In the 14 hours since the White House dumped the news of a NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement on a Friday night, labor unions are deafly silent in opposing this job-killing agreement.

UAW came out in support, but to our count, no other unions have said a word. Firedoglake reported last night that President Obama, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, and Members of Congress worked the phones yesterday to keep unions quiet. The Steelworkers are reportedly on the fence about supporting, and their goal for the AFL-CIO is neutrality, or silence. So far, it’s working.

In the absence of any opposition from anyone in labor on the new NAFTA, I thought I’d do a public service and show where labor and its allies used to stand on this NAFTA-style agreement, before they were pushed back into the veal pen.

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.

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.

President Obama apparently plans to submit long-stalled free trade deals with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia to Congress “as soon as possible,” according to a speech he made today. If Obama wants to have the Colombia agreement see the light of day, there’s a number of “outstanding issues” to be resolved. Specifically, the murders of more union members in Colombia than the rest of the world combined every year

When President Obama eulogized the 29 dead miners of the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion this weekend, he noted that no one should “put their lives at risk by simply showing up to work.” Unfortunately, it’s not just miners who fear for their lives while making a paycheck; deaths on the job are unfortunately entirely too common. In its annual report on worker deaths, the AFL-CIO found that 5,214 workers died on the job in 2008. That’s 14 people a day.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued a statement today on the Massey Energy Montcoal mine disaster, slamming Massey and CEO Don Blankenship for recklessness while honoring the miners and their rescuers.

Arlen Specter didn’t vocally oppose the Employee Free Choice Act. He single-handedly killed the entire bill.

Blanche Lincoln’s campaign went on the attack on Friday, releasing a new ad that claims Lincoln saved 1700 Arkansas jobs while Bill Halter outsourced jobs from his company. Problem is, the workers whose jobs Lincoln claimed to save fired back in a YouTube video. The workers slam Lincoln for doing nothing to help their jobs, and note that it was her support of free trade agreements like NAFTA that endangered their jobs in the first place.

After a valiant effort by the Evansville community to save the jobs of more than 1,000 people, Whirlpool is moving unabated in shutting down the operations of its Indiana plant – starting today. This marks yet another entry in the long record of American companies killing American jobs in search of cheap labor. And for what? A 77% raise for its CEO, plus $19 million in stimulus funds.

According to the Arkansas State AFL-CIO, members are reporting that they’ve received phone calls from Blanche Lincoln’s Senate campaign that smear Bill Halter for receiving support from labor unions.