A reminder that the Draft EIS for the PolyMet Mining, Inc. is available and ready for comments.  Please remember to submit your comments in support of the PolyMet project to encourage the much-needed economic growth, and environmentally safe jobs across the State that the NorthMet project would provide.

Liz Freeberg, one of thousands of unemployed Minnesotans, has a message for those gathered Thursday at President Obama’s White House job summit: “Keep focusing on the fact that this is about putting people back to work.”

Union files charge, sworn statements with National Labor Relations Board. Members of organized labor, elected officials and exploited workers rallied on May 28th outside Target Center in support of demands from Roofers and Waterproofers Local 96 that Stock Roofing halt potentially deadly worker exploitation on publicly funded projects. (See a video report inside: Workers Kept in the Dark Working on the Target Center Roof)

This week's NPR program, "A Day in the Work Life," goes on the job with carpenter Olga Aguilar.

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?

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.