About a month ago, a balcony collapsed at Wood Ridge apartment complex in south Austin, Texas. Occupy Austin has been involved since we first got word of the collapse. We’ve reached out to several residents, making ourselves available to help them organize a response and get the help they need. The group was present at a recent, contentious code hearing where Asset Plus was given 75 days to make repairs to ten of the 15 buildings.
This wasn’t enough for us; here’s a report on the follow up.

Union guys are angry right now. They are sitting on the benches, they are paying union dues, and losing insurance benefits. They are watching corporate America gain strength and infiltrate the environment at big industrial sites. They are feeling like pieces of meat, instead of skilled human beings. Imagine middle class life in America without the unions? It’s the beginning of the slippery slope where humans are just cogs in a wheel.

We’re giving up Styrofoam cups here at our building in Washington, D.C. Also doing an energy audit and taking a few other steps as a start toward making our building a green one—just some of the actions the AFL-CIO announced this week, in time for Earth Day.

Back in 1999, there was surprise over the “Teamsters and Turtles” alliance during protests against the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle.

There’s too much going on this week to focus on one topic. So here’s a rundown from the world of working people and their unions.

-Hilda Solis made her first public appearance as labor secretary during the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Miami, where she toured an Electrical Workers (IBEW) union training facility and held a meeting in the inner city with 700 community members.

The union movement is turning green. Not with envy, but with an escalating sense that the nation must work to address climate change and that we must be part of the effort to create good jobs that also are green jobs.

Last December, an unprecedented delegation of unionists traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. climate change conference. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America.