Membership in America’s Building Trades Unions increased by almost 100,000 members in 2007, reflecting the first overall increase in membership in close to a decade, according to data released by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In parallel fashion, union density in the U.S. construction industry increased by roughly 8 percent from 2006.

Construction is one of the most open employment fields in the United States. According to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the construction industry is going to need 1 million new workers by 2012 to build and repair the nation's infrastructure, build new structures, and replace retiring baby boomers.

The gravity of the situation is sinking in: If the average age of a construction worker is 52, with a huge manpower shortage predicted, what is the industry to do?

With workers’ rights under attack around the world, some 220 top global union leaders from more than 63 countries kicked off the first-ever global summit on organizing at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md.

The moods of post-Katrina New Orleans are many and oft-changing: Anger. Despair. Defiance . And, yes, optimism. Just listen to Shawn Smith, new apprentice boilermaker, and Sharon Jasper, organizer for tenants' rights, and Tom O'Malley, Vice President and Director of the Gulf Coast Revitalization Program (GCRP), an arm of the AFL-CIO Investment Trust Corporation.

The electrical industry is getting awfully nervous because, well, kids today don't seem to want to become line technicians, and the ones that are on the job are getting a little gray around the temple. For example, half of Florida's line technicians are reportedly set to retire within five years. Why? Deregulation? Poor math and science? A general "slacker" attitude?