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.

Tomorrow afternoon, Congress will once again take up new legislative proposals to improve coal mine safety. After decades of repeated mining disasters, countless unnecessary deaths and injuries, and continual demands for remedial action, can Congress finally get mining safety legislation right? The outward signs are not encouraging.

Massey Energy CEO doesn’t like unions. Not breaking news, I know, but it was made ever more clear by Blankenship himself as he launched into a conspiratorial anti-union tirade on local televsion in West Virginia this weekend. He also claimed Jay Rockefeller is “evil.”

Anyone sensing a pattern here? One miner is dead and another is missing after the roof of a non-union coal mine collapsed in Kentucky today. One of two miners missing after a roof collapse at a Kentucky mine was found dead Thursday, federal mining officials said. Rescuers started searching the Alliance Resource Partners L.P. underground coal [...]

United Mine Workers union president Cecil Roberts said that Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship should be held accountable for the deaths of his workers, and that Roberts, along with Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and others in the AFL-CIO, have been discussing how to go about it. Watch it: Roberts also reveals that when Blankenship was [...]

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.