Working families across the United States are celebrating the historic bond of labor and civil rights as part of the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance.

In Philadelphia, working families came together and participated in an inauguration watch party for President Obama's second term. 

We know it’s hard to keep one resolution going, but we’re going to challenge you to take on two. Eating right is always a smart choice, but if you can buy union and eat right at the same time, you’re definitely on your way to promoting some positive changes. We’ve put together a list of some of the great healthy, union-made products that are out there. See our full product listing for more.

Filling the hall with her deep, warm and triumphant voice, Freedom Singer Rutha Harris led a conference room full of union members in song throughout a panel featuring the testimonies of women part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the critical forces of the Civil Rights movement that confronted racial segregation with nonviolent direct actions 

Who's the Boss? is a cross-post from Working America’s Dear David workplace advice column. David knows you deserve to be treated fairly on the job and he’s available to answer your questions, whether it is co-workers making off-handed comments that you should retire or you feel like your job's long hours are causing stress.

Question: 

I was on unemployment insurance (UI) for a long time and finally got hired, but only part time (the employer wanted to avoid paying medical benefits for full-time workers). I continued to file UI low earnings reports, but the employer was very slow to report my earnings. It was unclear who my employer actually was, too. Was it the company I worked for or the corporate HR firm it contracted out to?

—Longing for more, Hawaii

AFT President Randi Weingarten expressed her support for the conclusion reached by a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation study that calls for more effective evaluation of teachers. The Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study shows teachers are the most crucial component of student success, and that current measures of teacher effectiveness fail to accurately recognize good teachers and show a pathway toward improving teacher and teaching quality.

The historic bond between the labor and civil rights movements will be celebrated this weekend as the AFL-CIO honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision that collective action—whether at the voting booth or at the workplace—mobilizes participants to continue their work to make King’s dream a reality.

Former Letter Carriers President Vincent R. Sombrotto died Jan. 10 at the age of 89.

Sombrotto was a letter carrier at Grand Central Station in New York City in 1970, when postal workers’ pay and working conditions were so poor they were eligible for public assistance. He became a leader and spokesman in a New York City wildcat strike of postal employees. That strike pitted the might of the U.S. government, which sent in strike-breaking troops. The resolve of the strikers never wavered and led to a new law creating the modern United States Postal Service and granting collective bargaining rights to postal employees.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “We mourn this loss of a thoughtful and creative champion of working people.”

Flight attendants who work for Spirit Airlines filed a lawsuit against the airline for reneging on a contractual commitment to provide equal benefits for all employees by forcing employees who want health care coverage for their domestic partners into a lower-quality health care plan than the plan covering other employees. The flight attendants, members of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), said that management is using procedural loopholes to avoid providing equal benefits.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has made it very easy to find union-made tires by requiring that each tire carry a code that shows the company and the location of the plant that manufactured the tire. DOT requires that each tire sold in the United States carry a code that looks something like this: DOT BE XX XXX XXX. The two letters or numbers that follow the DOT identify a particular factory as listed below.

David B. Durkee, who served as secretary-treasurer for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) since 1998, is the union’s new president after the BCTGM’s General Executive Board approved his nomination. He succeeds Frank Hurt, who retired Jan. 1 after 20 years in office. The board also approved Steve Bertelli as secretary-treasurer.