Unions

The latest fun figure about our country's growing income inequality: The average big company CEO earns 354 times that of the average rank-and-file worker. That statistic comes courtesy of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of trade unions in the country, which has been tracking this ratio since 1996, ...

By Sam Hananel The nation's labor unions suffered sharp declines in membership last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday, led by losses in the public sector as cash-strapped state and local governments laid off workers and -- in some cases -- limited collective bargaining rights. The union ...

LANSING, Mich. -- In an audacious flex of political muscle, Republicans in a single day reached the brink of a goal that for years has seemed an all-but-impossible dream: making the labor bastion of Michigan a right-to-work state. The GOP majority used its superior numbers and backing from Gov. Rick Snyder ...

NEW YORK - Hostess Brands Inc. lived to die another day. The maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs said late Tuesday that it failed to reach an agreement with its second-biggest union. As a result, Hostess plans to continue with a hearing today in which a bankruptcy court judge in White Plains, N.Y., will decide ...

Verizon often ranks on the "Best Places to Work" and "most admired" company lists, thanks to its ample salaries, generous benefits, impressive diversity and well-regarded training program. Yet many of the company's employees, former and current, are on a tear about the phone carrier, accusing it of slipping ...

By Daniel Woolls MADRID -- Banging drums and waving flags, tens of thousands of workers marked May Day in European cities Tuesday with a mix of anger and gloom over austerity measures imposed by leaders trying to contain the eurozone's intractable debt crisis. Taking the baton from Asia, where unions ...

By Sam Hananel WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unions may be united in working to re-elect President Barack Obama, but their leaders also are trying to repair bitter divisions over his rejection of an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. ...

Some say it's a devil's bargain. Arizona government employees, who have suffered recent pay cuts, could get a 5 percent raise. All they have to do is give up many of their civil service protections, reports Stateline. Gov. Jan Brewer's "personnel reform" proposal, if it becomes law, would strip away much of the ...

By Tom LoBianco INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The battle over the right-to-work issue may be reaching a conclusion in Indiana as the state prepares to adopt its law, but the argument over exactly what the measure means for a state's economy is likely to rage on, unresolved, as it has for 70 years. Since the 1940s, ...