Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

The Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council has endorsed a  Mine Workers (UMWA)-sponsored resolution declaring that “as community members and leaders, we believe that Peabody [Energy], Arch [Coal] and Patriot Coal should not be using the bankruptcy process to shed themselves of providing health care and pension obligations to coal miners who put their lives and health at risk every day working for Peabody, Arch and Patriot Coal.”

The old building that housed the Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center in lower Manhattan was crowded by skyscrapers. The interior was dark and cramped and devoid of natural light.

“The space we were in wasn’t meeting the needs of the children, each of whom has multiple chronic illnesses,” says Pat Tursi, CEO of the center. The Manhattan facility was designed based on more of a custodial care model—and when the center had to find a new space, it found a new opportunity.

What comes to mind when you think about Major League Baseball (MLB)? Multimillion-dollar ball players and even multier-million-dollar owners? Shiny new stadiums with $300 luxury VIP seating and $10 beers and $8 hot dogs for those of us in the bleachers? The $6 billion Fox Sports/Los Angeles Dodgers TV deal and others like it?

While MLB seems to be printing money faster than Topps prints baseball cards, ESPN New York reports that the club owners are considering eliminating pensions for the everyday, regular folk employees who work behind the scenes to keep the glitter dome running—club employees from office workers to trainers to minor league coaches and staff to scouts.

Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts and nine other union members were arrested in front of Peabody Energy’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis yesterday, as more than 750 members and retirees sang Amazing Grace and held signs calling for fairness. Several of those arrested had oxygen tanks, and many in the crowd were brought to tears as the arrested protesters were peacefully loaded into the sheriff’s van while Which Side Are You On played on the loudspeakers. The protesters arrived at Peabody after marching from federal bankruptcy court, where Patriot Coal’s lawyers were inside. Those arrested were released later in the day, according to the St. Louis City Division of Corrections. 

In July, Patriot Coal filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. Among the reasons for Patriot’s financial difficulties were the huge legacy costs related to health care benefits and pensions owed to retirees and widows of former employees. The company's intended goal, it seems, according to the Mine Workers (UMWA), is to get out of obligations to the miners that worked hard for decades, often doing significant damage to their own health.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

Showing solidarity with our union brothers and sisters is a great way for us to ring in the New Year, says Jim Key, vice president at large of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 550 in Paducah, Ky. Key, also his local's legislative and political chairman, is asking union members and union supporters nationwide to take a minute to put their John Hancock on a White House cyber-petition against corporations that file for bankruptcy “to circumvent their liabilities for workers' pensions and post-retirement health care benefits.” (Click here to sign the petition.)

While government in Washington, D.C., remains divided and marked by long-term gridlock, governments in the states are much less divided. Of the 50 states, 37 now feature state governments where the governor and majorities in both legislative houses are controlled by one party—24 of those are controlled by Republicans. Extreme, anti-working family Republicans have repeatedly assaulted the rights of people in recent years and, by all accounts, the trend looks to expand in 2013. Working families are mobilized and fought back in 2012 and will continue to fight in 2013.  The response to the "right to work" for less push in Michigan was so strong, that governors in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have since declared that they won't push for right to work in their states.

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the CEOs who make up the "Fix the Debt" campaign sit on massive retirement funds of their own while calling for the retirement programs that working families rely on to be cut as part of a deficit-reduction package. Furthermore, those same CEOs have been shortchanging pension funds for working families at the corporations they run.

Social Security is our most important family protection program that works not just for retirees, but also for people with disabilities and children who've lost a working parent. It's a promise for all generations. People pay for this benefit throughout their working lives. Social Security is immensely popular with voters across the political spectrum, which is why those who would like to dismantle the program consistently distort the facts and falsely claim the program is "bankrupt." It's important for working people to know the truth about the program and push back against Social Security myths and lies and fight for more, not less retirement security.

Here are six Social Security facts you need to know:

A total of 84,350 pension plans have vanished since 1985. This figure shocked Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Donald L. Barlett and James W. Steele, who just released their latest book, "The Betrayal of the American Dream." Their chapter on retirement chronicles the heist of the American dream's secure retirement by the financial elite and is a very important section of the book, says Steele, who spoke with the AFL-CIO about the retirement crisis. Steele says there's another number we should pay attention to: $17,686. That's the median value of 401(k) accounts in 2011. For most working people, the amount in their 401(k) account would pay them less than $80 a month for life.