One hundred years ago on Sunday, southern Colorado miners and their families walked out of the coal mines and mining camps striking for adequate wages, enforcement of state mining laws and union recognition. The strike led to a months-long struggle that culminated in one of the most tragic events in U.S. labor history, the April 20, 1914, Ludlow Massacre.

Yesterday, at the Ludlow Massacre memorial site near Trinidad, several hundred survivors’ descendants, Mine Workers (UMWA) members and officials, historians and others kicked off the centennial commemoration of the strike and massacre. 

Pension battles are heating up in cities across the nation as conservatives and Republicans are pushing to strip public workers of their retirement plans, often with little or nothing offered as a replacement. The primary argument, although a false one, is that these pensions are "too expensive" and that during times of fiscal woes, cities can't afford them. In reality, these plans are often little more than veiled attempts to abandon commitments to workers and shift spending to more conservative priorities.

If you are a union member who participates in Union Plus programs and have been affected by the deadly floods that struck Colorado, you may be eligible for financial assistance.

Union Plus Disaster Relief Grants of $500 are available to help participants in the Union Plus Credit Card, Insurance or Mortgage programs who are facing financial hardship due to the latest natural disaster. The money does not have to be repaid.

If you are not involved in the Union Plus program, the Denver Post has a list of other resources for Coloradans and ways you can assist those affected by the floods. 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is quickly establishing himself as the most aggressive job piracy governor in the nation, and the evidence shows that he is also one of the most partisan. He has taken six consecutive trips to states with Democratic governors in an attempt to lure businesses from those states to his own. A new report from Good Jobs First raises some very troubling questions about the financing of those trips.

A three-day 50-mile walk for citizenship that started in Madras, Ore., ended in Bend at Rep. Greg Walden's (R-Ore.) office, where working families urged a vote on the bipartisan Senate immigration bill with a road map to citizenship. 

In a humorous treatment of a serious subject, AFSCME is using GIFs—those ubiquitous, short animated photos—to tell the story of Detroit’s bankruptcy.

Workers, businesses and community groups in Tacoma, Wash., have made that Northwest city the latest to mobilize around a paid sick days campaign. Meanwhile, the Washington, D.C., City Council is exploring strengthening the district’s paid sick leave law.

California made history last night. With the support of California’s unions, the legislature voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10, the highest minimum wage in the country. The wage will be implemented in two steps: an increase to $9 per hour in July of next year, followed by another $1 increase to $10 in January of 2016. Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to sign the bill, A.B. 10, authored by Assembly member Luis Alejo.

Following Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray’s veto Thursday of a living wage bill for workers in big-box stores such as Walmart, backers of Large Retailer Accountability Act (LRAA) are mounting a campaign to override the veto.

The bill, which sets a $12.50 wage for workers, passed the D.C. City Council in June by an 8–5 vote, and an override requires nine votes. The Metropolitan Washington Council’s e-news Union City reports that LRAA backers are focusing on D.C. Council member Tommy Wells for the ninth vote. 

“It’s like getting punched in the gut. It’s like you’re not even in America.”

The middle-aged man was just an onlooker, on his lunch hour in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda. He’d been watching a crowd of 100 people singing when two police officers held up a powerful “long-range acoustic device” (also used to ward off pirates off the coast of Somalia) and the recorded voice of Capitol Police Chief David Erwin—Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) former bodyguard—echoed through the dome: