Philadelphia teachers on Thursday protested the latest in a long list of assaults on their jobs. Public school officials are demanding more than $130 million on concessions in terms of salary and benefit cuts because of an ongoing school funding crisis.

Sixteen years ago, federal workplace safety officials began developing a rule to control and limit workers’ exposure to silica dust. Some 2 million workers are exposed to this deadly dust each year and, according to public health experts, more than 7,000 workers develop silicosis and 200 die each year as a result of this disabling lung disease.

Today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) finally issued a proposed rule. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the new rule was welcome but called the proposed standard “long overdue” and noted that the rule is still only a proposal.

Right-wing, extremist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have ended their pursuit of the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co. newspapers after months of protests by community groups, journalists and other free press advocates.

A group of working families advocates, led by labor unions and community and faith groups, visited the office of Rep. Rodney Davis (R) in Champaign, Ill., delivering a letter that asked him to support a comprehensive immigration policy with a road map to citizenship. Davis was not present. While a Davis spokesperson said he has an open mind on immigration, he has repeatedly put forth issue stances on immigration that are punitive and regressive and said that bill that passed the Senate was "dead on arrival."

Early in the morning in the middle of August, in cities across the state of California, alarms went off, coffee was made and bags were packed as families left their homes to travel to Bakersfield for a massive mobilization in support of comprehensive immigration reform and a road map to citizenship.  

Some activists came in vans and some came in cars, motorcycles and even a giant Teamsters bus, but together thousands spoke in one voice to send a clear message to Rep. Kevin McCarthy: We demand a vote on comprehensive immigration reform that contains a pathway to citizenship!

Neidi Dominguez, a DREAMer activist, recently wrote an op-ed for NBC Latino, saying that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) makes a good point about President Obama being able to act alone if Congress fails to pass commonsense immigration reform.

This week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder issued new directives to his U.S. attorneys in the field to use prosecutorial discretion and stop pursuing low-level drug possession cases that carry high minimum mandatory prison sentences. While state prison populations are finally slowly going down, the federal prison system continues to grow with non-violent drug convictions. Also this week, Judge Shira Scheindlin, a federal district judge in New York, ruled that New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy was clearly biased in stopping black and Latino people out of proportion to the initial behaviors that made police instigate their searches. Thousands of innocent young black and Latino men were being prejudged by the police, losing their Constitutional rights and liberties based more on their race than on evidence.

In Bakersfield, Calif., on Wednesday, thousands rallied outside the office of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R) in support of a comprehensive immigration policy that includes a road map to citizenship. Republican leaders say they will not bring up the bill that was passed by the Senate, but instead will focus on several smaller immigration bills. María Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said there will be consequences if House Republicans block the Senate bill.

The bad news on student loans just keeps coming. Within the past few months, federal student loan debt has surpassed the $1.2 trillion mark, Congress raised interest rates for incoming students and tied them to market swings and the average graduate from the class of 2013 left college with a record $30,000 of debt.

On today’s 78th anniversary of Social Security, a new survey (see video) from the National Academy of Social Insurance finds that most of America's workers support increasing benefits, protecting benefits against inflation and lifting the Social Security tax cap so that wealthy people pay their fair share as working families do now.

You can add your voice to the call to strengthen, not cut, Social Security by signing this petition from the Alliance for Retired Americans.