Despite the recent good news—the unemployment rate and new jobless claims are down, economic and job growth are up, the nation's 12.8 million unemployed people face two threats from Congress in the next couple of weeks.

First, the House-Senate conference committee may simply fail to reach agreement on full-year renewal of federal extensions of unemployment insurance—along with a continuation of payroll tax deductions, provisions to avoid a cut in doctors' reimbursement under Medicare, and a means of offsetting the costs of those policies.

If there is no agreement by the end of the month, roughly 4.5 million long-term unemployed people could lose their modest partial income replacement between March and June. And the still fragile but budding economic recovery would lose one of its most effective supports. "If we don't renew this extension, nearly 5 million people in this country will lose their last lifeline," says Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.). "We have to act."

The second threat—almost as bad—is that Congress could approve renewal of extended unemployment with many of the provisions in the House Republican bill, a package of punitive restraints and barriers that the nonprofit National Employment Law Project (NELP) calls "ill-advised and cruel."

Sara Doe was hired as a page at a Chicago library in 2007, and immediately fell in love with the job. Earning $11.18 an hour without benefits for shelving books, directing customers and other basic tasks might not be glamorous work, she told In These Times, but she loved the human interaction and the chance to spend time in libraries, which since she was a kid have been "like museums for me"—oases of calm and knowledge.

Doe’s mother worked in a city library, and since her parents were divorced, Doe considered the library her "third home" and has fond memories of stamping due dates in books. But this year visiting the library has been a somewhat painful experience since December 31 was her last day on the job at the northwest side library where she had worked since fall 2009. She was one of 181 library staff laid off because of city budget cuts that hit the library system particularly hard. Along with the layoffs, libraries are now closed on Mondays, cutting total weekly hours from 48 to 40.

After an intense campaign by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31, some library staff were called back to work and Monday afternoon hours were restored, bringing the weekly total to 44 hours. But more than 100 library staff including all the pages are still out of work.

Behind the sleek face of the iPad is an ugly backstory that has revealed once more the horrors of globalization. The buzz about Apple’s sordid business practices is courtesy of the New York Times series on the “iEconomy. In some ways it’s well reported but adds little new to what critics of the Taiwan-based Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, have been saying for years. The series' biggest impact may be discomfiting Apple fanatics who as they read the articles realize that the iPad they are holding is assembled from child labor, toxic shop floors, involuntary overtime, suicidal working conditions, and preventable accidents that kill and maim workers.

It turns out the story is much worse. Researchers with the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) say that legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months'-long “internships” in Foxconn’s mainland China factories assembling Apple products. The details of the internship program paint a far more disturbing picture than the Times does of how Foxconn, “the Chinese hell factory,” treats its workers, relying on public humiliation, military discipline, forced labor and physical abuse as management tools to hold down costs and extract maximum profits for Apple.

To supply enough employees for Foxconn, the 60th largest corporation globally, government officials are serving as lead recruiters at the cost of pushing teenage students into harsh work environments. The scale is astonishing with the Henan provincial government having announced in both 2010 and 2011 that it would send 100,000 vocational and university students to work at Foxconn, according to SACOM.

Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation, told AlterNet that “Foxconn is conspiring with government officials and universities in China to run what may be the world's single largest internship program – and one of the most exploitative. Students at vocational schools – including those whose studies have nothing to do with consumer electronics – are literally forced to move far from home to work for Foxconn, threatened that otherwise they won't be allowed to graduate. Assembling our iPhones and Kindles for meager wages, they work under the same conditions, or worse, as other workers in the Foxconn sweatshops.” 

After locking out 465 members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 27 in London, Ontario, Caterpillar decided last Friday to close its 62-year-old locomotive facility there and move production to newly “right-to-work” Indiana, where American workers will work for half of what Canadian workers would make. Caterpillar's decision to close the plant  after workers refused to agree to major wage concessions has provoked outrage across Canada in light of the fact that Illinois-based Caterpillar made a record $4.8 billion in profits in 2011.

CAW members, who have already been blockading a completed locomotive from leaving the London plant, have vowed to continue blocking any products from leaving there as they attempt to extract a better severance from the company. The CAW local is also considering occupying the plant. “The CAW has occupied workplaces when employers have shown disrespect,” Canadian Auto Workers Union President Ken Lewenza told Bloomberg. “It’s a tool. It’s an option.”

As I reported last week, under the Investment Canada Act, foreign companies taking over Canadian companies must demonstrate a "net benefit" to Canada. Critics claim that the government allowed a foreign-owned company (Caterpillar) to buy a Canadian company without having any intention of providing any “net benefit” to Canada.

Walker has been running around the nation to gather cash from corporate and right-wing sources, raising an astonishing $12.2 million in his effort to fend off a statewide recall election demanded by 1.1 million residents.

But Walker not only faces voters furious over his role in revoking public employee union rights. Later this week, the governor will be meeting with Milwaukee County District Attorney to answer questions about his role as Milwaukee county executive from 2002 to 2010. It's part of a John Doe probe that has already produced the arrest of four former Walker staffers, including longtime close associate Tim Russell. Walker has hired two lawyers in preparation.

Progressives are piecing together evidence about Walker's operation as Milwaukee county executive and wondering if the current investigation will explode into a major "Walkergate" scandal. 

He didn’t know about the stop-work order issued three days earlier by the city of Milpitas, Calif., located near San Jose in the Bay Area. Neither did the foreman. Neither did his co-workers.

Inspectors issued the order after they determined that the foundation for the 5,800 square-foot home needed strengthening, and that a soil inspector needed to check out the site. Keyvan Irannejad, Milpitas' chief building official, told the Mercury News, "They just ignored our stop-work notice."

The area was so unstable Zapata’s body could not be pulled out until two days later. Zapata, a husband and father of three children, had been on the job just two weeks.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Tuesday, Senate Democrats averted another Federal Aviation Administration shutdown by passing a "compromise" funding bill that will fund the agency through 2014 and modernizes the country's air traffic control system. The FAA partially shutdown last summer when negotiations over the bill delayed its passage.

It passed 75 to 20—and has incensed union leaders, who condemn its provisions making it harder to organize workers in the airline and rail industries.

On the surface, the compromise bill passed by Senate Democrats doesn't appear to hurt union organizing efforts since it requires 50 percent of airline or railway workers to  sign a petition for a union election, instead of the current 35 percent. Many union organizers often file for elections when 65-70 percent of workers have called for an election, in order to ensure victory.

But here's the catch: The bill would require organizers to gather signatures from 50 percent of all employees in a potential bargaining unit, including those who have been laid off during the past 10 years. In other words, it redefines the word "employee," raising the threshhold pro-union workers must reach if they want to hold a unionization election.

Watch Communication Workers of America President Larry Cohen's fiery remarks above. 

While the rich are rolling in tax giveaways, a few credits actually give poor folks a break. One of these, the refundable child tax credit (CTC), applies to middle-class and poor parents alike and was claimed by some 21 million taxpayers in 2011, “which averaged about $676 per child and totaled $26.1 billion,” according to Politico. For poor families, the CTC, together with its big sister the Earned Income Tax Credit, provides a lifeline to keep them from plunging below the poverty line.

Now some lawmakers advocate cutting off the child tax credit for tax filers who lack of Social Security number. The move is unabashedly aimed at making life harder for undocumented workers, even taxpaying ones, specifically by punishing their children.

In a unanimous ruling last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld for the first time a “ministerial exception” limiting the rights of some employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a church-run elementary school asserted that such an exception protected its decision to fire "called teacher" Cheryl Perich following her medical leave and threat to file an ADA lawsuit. Prominent organizations weighed in on both sides: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the American Jewish Committee, and the Muslim-American Public Affairs Council were among those filing briefs backing Hosanna-Tabor; the NAACP, People for the American Way, and the Anti-Defamation League backed Perich.

Perich's conflict with the Lutheran Church and School began in January 2005, when she told her principal that she was ready to return to work following a medical leave for narcolepsy. The principal questioned whether Perich was healthy enough to work, and told her that she had already been replaced. The church’s congregation, which is vested with decision-making powers, offered to pay a portion of Perich’s health insurance costs if she would voluntarily resign.

Perich declined the offer, and instead showed up at the school on the first day her medical leave was over, declaring she wouldn’t leave without a note documenting that she had shown up ready to work. According to the Supreme Court, when her principal told Perich the school was likely to fire her, “Perich responded that she had spoken with an attorney and intended to assert her legal rights.” A letter from the School Board Chairman to Perich charged that her “insubordination and disruptive behavior,” and “threatening to take legal action” had “damaged, beyond repair, [her] working relationship” with Hosanna-Tabor. Perich’s status as a “called teacher” was withdrawn in a congregational vote, and the school fired her.

The labor-community group coalition Stand Up! Chicago and the Grassroots Collaborative, which is organizing tomorrow’s march, count it as a victory that the CME Group will not collect the funds, which a CME spokesman said were never actually accepted or received. Now residents are demanding that the $33 million be spent on creating jobs and community services in the low-income and working-class neighborhoods that the TIF program was meant to serve.

Emanuel has pledged to increase accountability and transparency in the use of TIF funds; former Mayor Richard M. Daley was widely criticized for allocating TIF funds to some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods and large corporations or politically-connected developers. As Mike Elk reported here last fall, United Airlines and Miller-Coors both received millions in TIF funds to convince them to locate corporate headquarters in Chicago.

The Grassroots Collaborative—which includes the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union—is also asking Emanuel to impose a moratorium on TIF funds spent in the LaSalle TIF district, a downtown area home to some of the city’s wealthiest businesses and residents. 

Last December, a majority of workers voted against joining the electrical workers union (IBEW) in an election that the IBEW is challenging with the National Labor Relations Board. The workers were inspired to join the IBEW as a result of a unionization campaign by 282 Brooklyn-based Cablevision workers, who successfully voted to join CWA in late January in a heavily publicized campaign as I recently reported on for In These Times.

“We'll stay out until they recognize we are somebody, that we as a people have rights,” employee Omar Hutchinson told Crain’s New York. “That's the whole idea. I might lose my job, but that's the whole idea.”

So it's surprising that a group of workers at GE Transportation in Kansas City, Mo., recently voted 44-41 to join IBEW Local 1464. It was the first time that a union had organized a GE bargaining unit in 10 years; the last was a small service shop in Florida containing a dozen workers. According to the IBEW, it was the first time anyone has organized a large-scale GE facility in 20 years.

The key to this success seems to be workers' perseverance. Despite three previous failed attempts in four years to organize the plant, workers strategically countered the talking points of GE’s anti-union campaign. In 2010, workers at the Kansas City plant attempted to organize a union with IBEW after seeing a worker die on the job in a horrific accident. But in a December 2010 election, pro-union workers lost by a mere 11 votes. 

“The State Department’s ban on CETUSA is a big win for the students, and a blow against the larger trend of labor recruiters and companies using guestworkers to hollow out industries and undercut wages and conditions all over America," National Guest Worker Alliance (NGA) Director Saket Soni said. “Corporations like Hershey’s and labor recruiters like CETUSA have turned the J-1 cultural exchange program into the country’s largest guest worker program, and profited from captive workers earning low wage.”

The debarment of CETUSA is a small victory for NGA, as there are many other recruiters still operating in the J-1 guest worker visa program that abuse workers, according to the organization. Advocates say that in order to stop further abuses of guestworkers the J-1 program needs to be reformed to provide greater rights to guest workers and more oversight of recruiters and companies using guest workers.

"I hope this sends a clear message to other recruiters like CETUSA: we will NOT be your captive workers,” said Harika Duygu Ozer, an NGA member and former J-1 student worker  at the Hershey’s plant from Turkey. “Now the State Department needs to make laws so that the next group of workers that are made captive by recruiters don’t have to risk being fired and deported or go on strike, just to get their basic rights respected."

CNA and NUHW picket unfair contract negotiations in Bay Area

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente in California walked off the job Tuesday, expressing solidarity with optical workers and mental health specialists in the midst of contract negotiations.

Union representatives argue that recent proposals would slash workers' benefits significantly and render staffing levels insufficient.

The California Nurses Association (CNA) said that the walk-off is the largest the HMO has ever seen. The National Union of Healthcare Workers, the union responsibe for the negotiations, coordinated the strikes with CNA. There are three Kaiser facilities in San Mateo County—San Mateo, Redwood City and San Francisco.

According to Dr. Spencer Gross, Kaiser executives' recent proposals betray a predilection for greed: "What it boils down to is Kaiser top executives putting profits before patient care."

Working through Warehouse Workers for Justice, workers at the Elwood, Il, distibution center—reputedly Wal-Mart's largest with 3 million square feet of space—filed suit against Eclipse Advantage and Schneider Logistics for firing roughly 65 workers on December 29. In November, some of these workers had sued the two companies for violating state and federal wage and hour laws, such as not paying a minimum wage or premium pay for overtime in many cases.

The new amendment to that suit filed on February 1 claims that Schneider and Eclipse as "joint employers" failed to give the required 60-day notice of a mass layoff required by the federal WARN Act.

Although Wal-Mart owns the building, according to WWJ organizer Mark Meinster, Schneider contracts to operate the warehouse and sub-contracts with staffing agencies like Eclipse to provide part of the workforce, and Eclipse or other firms may further subcontract for supply of labor. Beyond trying to maximize its flexibility, "it's a shell game to avoid responsibility," Meinster says. 

The draconian package of bills includes:

1. A ban on local officials from bargaining with unions. It would even ban state and local units of government from conferring with unions. 
2. Public employees could no longer have their dues deducted from their paychecks.
3. Enforcement of a “paycheck protection” plan making it harder for unions to get contributions for pro-labor candidates.
4. Prohibit local governments from granting release time for union activities, so that union leaders would have to use personal time to resolve issues with management.

“We consider this even worse than the [anti-public union] legislation that Gov. Walker pushed in Wisconsin, “said AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebeka Friend. She believes the new wave of legislation is aimed at preventing union members from speaking out against the privatization of public services in Arizona.

Privatization has long been a central goal of both the American Legislative Exchange Council (see here and here), a national group funded heavily by the billionaire Koch brothers that drafts and promotes state legislation, and the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, an ALEC affiliate.

On Wednesday, the Export Grain Terminal (EGT) in Longview, Wash., recognized ILWU Local 21 as the sole union representing workers at the port. EGT and ILWU are expected to negotiate a contract in the coming days to settle the dispute, which would brings to an end one of the most most high-profile and bloody labor disputes in years. The settlement also stops EGT from opening the first nonunion port on the West Coast, which ILWU agressively opposed.

Last year, EGT opened a grain terminal in Longview, Wash., using a variety of nonunion labor in skilled positions and labor provided by the Operating Engineers union in less-skilled positions. The use of nonunion and non-ILWU labor at the Port of Longview resulted in a series of confrontational showdowns between protesting union members and the facility. On one occasion last July, more than 100 union members were arrested for breaking down a fence and invading the grain terminal in an effort to shut it down.

Later, hundreds of ILWU members blocked railroad tracks to prevent goods from moving;  on another occasion unionists vandalized trains carrying grain to the port. Throughout the confrontations, more than 125 protesters were arrested.

That specter is the offspring of Chinese trade and industrial policies—many in likely violation of the World Trade organization rules—and U.S. car companies' short-term greed, abetted by inadequate, flawed U.S. policy.

Earlier this week, a group of Democratic legislators from the auto heartland--including Senators Sherrod  Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabecow (Mich.), and Robert Casey (Pa.)--and union leaders called for the Obama administration to investigate Chinese trade violations, pointing to three new studies of the Chinese auto industry and government policy that gave credibility to their appeal.

Obama himself could benefit from calling for such investigation: It could demonstrate seriousness about his State of the Union pledge to enforce trade laws—a winning pledge especially with many voters from working-class households, whose support is critical for the president's re-election.

An OMB review period is supposed to be only 90 days, although some cases allow for an additional 45 day review followed by a public comment period before a regulation is published in the Federal Register. The White House, however, has held nine closed door meetings between industry groups such as the National Association of Home Builders, the American Chemistry Council and the National Industrial Sand Association. In the 11 months that the rule has been held up by the White House, a report by Public Citizen estimates that 60 people could have been saved if it were already implemented. 

Last week, 300 workplace safety advocates sent a letter to the White House protesting the delay. They wrote:

Data that measures the stunning leap in CEO pay, as noted by Isabel Sawhill in a recent article for the Brookings Institution. Where corporate execs once earned 30 times as much as the average worker, that figure has jumped to 300 today, she noted.

But down in the valley, there’s a troubling reality that deserves as much attention at the economic takeoff of the rich. It’s the economic plight of poor black and Latino youths, an economic misfortune that threatens to mark generations to come. Consider: Between 1985 and 2000, two-thirds of all black children were raised in neighborhoods with at least a 20-percent poverty rate. For white youths, in comparison, the rate was 6 percent, according to a 2009 study by Patrick Sharkey. With the numbers steadily increasing across the last decade, 38 percent of black youths were stuck in poverty in 2010, according to U.S. government figures. That’s up 8 percent from a low in 2001.

But the toll of a collapsed economy has been especially hard on Latino youths. In 2010, Latino youths faced a poverty rate just under that of black youths, 37.3 percent, according to figures from the Pew Research Center.

MILWAUKEE—Wisconsin’s economic problems are only deepening the political crisis for Gov. Scott Walker, already the target of a massive recall campaign that gathered 1.1 signatures from Wisconsinites.

Despite Walker’s pledge to preside over the creation of 250,000 jobs by 2015, Wisconsin has lost jobs for the past six months as the rest of the country has added them, and job losses have totaled more than 35,000 since he signed his highly controversial state budget last June.

But there is a more specific economic (and social) crisis facing Milwaukee: Just 44.7 percent of African-American males are still part of the workforce, reflecting the long-term decimation and relocation of the city’s industrial based and the lingering effects of the Great Recession.

Even for African-American males in their prime working years (25 to 54), only 52 percent were in the workforce. “That took me aback,” stated Marc Levine, author of the new study illuminating the appalling level of joblessness in the city’s black community.

While the United States certainly hasn’t descended into the ranks of the most oppressive regimes, the watchdog group Reporters without Borders observes that in 2011 the political barriers and outright attacks facing reporters had led to a steep drop in the rankings—27 places down, to number 47:

In the space of two months in the United States, more than 25 [journalists] were subjected to arrests and beatings at the hands of police who were quick to issue indictments for inappropriate behaviour, public nuisance or even lack of accreditation.

The most high-profile violations of press freedom took place during the Occupy protests, as reporters were abused by police and otherwise stonewalled by authorities.

Ever-faithful to his 1% cronies, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg moved swiftly to restrict press coverage of Occupy Wall Street actions, barring journalists from Zuoccotti Park. Authorities justified the “media blackout” by insisting that the purpose was “to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press.” The safety assurances presumably weren’t much comfort to the many reporters who got roughed up and arrested while trying to do their jobs.

At least the attempted delivery of one had the desired effect in Chicago this week, with the company that owns the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange agreeing to forgo $15 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) taxpayer funds designated for "blighted areas."

In 2010 the Chicago City Council had approved giving the money to the CME Group for upscale renovations at the Mercantile Exchange and CBOT headquarters. To receive that and other tax breaks, the company had promised to keep 1,750 jobs and create 638 new jobs in Chicago.

Last week, the labor and community coalition Stand Up! Chicago had tried to deliver the golden toilet—adorned with a red ribbon—to CME Group executive chairman Terrence Duffy, who reportedly refused to accept it (see video below). Duffy noted that CME had never itself signed off on the TIF deal, and the money had not been delivered or spent.

In returning the TIF funds, the company cited other tax breaks, reportedly worth $77 million, that made the TIF funds unnecessary. According to media reports, the company had threatened to pull up stakes if incentives weren’t secured.

A federal judge has scheduled a trial for March 5 to decide whether the managers of Hostess Brands have the right to unilaterally cancel labor contracts for some 15,000 union members working for the company, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The primary targets in the trial are the Teamsters members who drive the Hostess trucks, and the bakery workers who produce the breads, cakes and snacks that have made the company famous. Currently, Hostess operates 36 industrial bakeries and hundreds of outlet stores in locations spread across 49 states.

In a statement to In These Times, Hostess spokesman Erik Halvorson all but admitted that scheduling the trial was a pressure tactic to force the unions into concessions now. The company is “committed to reaching a consensual agreement with its unions,” he said, and its courtroom maneuvers “are specifically designed to encourage good-faith negotiations so that we can reach that goal – and that’s what we continue to pursue.”

As Mitt Romney campaigns in today’s Florida presidential primary, airline workers have been following him with a message about one of his old company’s newest clients: Airline giant AMR, the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle. AMR, which filed for bankruptcy in November, last week announced plans to retain the advice of Bain & Co., the consulting firm where Romney worked before co-founding private equity firm Bain Capital in 1985.

“He’s talking about creating jobs,” says Transport Workers Union President James Little, but “he’s not a job creator.  He’s a job cremator.”  TWU represents 24,000 members at American Airlines and American Eagle whose jobs and benefits are threatened in the bankruptcy process.

AMR’s retention of Bain (for consulting on its American Eagle subsidiary) came out the same week as news that AMR had contributed less than $7 million to its pension fund, out of a normally required $100 million, for the month of January. Days later, AMR increased its contribution. “I have a hard time sitting back,” says Little, “when the company is taking hard-earned money…to pay $525,00 a month to have this company come in and tell them how to cut heads.”

The town hall focused on education, and it was probably not coincidental that it came during the early stages of negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union – with whom Emanuel has been engaged in bitter public fights over a longer school day, school closings and a focus on nonunion charter schools.

As video streamed live online, the mayor answered just a handful of questions culled from about 150 submitted earlier via Facebook. The questions were read by an adult moderator and two student journalists at George Westinghouse College Prep, a new school on the city’s impoverished west side. Emanuel’s remarks painted a hopeful picture, stressing his administration’s dedication to putting students first, holding teachers accountable and replacing failing schools with creative new institutions with specialized curricula.

The teachers, students and parents commenting in the Facebook chat room during the event were not buying it, however. "What a strokefest," said one commenter near the end of the town hall, which lasted under 50 minutes despite many people’s understanding that the event was scheduled for two hours.

An NLRB Inspector General report (PDF link) released last week found that at the time Hayes was considering whether or not to resign, he "sought employment" with the anti-union law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which opposes the rule. A lawyer from the firm wrote to Hayes, “If you ever decide to resign, we’d like to talk to you.” 

“The Board plays a critical role in adjudicating and administering the rights of employees and employers under our nation’s labor law and Board members must be free of coercion and undue influence when executing their responsibilities,” said Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.). “Therefore, I respectfully request that the Department of Justice further investigate the circumstances surrounding the employment discussions between Member Hayes and Morgan Lewis and any other issues the Inspector General brings to your attention related to his investigation.”

On January 1, Electro-Motive Diesel and England- and Australia-based mining giant Rio Tinto both decided to lock out workers in what some union officials see as a coordinated attack. Rio Tinto, which locked out 780 workers represented by the United Steelworkers, wants the right to replace each union worker that retires with a contract employee making half a union-level wage and ineligible to join the union. The result would be that in one decade, unionized workers would likely be in the minority in the aluminum smelting facility in Alma, and that in two decades the union would not exist, according to USW organizer Joe Drexler.

U.S.-based Caterpillar, which owns the Electro-Motive Diesel locomotive plant through a subsidiary, locked out 420 members of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 27. Despite Caterpillar increasing its profits by 44 percent over the last year, the company is asking union workers to let it cut wages by by as $18.50 an hour (55 percent) in some cases. The company is also asking for the elimination of defined benefits pensions as well as reduction in overtime and vacation plans.

Midwife-assisted birth at home or at a birthing center--a facility specializing in childbirth and pregnancy care--allows many women with low-risk pregnancy to give birth safely without interventions like surgery. Advocates say this process provides a more holistic experience for a woman in a familiar setting, sans the medications or presence of a gaggle of strangers in scrubs.

Home-based births jumped 29 percent between 2004 and 2009, though they are still a small percentage of births nationwide. Government data suggests that "Home births have a lower risk profile than hospital births" in terms of low birthweight and preterm babies.

Chicago City Colleges workers protest demands for concessions

On Wednesday, clerical and technical workers in Chicago protested in front of the City Colleges headquarters, calling attention to an unresolved contract dispute that has dragged on for nearly two years.

A major “reinvention” of the City College system—spearheaded by Daley-appointed chancellor Cheryl L. Hyman—has reduced the schools’ expenditures by $30 million since the overhaul began 18 months ago, according to officials at City Colleges.

But union representatives argue that workers are shouldering the financial burden for the savings wrought by restructuring. According to AFL-CIO Local 1708, 400 full-time workers have gone without a collective bargaining contract since June 30, 2010. Delores Withers, president of Local 1708, says that City Colleges officials are trying to push a five-year wage freeze on workers in order to proceed with contract negotiations.

In that context, the news on Friday could have been worse: 11.8 percent of the workforce belonged to unions in 2011 (with another 1.2 percent represented by unions but not members, typically in right-to-work states). That's down 0.1 percent from 2010, and down by a bit less than half since 1983, when comarable figures were first compiled (and 20.1 percent of workers belonged to unions).

But the number of union members grew last year by 49,000 (reaching 14.8 million, compared to 17.7 million in 1983). Even though governments cut out jobs of 61,000 public employees who were union members, there were 110,000 more private sector union members last year than in 2010. But public employees still make up more than half of organized labor.

Surprising as it may have been to have private business union membership grow while public sector membership declined, the union share of the private sector workforce remained unchanged--6.9 percent.

The victory creates a toehold in the cable TV industry, which is traditionally nonunionized. While the telecommunication industry is nearly 90 percent unionized, according to CWA only 2 to 4 percent of cable TV workers are unionized, and Cablevision workers make one-third less than CWA-represented Verizon workers holding similar jobs.

“I’ve waited 13 years for this,” Cablevision technician Clarence Adams said. “United ... we now have the power to negotiate a fair contract that will give us the dignity and respect on the job we deserve.”

In order to join a union, Cablevisions workers had to overcome the company's anti-union campaign. They were made to attend anti-union meetings and attend intimidating one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about the merits of joining a union, CWA officials said. Cablevision also employed the famous unionbusting law firm Jackson Lewis to help delay the election in order to have more time to intimidate workers and hold captive audience anti-union meetings.

Some of the kids had clearly done things like this before. One five-year-old raised her fist in the air as the crowd chanted, calling on members of the state Assembly and Senate to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.  Another girl, who looked about three, knew the chant by heart: "We are the children, mighty mighty children, fighting for justice and our future." She didn't miss a beat, and as one of the organizers held the bullhorn up to her mouth she did a little militant dance to accompany it.

With balloons and even a couple of clowns, it all seemed very festive. But the happy atmosphere didn't hide a more unpleasant truth. Many of the moms there probably see less of their own children than the youngsters they care for. And in the case of those caring for the aged, sick or disabled, the conditions of that work can seem like something a century ago.

Even as the economy slowly picks up, finding a job is harder than ever for teenagers, according to a national study released on Tuesday. That’s likely because the jobs that are being "created" in recent months are being snapped up by adults—often people over age 50 who were laid off from other positions or forced out of retirement during the economic crisis. Meanwhile, funding for youth jobs has suffered because of state and local budget crises, and significant "stimulus" funding for youth jobs and training under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has now expired.

The study, by researcher Andrew Sum at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, looks at teen employment over time through "jobless" numbers rather than "unemployment" numbers, since unemployment figures don’t include youth who are not actively looking for work. As with adults, since it has become harder and harder to get a job many youth have given up and hence dropped from the unemployment figures.

A press release for the report says:

The teen employment rate declined by 19 percentage points, or more than 40%, nationally from 1999-2000 to 2011, falling to 26, the lowest rate since World War II… The figures are bleakest for African-American teens in the city of Chicago, of whom 90 percent are jobless, including 93 of every 100 teens from families with incomes under $40,000; upper-middle-income whites were nearly four times as likely to hold a job, the data show.

American prisoners currently help Georgia-based Shaw Industries produce wood flooring that appears "time worn" and is sold under its Anderson Flooring brand. While prisoners have traditionally only produced items like state-issued license plates and equipment for governments, many states are now expanding the use of prison labor to produce goods for sale in public markets through a federal program called Prison Industries Certification Enhancement Program (PICEP). There are currently about 200 "factories" in U.S. prisons certified through PICEP that manufacture goods sold on the general market. (Multiple certified "factories" can be located in the same prison.)

The use of prison labor has grown dramatically as the prison population has expanded by 290 percent since 1980. One in 100 American adults are now in prison. According to one study by Noah Zatz at UCLA Law, "well over 600,000, and probably close to a million inmates are working full-time in jails and prisons throughout the United States” (These prisoners in some cases produce goods for as little as 23 cents an hour.

Earlier this month, Shaw Industries wrote in a letter to customers that it "recently learned that our importing into Canada of goods that are manufactured utilizing prison labor is prohibited by Canadian law." After 15 years of selling prison-made goods in Canada, the company said it only learned of the problem recently and notified distributors of its product that it would stop sending prison-made goods into Canada.

“We’re living minute to minute,” Indiana AFL-CIO Communications Director Jeff Smith reported Monday night from Indianapolis. Some 10,000 union members were at the State Capitol to protest proposed right-to-work (RTW) legislation, as Democratic legislators huddled to find a new strategy for blocking its passage.

By Wednesday evening, after Indiana's House and Senate had passed RTW legislation, the state was poised to become the first industrial Midwestern state to ban closed "union shops," in which all employees are a member of the union that bargains for wages and benefits on their behalf. It would be the 23rd in the country to do so; most are in the south.

On Monday, the State Senate passed the the RTW bill 28-22, with 9 Republicans joining the 13 Democrats in opposition. On the House side, Wednesday evening an identical measure passed 55 to 44. (On Monday, all 60 Republicans voted down an amendment—backed by all 40 Democrats—calling for a statewide referendum on the right-to-work bill, based on results of a Peter Hart poll showing 69 percent of Hoosiers  lack information on the bill’s impact and 71 percent support a referendum to settle the issues.)

All that's left is for Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) to sign the bill into law, which he is likely to do before the Super Bowl in Indianapolis in early February.

Sen. Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson stated: "Right to work is nothing more than a race to the bottom for the middle class of Indiana, and that, my friends, is not a race I care to win."

An AFSCME ad being broadcast on Florida TV stations that attacks GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Without a Democratic presidential primary contest, unions this year are taking early potshots at Republican primary candidates—especially Mitt Romney—and other GOP leaders through radio and TV ads, as well as other means.

The aim seems less to influence Republican primary voters than to define Romney, who until this week following Newt Gingrich's South Carolina primary victory was the front-runner in the race, and to gain leverage on other labor issues by tying them to high-profile Republicans vulnerable to bad publicity.

AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, leads the way with $800,000 worth of ads during the current Florida contest. The spot asks, "What kind of businessman is Mitt Romney?," then tells how Romney made huge profits from the sale of Damon Corporation during his tenure at Bain, his private equity company (watch ad above). Romney served as director of the medical testing firm, which was heavily fined for defrauding Medicare, described by the federal prosecutor as an instance of "corporate greed run amok."

The ad ends by morphing Romney into Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who ran a hospital chain, Columbia HCA, convicted of massive Medicare fraud, and is now quite unpopular (even though he won his office despite his defrauding a popular government program).

This despite 2011 being the a year in which unions (especially those representing public-sector workers) have been under unprecedented attacks in places like Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.

The only time Obama explicitly mentioned a union was in reference to  “Master Lock's unionized plant” in Milwaukee, which he said is now running at "full capacity" because the company brought back jobs from overseas. 

At the beginning of his speech, Obama said: “At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.” However, he did not mention the fundamental role that unions played in building that middle class. Unions represented nearly one-third of all workers in the decade following World War II.

Yet our schools are poorer than ever, and in many communities, the child poverty has deepened while test scores have stagnated. The experts leading the education reform debate have failed to draw a simple equation: a system with adequate resources does better than one without.

The gap in the logic has widened as state governments press school districts to conform to new standards--or else. States are gunning for a competitive grant fund known as “Race to the Top,” which the White House dangles as an incentive to restructure school systems. This hyped-up free-market reform rhetoric seeped into President Obama’s suggestion to “offer schools a deal” in his State of the Union address.

The No Child Left Behind corporate-style reform template emphasizes tests and evaluations, purging bad teachers, and shuttering failing schools.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is pressuring teachers’ unions to agree to major reforms so the state can tap into a Race to the Top grant. At issue are efforts to impose evaluation schemes that might make teachers’ jobs contingent on potentially misleading or incomplete data. A Washington Post editorial praised Cuomo for standing up to the supposed obstructionism of unions to defend childrens' civil rights.