Corrections officers, child care providers, first responders, health care workers and now bank employees. That’s right, bank employees. Meet the new members of the 1.4 million AFSCME family in one of our latest Online Xtras detailing how 500 tellers and other white-collar employees of U.S. Bank in Milwaukee voted overwhelmingly to join AFSCME Council 48.

While you’re at it, check out the latest on AFSCME members in action as corrections officers from Local 3361 (Council 75) in
Oregon fight to secure safer conditions at work – and win.

NPR has a good story this morning on why workers have reason not to be thankful for the National Labor Relations Board under the Bush Administration.

Click to listen: Unions Find Labor Relations Board Ineffective

Over the past few years, the misleadingly-named National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has made sure to let workers know which side its bread is buttered on. Officially charged with governing relations between unions and employers, the NLRB has all too often stacked the deck in favor of management. That’s why some people think a better name for the NLRB is the “No Labor Relations Board.”

With four of its five members appointed by President Bush, the board has made it harder for workers to join unions but easier for employers to block unions and fire workers for organizing. In one of its more infamous rulings, the NLRB reinterpreted the definition of “supervisor,” expanding the number and type of workers who could be barred from joining a union. The decision affected thousands of workers, including the nearly 60,000 nurses represented by AFSCME in 35 states and the District of Columbia.

Today, Nov. 15, thousands of workers, union leaders and activists in over 20 cities will rally at NLRB offices to protest the board’s egregious actions. Participants will call for the board to be “closed for renovations” until it is capable of operating in an unbiased and responsible manner.

The rallies are part of a nationwide week of action to raise awareness of the NLRB’s assault on workers’ rights. More than 1,000 people are expected to converge in front of the NLRB headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more information on events in your area, contact your central labor council.

Pres. Bush has just vetoed another bill that provides the vital services that strengthen America’s middle class. The 2008 Labor, Health and Education appropriations bill provides funding for education, health care, medical research and workers protections but apparently none of that is on Bush’s top list.

As Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said:

“The same president who is asking us to spend another $200 billion on the misguided war in Iraq and is insisting on providing $60 billion in tax cuts next year to folks who make over a million bucks a year, is now pretending to protect the deficit.”

The bipartisan bill was supported by 50 Republicans and passed on a solid 274-141 vote last week.

According to Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in order to meet Bush’s funding cut demands, “Congress would have to cut from the vetoed bill $1.4 billion for medical research, $1.3 billion for K-12 education, and $254 million for Head Start, among other items.”

“Tax cuts for the rich, health and education be damned” seems to be the motto guiding Bush’s scale of priorities. After all, this is the same guy who vetoed health care for kids and, more recently, a crucial water projects bill to help numerous localities across the country. The latter was overridden after Congress mustered enough votes to enact it.

There will be a vote to override Bush’s latest veto. Congress can and must do so. As stated by AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee, “This bill is needed to get America back on the right track. Congress needs to say no to the President’s wrong priorities.

It’s time to veto the veto.

The election results are in and it looks like working families scored big.

In Kentucky, we helped elect Steve Beshear (D) governor, ousting incumbent Ernie Fletcher (R), infamous for cancelling collective bargaining rights for state employees.

In Virginia, we helped our friends capture a majority in the state Senate, ending a decade of Republican control in the chamber.

It was only a year ago that union members helped deliver a mandate for change and put a majority of working family-friendly legislators in both houses of Congress.

This is just the beginning of our battle to take back America and put the White House back where it belongs – in the hands of working men and women!

Project Censored is a media research group that compiles an annual list of important news stories that have been overlooked by the country’s national media. High up on their latest ranking of under-reported stories is the stealth attempt to privatize America’s highways by both federal and state governments.

According to Project Censored:

[S]tates are selling off our nation’s enormous, and aging, infrastructure to private investors. Proponents are celebrating these transactions as a no-pain, all-gain way to off-load maintenance expenses and increase highway-building funds without raising taxes. Opponents are lambasting these plans as a major turn toward handing the nation’s valuable common asset over to private firms whose fidelity is to stockholders – not to the public transportation system or the people who use it.

Driven by wrong-minded public officials and corporate greed, contracts for public services are being increasingly doled out without regard to cost effectiveness or quality. Privatization is an all too often bad idea as the public ends up paying more for lower quality services. That’s why AFSCME continues to fight politicians who want to send public-sector jobs to private companies.

To read more, visit Project Censored’s Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008 and scroll down to number nine.