Inspired by workers at Smithfield’s Tar Heel, N.C. plant, workers at Smithfield’s Wilson N.C. plant began a grassroots campaign for UFCW representation in January. But, in yet another sad illustration of why we need Employee Free Choice, the company threatened, harassed and fired people to intimidate and divide Wilson workers and to keep them from coming together for a voice on the job.

Somebody in the Republican Party thought it would be a great idea to send Joe the Plumber to Pennsylvania to rally against the Employee Free Choice Act. The pretend plumber faced audiences so hostile in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg that he skipped a rally in Philadelphia. This perfectly sums of the state of both Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame, and the GOP.

Hundreds of UFCW members and workers from across the nation are converging on Capitol Hill today to share their stories about forming a union in the workplace with their elected officials.

In the first independent poll conducted this year on the issue, Americans are firmly and overwhelmingly in support of not only the Employee Free Choice Act, but of workers’ rights and of labor in general.

Workers at a Jacksonville Wal-Mart are finally sitting down to bargain with their employers–nine years after they voted to join a union.

Folks at the inaugural may be buttoning up from the cold but unionized hotel workers in DC are “buttoning up” to support the Employee Free Choice Act. They want to make sure hotel guests in town for the inaugural know how important this bill is to working people.

I interviewed a UNITE HERE member working at a hotel taking part in the inauguration.

It is time to end the rift between the north and the south in America. The Employee Free Choice Act is meaningless when conjoined with the Taft Hartley Act of 1947, also known as the slave labor act, adopted by many southern states over Truman’s veto. We must remove this divisive barrier.