessWed. 

Check out this new video from Transport Workers (TWU) Local 555 that is seeking a fair contract with Southwest Airlines. Trends come and go, but integrity is forever. TWU members hope Southwest gets the message. 

Coming on the heels of the National Restaurant Association’s (NRA's) "lobby day" on Capitol Hill, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) announced the formation of Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment (RAISE). While the NRA represents and lobbies on behalf of the interests of some of the country’s largest chain restaurant corporations, RAISE is an alternative restaurant association made up of nearly 100 business owners across the country, advocating for the real needs of the industry, as well as the workers it employs.

Locked-out workers at American Crystal Sugar plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa will soon be returning to work after they ratified a contract late last week. The company locked out 1,300 workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), in August 2011.

The more than 14,000 waterfront workers at 15 East and Gulf Coast ports have ratified a new six-year master agreement between the Longshoremen (ILA) and the port employer group the United States Maritime Alliance.

When this article was written last Sunday, the hunger strike was on its third day and workers were set to be fired the following Monday and Tuesday, April 8 and 9.  As of today, the hunger strike has ended as planned and the Hilton Mission Valley hotel has not yet fired the workers, although that may still occur.

We are three days into a five-day hunger strike that was called to save the jobs of nine immigrant workers at the Hilton Mission Valley hotel in San Diego. I, along with six others, have refused to eat since Friday morning. The nine workers we are supporting [were] set to be fired on Monday, April 8, and Tuesday, April 9, because after they tried to organize a union, Evolution Hospitality decided to use E-Verify. This is a program that checks immigrants' documented status—a program that isn't even mandatory with the federal government.