On the heels of the AFL-CIO's national convention, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard and up-and-coming USW leader Nick Gaitaud sat down with GRITtv's Laura Flanders to talk about the present and future of the labor movement.

Check out the video in this blog post. 

In a dramatic demonstration of how deadly the global supply chain really is, Scott Nova, director of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), opened a panel on workers' rights in Bangladesh during the recent AFL-CIO Convention with this observation:

Of the four deadliest factory disasters in history, three of those four happened in the last 12 months.

Buzz is building around a new documentary film series, "Strength in Union," which is currently being filmed. Covering the history of the labor movement and highlighting the stories of workers, the series also will feature interviews from historians and labor leaders, including Leo W. Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers (USW); Cliff Guffey, president of the Postal Workers (APWU); Lawrence J. Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU); and Captain Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots (ALPA).

The NH Labor News reports it is likely the series will air on PBS, as well as in select theaters and film festivals.  

Alison Lundergan Grimes started her stump speech to union members, local Democratic Party officials and others in Paducah, Ky., with a quote from Sen. Mitch McConnell: “Public sector unions are a 50-year mistake. Unions are to blame for distrust of our government. Unions are power hungry and no longer serve the public interest.”

Then the 34-year-old Democrat who wants McConnell’s job lowered the boom:

He didn’t realize what he was describing was how Kentuckians feel about his service in Washington.

In a settlement reached with the Palermo Workers Union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Palermo’s Pizza has agreed to return eight fired workers to their former jobs with back pay.

The company also has agreed to post a notice in its Milwaukee plant informing workers of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and to hold a union election. 

First, my apologies to any student in the middle of their summer reverie who stumbles across this blog. But like Christmas ads, back-to-school messages start earlier and earlier. Here’s ours, courtesy of the Union Label and Services Trades Department (UL&STD).   

Hugh J. Campbell, son of a steelworker, sends us this:

The following is a response to President Obama Challenging CEOs to Hire the Jobless (see message after the jump).

When Chris Ormes, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1241 in Bardstown, Ky., heard a "right to work" for less speaker was heading his way, he opted for his own “rapid response.” Says Ormes: 

The local Republican Women's Club invited Alan Blincoe of Kentucky Citizens for Right to Work to one of their meetings. I called Leo Downs and Wanda Riney from our local. All three of us went.

As we've covered before, Reconnecting McDowell is a broad community effort including unions, corporations, community groups and local residents to help revitalize struggling McDowell County in West Virginia. The effort has led to many successes and life in McDowell is already improving. The latest success was a fundraising drive led by United Steelworkers (USW) members Karen Shipley and Heather Anderson that raised $5,000 to send kids to a 4-H camp.

The conduct of the New York State Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in rehabilitating the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge can only be described as anti-American.

The MTA plans to send $235.7 million of Americans' hard-earned toll dollars to China for foreign steel and foreign fabrication to renovate a bridge over the Hudson River that Americans built with American steel and American fabrication 50 years ago.