Last night's scoring of the Senate healthcare bill -- which includes a public option -- by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is great news for progressives and all who believe in healthcare as a right and not a privilege. The CBO announced that the Senate bill will cost 848 billion...

In this morning's Washington Post, DNC Chairman and Governor Tim Kaine criticized Creigh Deeds' gubernatorial campaign for abandoning the Democratic base.

The electoral losses on November 3, 2009 were disappointing to trade unionists, progressives, and Democrats. To lose a Governor's race in a solidly Democratic state like New Jersey...

It is beyond doubt that we are in a potentially historic moment of great change. In the last two years we've made huge change in America. Just four or five years ago after George W's re-election how many of us thought that in 2008 we would elect as President a...

It is more and more fun to read the newspaper stories, articles, blog posts, and the rest about the demise of conservatism and/or the Republican Party.

It is no wonder there is so much speculation. Just watch John Boehner or Mitch McConnell or the nightly news or catch a clip...

Just a year ago we trade unionists, progressives, and Americans of good will made history with the election of an African-American President--something many of us never thought possible --...

It is so important to remember 9-11 and the union brothers and sisters who died that day. As you know, a lot of union brothers and sisters dies that day--members of HERE who worked in the restaurant, SEIU members, and every first responder was a union member--bus drivers who ATU...

Some of us progressives mistakenly thought that when Barack Obama and his campaign and mandate for change won overwhelmingly last November and we picked up seats in the House and when Al Franken became the 60th Democrat in the Senate that the new government would enact the change that was...

The dog days of August have arrive, Washington has mostly cleared out and neither health care reform nor the Employee Free Choice Act have been passed. The Republicans, the Hard Right, and Corporate America are doing all they can to defeat them both. And they are being more than ably...

I was on Fox News last week doing an interview with right-wing talking head Stuart Varney. He began what became a very hostile interview by charging that the labor movement is using Pope Benedict's Papal Encyclical for political purposes, part of our effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

On Saturday, July 11, we made history in Arkansas. We -- civil rights and community leaders, local elected officials, and union activists and leaders, 1,500 of us-- held the largest ever demonstration in Arkansas to demand that Sen. Blanche Lincoln vote for and support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Judge and Rev. Wendell Griffin, Rev. Martha Blackmon of the Church of God in Christ, Bishop Kenneth Hicks, Rev. Gene McElroy of Greater Archview Baptist Church, State Sen. Joyce Elliott, and Arkansas Working America youth leader Willie Holmes will be featured speakers at an historic, huge march and rally Saturday,...

Arlene Holt Baker, the first African-American executive officer of the AFL-CIO and widely known civil rights leader, will join other national labor, civil rights, and faith leaders in an historic march and rally this Saturday, July 11 in Little Rock, Ark.

National Electrical Workers President Ed Hill, Communications Workers of...

May you live in interesting times goes the old blessing. Well for all of us the times could hardly be more interesting. As Charles Dickens wrote in a Tale of Two Cities -- "It was the best of times and the worst of times."

The nation's economy is almost in...

On Saturday July 11th, national AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka will join Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and hundreds of union and civil rights activists and faith leaders in a statewide caravan, march, rally and catfish fry in Arkansas to call for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Union members...

After trillions of dollars in federal spending to lift our economy out of the greatest economic crisis in 75 years, we now know that besides financial deregulation and insatiable greed, the biggest cause of our crisis is 30 years of stagnant and declining wages. We also know that we cannot...

Today at noon Mayor Carl Redus of Pine Bluff, Arkansas hosted a meeting for the AFL-CIO with the Arkansas Conference of Black Mayors. Twenty or so mayors were at the lunch meeting at the Pine Bluff Ramada Conference Center.

The mayors agreed to write Senator Lincoln individual letters asking her...

The "Turn Around Arkansas" coalition held a 24-hour vigil for the Employee Free Choice Act on Wednesday, May 27.

The vigil began at Senator Blanche Lincoln's office in Little Rock where workers delivered hundreds of letters in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Arkansas' two Senators have already...

The AFL-CIO has again intensified its national grassroots campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, adopting tactics and new strategies more familiar in social movements than in traditional legislative fights.

Unlike almost all recent legislative fights, the AFL-CIO has greatly relied on real, very close to the ground grassroots...

It is almost 4am as I write this at the First Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, AR. We are almost halfway through our 24 hour vigil which began at the state headquarters of Senator Blanche Lincoln yesterday afternoon.

We are holding a 24 hour vigil for passage of the Employee...