Jersey City, N.J., became the sixth city to require paid sick days for employees at private businesses after the City Council passed the new rules on a 7–1 vote.  Mayor Steven Fulop (D) is a supporter of the measure and is expected to sign it into law.

In the first of a new series of videos profiling minimum and low-wage workers, Raise the Wage New Jersey profiles Tayzia, a security guard for Edison. She is a single mother who explains why her wages, which are slightly above minimum wage, aren't enough to help her survive and raise her daughter.

While many of the country's most active working family advocates were in Los Angeles for the AFL-CIO national convention, the rest of the country continued to operate, with legislation, elections and judicial decisions of significant importance continuing to move forward. Here are eight stories you might have missed while the media's attention was focused on the convention.

After a conditional veto of an increase in New Jersey's minimum wage by Gov. Chris Christie (R), working families, the New Jersey State AFL-CIO and a coalition of 151 organizations are pushing for a measure that would raise the state's wage to $8.25 per hour and attach a cost-of-living adjustment to the wage for the future. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D) also joined the "Raise the Wage" campaign. In November, voters will be able to decide on the ballot whether or not to increase the minimum wage.

This year's winner of the Electrical Workers' (IBEW's) annual photo contest, Bill DeClement, from Folsom, N.J., Local 351, took home first place for his photo of two IBEW members riding in a "window rig at about 7 a.m. one morning in Atlantic City when a blanket of fog rolled in, swaddling the ocean and city below." The photo was taken from the highest Atlantic City building, the Revel Casino. 

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states from the past week.

Yesterday, we told you House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) broke his promise to hold a vote on a desperately needed relief package for the victims and communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy more than two months after the storm. After a massive and angry outcry—especially from members of his own party who called his vote squelching a “cruel stab in the back”—Boehner announced he would bring a hurricane aid bill to the floor Friday.

But that patchwork package falls far short of the help Sandy’s victims need.

Lee Sandberg, communications coordinator for the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, sends us this update.

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO, working together with its Executive Board members, central labor councils, Building Trades councils and affiliated unions, amassed a mountainous collection of union-made toys that was proudly presented to a team of U.S. Marines today in Trenton, on behalf of the U.S. Marine Corps' “Toys for Tots” program.

President Obama sent a request to Congress asking for $60.4 billion to fund Hurricane Sandy storm recovery efforts. The request is expected to be introduced in legislation next week and will be debated after that.

Several years ago, Roy Foster, president of the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, was flipping through the radio stations in his car while driving through Philadelphia and landed on a program that peaked his interest.