Earlier this summer, we reported on a new trend—especially prevalent in low-wage industries—where more and more workers aren’t getting paper paychecks or direct deposits to their checking accounts, but instead are finding their wages on prepaid cards. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warned employers yesterday about the misuse of prepaid payroll cards and that they cannot require workers receive their wages via prepaid cards.   

The Senate today voted (54-46) to confirm Thomas E. Perez as labor secretary. His nomination had been threatened by a filibuster, but Republicans backed down this week as Democrats were preparing to change Senate rules to allow simple up or down majority votes on executive branch nominees.

With Senate Democrats on the verge of changing Senate rules to block filibusters on executive branch nominees, Senate Republicans yesterday relented on their obstruction tactics that have blocked votes on several of President Obama’s nominees for key Cabinet and agency posts, including the National Labor Relations Board. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

Senate votes on several of President Obama’s nominees to vital cabinet and agency positions, including Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) members, could come as soon as Monday. Republicans have blocked those and other nominations through Senate rules and filibuster threats.

Today, a report released by the Mortgage Settlement Monitor confirmed that big banks are still not up to the task of handling mortgage modifications effectively and fairly. This report confirms what many working families have learned the hard way: Big banks are still giving homeowners the runaround.

Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R) portrays himself as a pickup truck-driving, Boston Bruins jersey-wearing friend of union workers and working families. He paints his opponent in the Senate race, Elizabeth Warren, as a woman who is an elitist college professor. Both points are untrue. 

Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka set the record straight on Brown and Warren in an address in Boston to New England union members and leaders that media and political observers are comparing to his 2008 speech on the role race played in some workers’ opposition to President Obama’s candidacy.

At the height of the Wall Street financial scandal that rocked this country into near economic ruin, bankers were ablaze with greed. To mark the approaching two-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the think tank Demos has compiled some of the more colorful quotes from this group and challenges you to guess who said them.

Massachusetts Voters Beware. Millionaire candidate Sen. Scott Brown portrays himself as an “average guy in a pickup” when in reality he’s a big backer of Wall Street, not Main Street.

“Scott Brown: Wall Street’s Favorite Senator,” a new website launched by the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, highlights Brown’s two-year anti-worker voting record in the Senate.

When the nation’s housing crisis—fueled by “unscrupulous operators looking to make fast cash”–was beginning to explode, writes Richard Cordray, newly appointed head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), in a column on Politico:

President Obama will use recess appointments to name three new members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the White House announced this  afternoon.