Teresa Casertano in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department sends us this report.

As tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents rally and march across the state tomorrow for the fourth weekend in a row, they will receive support from union members in Berlin who are holding a solidarity rally. Members of the German telecommunications union, ver.di, will turn out to to support bargaining rights for workers in the United States. They know that collective bargaining is not possible unless workers are able to join unions and participate in their own organizations free from the fear of reprisals by their employers.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), writes at the  Huffington Post about how the struggles in the Midwest and around the country have exposed the fact that there are two Americas: one where the rich get bailouts and bonuses and the rest of us get our benefits slashed and gutted.

In one of the biggest union elections in recent years, more than 40,000 transportation security officers (TSOs) at 450 of the nation’s airports began voting Wednesday on whether to join a union. After 10 years, the TSOs finally gained the right to bargain and working people around the country are now urging the officers to vote for AFGE.

The problems facing working women extend across national boundaries, and today, International Women’s Day, women organizers on opposite sides of the world shared ideas and inspiration. In a live teleconference, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and four young women organizers in the United States talked with a roomful of women organizers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shuler began by saying:

With the global jobs crisis increasing unemployment…young workers, young women workers entering the workforce struggle to find decent work. Given the challenges facing young women workers around the world, the AFL-CIO, ITUC [International Trade Union Confederation] and [the South African trade union federations] hope to use International Women’s Day as a way to shine a spotlight on the important role unions can play in the lives of young women workers.

In recognition of International Women’s Day, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and unions around the world are standing in solidarity with the women of T-Mobile USA. As part of  the global campaign, CWA is collecting messages of strength and support on its website and Facebook page—messages to encourage them as they go to work each day under harsh and unfair conditions.

Members of the UAW ratified a new six-year contract with Caterpillar Inc. covering 9,500 workers at plants in Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Workers from the front lines of the corporate-led assault on America’s middle class, including working people from Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow to describe their struggles to keep their bargaining rights so they can bargain for a middle-class life.

Rosa Blumenfeld, an organizer at the Greater Boston Labor Council (GBLC), sends us this report.

What do you hear from your friends, family and fellow workers when you say the word “union”? What can we do, as young people, in the Boston area to create change? How do we talk to our co-workers about the union? How do we move them to take action for social and economic justice?

After many months of bargaining, UNITEHERE! and Hilton Worldwide have reached tentative agreements at hotels in three major markets—Chicago, San Francisco and Honolulu. The tentative agreements cover nearly 4,000 workers.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate bargaining rights for public employees is “blatantly un-American” and “jeopardizes the viability of the people during these tough economic times,”  say Reps. Emanuel Cleaver  (D-Mo.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.).