Ed Sills of the Texas AFL-CIO sends us this:

My wife and I are big fans of “The Good Wife,” which, besides the inspired-by-real-events plotline—a wife “stands by” a cheating politician who has a statewide profile—is as fine a legal procedural as I have seen on television. The show combines a “case-of-the-week” approach with the ongoing soap-opera-style plot, and it pops.

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. 

Here is a great story about unions giving back and making a big difference in their community from David Groves, editor for the Washington State Labor Council’s (WSLC‘s) news site The Stand. Groves reports on the Central Washington Building and Construction Trades Council’s (CWBCTC's) volunteer efforts that provided 100% of the labor to build a 14,000-square-foot warehouse for Second Harvest, a network of 250 neighborhood food banks and meal centers throughout eastern Washington and north Idaho.

Current laws in the United States allow corporations to use offshore havens to avoid paying their taxes and, if it's up to many in Washington, the problem will only grow larger, particularly if the so-called "territorial" tax system is passed. The details of the use of such tax havens were discussed in a conference call with Campaign for America's Future, Americans for Tax Fairness and Citizens for Tax Justice.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that two Missouri paycheck deception bills are not necessary to protect workers and they would limit the free speech and political spending of unions and organized workers, while allowing unlimited corporate spending on political causes. 

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and The Nation are asking people to take action against the deportation of aspiring citizens.

In his latest piece at Salon, Josh Eidelson talks about a planned walkout by fast-food workers in Chicago. 

The walkout began, the Chicago Tribune reports, at 5:30 a.m. local time with workers from some McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts stores walking off the job. The ultimate goal of the walkout is to support the Fight for $15 campaign, whose goal is to secure a wage of $15 per hour for workers. Also expected to join the walkout were workers from Subway, Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret.

Tragedy struck again in Bangladesh this morning when a building that housed several garment factories collapsed, killing at least 194 people, mostly garment workers, injuring hundreds of others and trapping an unknown number of people in the rubble. A number of shops were also in the building.

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.