Jake Long, chair of the Harrisburg Region Central Labor Council’s COPE committee and a baker by trade, does not spend most of his days in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg, but it did not take him long to form an opinion of the proceedings surrounding the court’s review of the state's contested voter ID law.

While thousands of North Carolina residents rally in opposition, the state legislature continues to push an extremist agenda that will harm the Tar Heel State's working families. The latest outrage is H.B. 74, which is targeted directly at the rights of not only workers, but local governments. A special section of the bill contains a giveaway to large agricultural manufacturers that would provide them a shield against farm workers organizing and bargaining for better rights. A separate bill, that has been a key target of "Moral Monday" protests, would make it harder for North Carolina residents to vote, creating the most restrictive voter suppression law in the country.

Before Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his hand-picked emergency manager Kevyn D. Orr rushed the city’s bankruptcy filing to federal court last week, they refused to sit down and discuss the future of the city’s workers and retirees, AFSCME President Lee Saunders said this morning on "The Bill Press Show." He told Press:

They have not sat down and talked with the union at all in Detroit. They have refused to do so, to talk about how these issued can be resolved. They have said they’ve attempted to have these kinds of discussions. That is a bold-faced lie.

The Indiana State AFL-CIO fought for and won dramatic improvements in the workers' compensation system this year. Over the next three years, several major increases in benefits and new workers' rights will be phased in. This will mitigate the effect of workplace injuries on those hurt on the job and their families in the Hoosier State, the Indiana State AFL-CIO reports.

Apparently unwilling to face up to the North Carolina voters who are taking them to task each week for the extremist tea party/corporate agenda they are enacting, North Carolina legislators yesterday moved their normal Monday evening sessions back several hours to avoid the 12th Moral Monday protest at the state Capitol in Raleigh.

But once again, nearly 2,000 civil rights, union, student and other working family activists rallied yesterday evening to spotlight the legislature’s and Gov. Pat McCrory’s radical  actions, with a special emphasis on the continuing rollback of voting rights in North Carolina.   

The Michigan judge who ruled last week that Detroit’s bankruptcy filing violated the state constitution's ban against tampering with public employees’ pensions, adjourned a hearing on the case this morning until July 29. Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said:

As you all know, my decision last week was because there’s been a violation of constitution. I don’t believe the constitution should be made of Swiss cheese.

The Detroit Free Press just reported an Ingham County judge threw a wrench in Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's (R) Detroit bankruptcy filing, saying it violates the Michigan Constitution and must be withdrawn. 

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) authorized a bankruptcy filing yesterday for the city of Detroit based on recommendations from financial manager Kevyn Orr, making it the largest city in the United States to ever take that step. AFSCME members and other public-sector workers were not consulted for input before the filing. 

It may have taken two years, but construction workers in Meriden, Conn., finally will have access to well-paying quality construction jobs on two major renovation projects at local high schools after the Meriden City Council voted this week to uphold a project labor agreement (PLA).

The Large Retailer and Accountability Act of 2013 (LRAA), passed by the Council of the District of Columbia last week, arrived on Mayor Vincent Gray’s desk Wednesday. The bill establishes a minimum wage of $12.50 an hour for workers at retail stores with more than 75,000 square feet and whose parent company makes more than $1 billion in gross revenues annually.

This bill was not controversial until Walmart, with plans to bring six stores into the District of Columbia, threatened to cancel three of those projects if the bill passed. Despite that threat, here are five reasons Mayor Gray should sign the LRAA when it gets to his desk. Are you listening, Mr. Mayor? Here we go: