The Department of Labor website is not one we'd generally think to go to get Hurricane Relief information. I wandered to the DOL's site for a completely different reason when I found this very comprehensive and potentially very useful information. With the amount of family, friends, colleagues and union sisters and brothers in NYC, I decided to just cut and paste the whole page to UnionReview with the hope of spreading this out. 

I wrote most of this article for a newsletter I help write for the members of my Union. I went and changed it around a little here and there to bring to UnionReview because I truly think that, as we get out the vote, we must be very mindful of our health and safety, our wellness and that of our family with this vote. Point being that if we lose the current administration's cabinet, our lives at work could potentially get exponentially more difficult. Working safe and working smart is one thing, but an anti-worker OSHA is as senseless as it sounds. Trust me though, it could happen. 

Nothing like a presidential candidate flip flopping on the ethics scale this late in the game. But alas, tomorrow - Thursday, 11/1/12 - there will be a press conference about Gov. Romney's apparent conflict of interest with his investments, and most notably, his profitting from the auto bailout he just hates so much! Ooopsie.

Berry Craig shares the story of Chris Ormes, a steelworker from Kentucky, who is campaigning in Ohio for President Obama's re-election.

Are you in New York?  If so, you can show the owner of Hi Tek Car Wash that customers and community members support a unionized car wash and want a fair contract for its workers -- the first car wash workers in the city to join a union.  The next step is for the workers to win a strong union contract and you can help.

Over a year ago, the National Labor Relations Board ruled the publisher fired News-Press Teamster journalists because of their union activity. The NLRB ordered the News-Press to offer eight employees their jobs back, rescind poor evaluations of four union supporters and revoke suspension notices for 11 others. The publisher was also ordered to give back pay to all the employees it had harmed.

That didn't stop union busting at the News-Press. And once again, the News-Press publisher -- Ampersand Publishing, LLC -- didn't get away with it.

In his latest contribution to Union Review, Berry Craig profiles Charles Showalter's "The Union Edge—Labor’s Talk Radio" show.

Sharing Amy B. Dean's latest piece from Truthout: The outsourcing of good jobs, the elimination of pensions, rampant home foreclosures; skyrocketing higher education costs and mounting debt: Given these stark realities, the American middle class seems to be sinking fast. The renowned reporting team of Donald Barlett and James Steele insists it is no accident.

Sharing this piece by Yana Kunichoff and Jesse Menedez, Truthout and Vocalo: "Workers responsible for moving an estimated $1 trillion worth of goods a year through the global economy are paid low wages, often denied breaks and basic protective gear, and are employed primarily through temp agencies."

"The way forward is to create abundantly resourced public school systems that will push economic growth in cities and regions. Innovating and improving public schools helps attract middle- and upper-income families to cities and regions to build a healthy tax base. Mayors such as Emanuel should be funding public education and supporting what is already working -- including strategies invented by unionized teachers -- within public schools." Amy Dean

Amy is a Fellow of the Century Foundation and co-author, 'A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement'; President and founder, ABD Ventures

 A registered nurse from Pennsylvania writes about her experience when hearing Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney's statement shared with rich donors to his campaign. She was on the job at the time and heard it from one of the TVs in one of the patient's rooms. While Romney has made mention that the statement was "off the cuff," the guess is that he has no idea how irate, small and insignificant those "off the cuff" remarks made so man workers feel - including Cathy Stoddart, BSN, RN - the author of this piece. 

Health care workers have a long history of supporting public health initiatives, and most strongly support the goal of immunizing health care workers against Influenza. However, given the current scientific evidence, immunization should remain voluntary, with an “opt-out” option for those with medical, religious, or philosophical objections.

Mandating that all healthcare workers be vaccinated, without an option to decline for medical, religious and/or personal philosophical reasons, is a violation of the rights of providers. Mandating that those who choose not to receive the vaccination wear surgical masks ignores scientific evidence, jeopardizes patient care, and demonstrates a lack of respect for hard working health care employees.

When I received the blog post leading to Amy Dean's commentary on Prop 32, I requested and was granted permission, within minutes, to cross-post her piece here to Union Review. This is so important on so many fronts, whether you are in California or not. Prop 32 is so adamantly anti-union and anti-worker it is amazing that more and more voices aren't rising to the top about this ballot measure. In brief (and because Amy is better at this than me), Prop 32 will basically silence working people -- if you thought we were hard to hear now, with Prop 32 we would be totally mute. Please read this, comment on this, and pass it along.

"Most Labor Day parades have one grand marshal," Berry Craig writes, "but the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee decided 15 was more like it."  The theme of Monday's parade is "Honor the Women in the Workplace," and all of the grand marshals this year are women who belong to unions.

Nine hundred and four days into a lockout of kitchen workers by the Castlewood Country Club, Adminstrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson handed down a decision that the workers at Castlewood had amazing faith was coming:  Castlewood had maintained an unlawful lockout for two years; Castlewood had bargained in bad faith; Castlewood's attorney was not credible; Castlewood maintained 'animus' towards its locked out workers; Castlewood management violated numerous other labor laws.  This piece originally appeared on Daily Kos.