Michigan

SEIU Local 1 Members delivered more than 5,300 postcards in support of the Responsible Bidder’s Ordinance. Here is a member reading aloud the letter accompanying the three file boxes full of postcards.

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By RONNIE DAHL
WJBK | myFOXDetroit.com

DETROIT (WJBK) – Dozens of protesters were marching through Detroit Thursday afternoon. They shut down traffic over the Second Avenue bridge near I-94.

They’re trying to bring attention to the high rate of unemployment and poverty in Detroit. (more…)

By Reginald Fields, The Plain Dealer

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio voters dealt a sharp rebuke to first-year Gov. John Kasich and his conservative agenda Tuesday by overwhelmingly rejecting the restrictive new collective bargaining law he championed. (more…)

By Jeff T. Wattrick

Occupy Detroit joined southwest Detroit residents Thursday to protest the Ambassador Bridge’s failure to complete the Gateway Project as ordered by a judge.

Protesters blocked Fort St. traffic to the bridge for nearly an hour Thursday afternoon to call attention to the hazards posed by international truck traffic on local roads. The Gateway Project—which cost Michigan taxpayers $230 million—was supposed to alleviate the problem by creating direct connections between freeways and the bridge. (more…)

Across America on this Labor Day, public employees whose job security once seemed iron-clad are defending their jobs, pay, benefits and bargaining rights.

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Furthermore, as the public employee unions fight for bargaining rights and pay packages, they’ll do it with fewer dues-paying members. The percentage of public employees who were union members fell last year to 36.2 percent — 7.6 million workers — from a decade high of 37.4 percent in 2009.

Lansing— It’s taking longer for Michiganians to find a job as the recession drags on. And when they do, it’s likely in a low-wage position.

More than half of the state’s unemployed adults of prime working age, 25-54 years old, spent a half-year or longer in 2010 looking for jobs — the longest time on record.

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African-Americans have been disproportionately affected by the jobless crisis. According to the study, 24 percent of African-Americans were unemployed in 2010, compared with 10.5 percent of whites and 13.7 percent of Hispanics.

Unemployed workers in four cities with majority African-American populations — Detroit, Pontiac, Inkster and Highland Park — accounted for 16 percent of all the unemployed last year.