Home health workers and childcare workers will lose their unions if the Right to Work foundation has its way in court. This long-time foe of unionization denies their status as workers.

Close to 3.5 million workers took to the streets of France Tuesday, protesting the government’s plans to cut public pensions. The demonstrations included disruptive strikes among key groups of workers, which some unions want to continue indefinitely.

Sandy Pope, a local president in New York, announced she will run against James Hoffa for the presidency of the Teamsters, in a three-way race. Pope criticized Hoffa for bargaining weak contracts, and said the union needs to re-organize trucking.

Ballot counting wrapped up late Thursday in one of the most hotly contested union elections in years. Workers at Kaiser Permanente’s 331 California hospitals and clinics stuck with the Service Employees (SEIU) third-largest local, UHW.

Wednesday afternoon, the major shipping carriers agreed to negotiate and the ILA announced a return to work. Longshore workers had shut the East Coast’s biggest port yesterday and today, honoring a picket line by Philadelphia ILA members.

As tens of thousands of activists rally in D.C. October 2, not all union members will be on the same page. A minority are open to the Tea Party's message of government-bashing and fear of foreigners.

Are there more of us than there are of the Tea Party? The One Nation Working Together rally in Washington October 2 is the union movement’s answer to the Tea Party-Glenn Beck types, says Steve Kramer, vice president of a union that hopes to send 50,000 members on buses to D.C.

A union election loaded with educational and racial politics—and questions of union democracy—will soon shape D.C.'s schools. The vote follows a mayoral election that ousted leaders of the virulent form of education “reform.”

Railroad engineers saved their right to vote for top officers, voting 3 to 1 in a national referendum to preserve it. A last-gasp bid by the old guard this week was dropped.

Ask airport security workers who runs the Transportation Security Administration, and the “good old boys’ club” comes up a lot. Two unions are vying at TSA, campaigning for bargaining rights so they can square off in an election.

Steelworkers who produce nuclear-power fuel were locked out in June by the Honeywell corporation. Now scabs are doing the dangerous, specialized work.

Thousands of Jobs with Justice activists and community allies hit the streets in more than 100 cities across the nation September 15 to warn of a “Jobs Emergency.” Their warning: “If Congress won’t act to create jobs, then maybe they don’t deserve to have jobs.”

Stereotypical union battles of the past were fought by burly working-class heroes on picket lines. Think of tough-looking guys marching along San Francisco’s waterfront in 1934. Their enemies were not just longshore bosses but a corrupt and management-friendly East Coast dockers union that sought to undercut their strike.

Unlike in France, the U.S. Social Security system is running a surplus—$2.3 trillion, in fact, projected to last till 2037. Yet raising the retirement age, as high as 70, seems to be Washington’s favorite bright idea. President Obama appointed a Deficit Commission to figure out how to bring down the national debt, but it’s been talking about Social Security instead.

More than 2.5 million workers protested throughout France September 7 as the country’s largest union federations called a 24-hour strike protesting proposed cuts to the public pension system, the equivalent of Social Security. There were some 220 protests, according to the CGT, the country’s leading union federation.

CSX, the third-largest railroad in the U.S., released a new attendance policy last month that trumps various union contracts. The vague and unsafe blanket policy says workers are not allowed to mark off sick for more than two days in a rolling 30-day period, regardless of work schedule or job.

We at CWA Local 1298 got the message when an AT&T executive put out a company-wide memo two years ago: “We are not Verizon.”

After 114 days on the picket line, strikers at the Mott’s plant outside Rochester, New York, voted September 13 to accept the company’s contract offer. Workers, who produce applesauce and juice for Mott’s parent company Dr. Pepper-Snapple, returned to work the following week. The vote was 185 to 62.

Are you thinking about running for local union office? If you’re like most candidates, you start by asking “Who can I get to run with me?” It seems like a good question. But it’s the wrong way to start your campaign.