Michael Whitney

Laura Flanders of GRITtv spoke with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka last week about jobs, Trumka’s union experience, and the future of the labor movement. Trumka is clearly aggravated about a lack of progress on jobs, saying that President Obama “is probably more pro-business than anybody in the past.” He also says “the worst thing this president could do” is replace Larry Summers with a CEO.

This is, as Gerry McEntee might say, “Bullshit!” Via Ben Smith, McEntee praises Rahm on the Chief of Staff’s way out of DC and endorses him for mayor of Chicago.

Firedoglake has exclusively obtained mailers from NUHW that encourage Kaiser workers to vote NUHW because the kinda-union supports Republicans more than SEIU does. Seriously.

About 40 medical marijuana industry employees joined with the Teamsters Local 70 in California earlier this month, ratifying a contract after their employer recognized their union without interference. These employees are different from those of medical marijuana dispensaries who joined with UFCW Local 5. The newest Teamster members are those who tend to plants at a medical marijuana management company.

SEIU’s California State Council – arguably the leaders of the state’s most powerful union – announced the union’s support of California’s Proposition 19 for marijuana legalization. Not only does SEIU’s endorsement bring much needed political mainstream legitimacy, but as the Times notes, it also brings SEIU’s campaign infrastructure to Prop 19′s campaign.

Speaking to union members in Anchorage, Alaska today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Sarah Palin would “go down in history like [Joe] McCarthy,” and predicted that “Palinism will become an ugly word.”

Palin(‘s ghostwriter) took the time to pen a longer response on Facebook posted tonight, in which Palin asks union members to consider “a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement … you won’t regret it.”

After getting roundly whacked by basically the entire internet, the US Chamber has officially apologized for its blog post yesterday that suggested women seeking equal pay have a “fetish for money” and suggested women should “choose the right partner at home.” But don’t let it fool you: the US Chamber has for decades advocated in private the very sentiments posted to its public blog yesterday. We just got a look behind the curtain.

The Northern California council of the ILWU, otherwise known as the Longshoremen, announced its support for Prop 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative. The 25,000-member council cited the extraordinary “waste” of money and lives in the war on marijuana, including marijuana prohibition’s disproportionate impact “on the backs of workers, poor people, and people of color.”

The US Chamber of Commerce has apparently spent too much time watching Mad Men: in a blog post this morning, Chamber blogger Brad Peck called women’s fight for pay equity to be nothing more than a “fetish for money,” and said women complaining about their pay should focus instead on “choosing the right partner at home.” The Chamber’s Peck also approvingly quoted a post that asked, “Should government force gym-man to share his beautiful babes with couch-potato man?”

When I heard that President Obama told the AFL-CIO this morning that he would keep pushing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, my first reaction was to laugh uncontrollably for several minutes. Some kind of joke, right?

No, Obama said it with a straight face. He has the gall to straight up lie to union members – who just dedicated $53 million to keep Democrats in office – about their top priority.