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Republican Senate leaders are so frightened that a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) might actually have an open mind about workers’ rights, that in two purely partisan maneuvers, they’ve blocked a majority vote on one of President Obama’s nominees for an NLRB seat. Read More>>

Earlier this week, we noted a new study that predicts health insurance premiums will jump between 10 percent and 11 percent this year. Now a new government report says health care costs last year took the biggest bite ever out of the nation’s economy. Read More>>

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says workers face increasing obstacles when they try to form unions and “we need to restore their freedom to do so.” In testimony before the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee today, Solis looked back at the department’s actions in 2009 and forward to its 2010 agenda. Read More>>

The AFL-CIO is calling for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.” Unions are mobilizing their members to provide aid in Haiti and through donations. Here's how you can assist Haitians.

We recommend the following organizations for donating to Haiti:

• The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign
• Partners in Health
• Doctors Without Borders
• American Red Cross International Response Fund
• United Way Worldwide Disaster Fund

Volunteer

If you or someone you know is a registered nurse, the National Nurses Union is coordinating volunteers to go to Haiti. Contact the RN Response Network: www.NationalNursesUnited.org.

Those interested in providing volunteer assistance should contact the Center for International Disaster Information, at http://www.cidi.org.

Support Federal Correctional Officers, Sign the Petition!

Correctional Officer Jose Rivera was stabbed to death in a federal prison in Atwater, California in June, 2008, while locking inmates into their cells by himself. He should not have been alone. But in the understaffed Bureau of Prisons, where correctional officers are often outnumbered by inmates by 150 -1, prison violence is rising at an alarming rate. On April 23 of this year, an officer at a prison in Terra Haute, Indiana was stabbed seven times by an inmate. A week later in Tucson, Arizona, another officer was attacked. Similar incidents are now reported regularly system-wide.

The repeated refusal of the Bureau of Prisons management to address understaffing and underfunding within the system threatens the safety of correctional officers, inmates and our communities.

Sign the online petition and pass the link to your friends.