Steven Fulop (D), mayor of Jersey City, N.J., will propose a bill next week that would require most businesses in the city to offer paid sick days to workers. Any company with 10 or more employees would have to provide up to five paid sick days annually. The bill is expected to pass, as much of the City Council is aligned with Fulop.

Several dozen Washington, D.C., community, faith and worker activists brought concrete evidence to Mayor Vincent C. Gray that district voters believe workers deserve a living wage, when they delivered 31,917 signatures on a petition urging Gray to sign the Large Retailer Accountability Act (LRAA).

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler is in Toledo today to celebrate Labor Day with Ohio's working families. 

"We honor and recognize the working men and women who built this nation through sweat, sacrifice and innovation," says Shuler. "We stand united in our belief that everyone deserves a voice on the job, a living wage and a workplace safe from harassment and abuse."

Several hundred community, faith and worker activists rallied Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., in Mayor Vincent C. Gray's home ward to urge him to sign a living wage bill for workers in big-box stores like Walmart.

Dozens of women leaders from labor and community groups joined with state, county and local elected officials at the Statehouse today to support raising New Jersey’s minimum wage and to commemorate Women’s Equality Day—the day the 19th Amendment was certified, granting women the right to vote. Speakers explained how approving the minimum wage ballot question would advance the fight for women’s equality in New Jersey and help to close the opportunity gap for thousands of women in the state who struggle to make ends meet in minimum wage jobs. Out of all minimum wage workers in New Jersey, some 60% of them are women.

Union leaders and activists from around the country in Los Angeles on Sept. 8 for the AFL-CIO Convention will get a close look at a regional labor movement with membership numbers holding steady or even slightly increasing.

Compare this with much of the United States where the percentage of workers represented by unions is dropping rapidly and persistently.

On Tuesday, Aug. 27, hundreds of residents, union members, faith leaders and City Council members who back the bill will speak out about why retail workers in the District of Columbia deserve a fair living wage. Join them at 6:30 p.m. EDT at the Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church, 3000 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.

Cincinnati voters will decide this fall on a ballot measure to eliminate pensions for city workers that was written by an extremist right-wing think tank, funded by unnamed out-of-state interests and promoted by tea party activists.

Several unions representing Detroit city works and retirees challenged Detroit’s claim for bankruptcy protection. The challenges were filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit, the court which will determine if the city is eligible for bankruptcy protection. AFSCME Council 25 said the city has not proven it is insolvent and has not negotiated in good faith with its creditors.

A Superior Court judge ruled on Monday against Anchorage, Alaska, Mayor Dan Sullivan who sought to block a proposed referendum to repeal an anti-working families law he signed in March. A coalition of municipal unions and their allies filed the paperwork to launch a petition drive to get the repeal on the ballot, but the city rejected the application.

The unions sued and the court found the city was wrong to conclude that the matter was ineligible for a referendum.

The coalition announced on Twitter that they will begin gathering petitions on Thursday.