The buzz is that President Barack Obama is pushing hard for a deal with the big banks over the foreclosure crisis in advance of the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Most observers are afraid that the deal will be too small and that the banks will get a slap on the wrist despite playing a major role in creating the financial crisis that led to a recession.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined a growing chorus calling for a rejection of such a small deal and calling for an investigation of the banks over potential fraud and illegal activity:

We need to hold banks accountable for the fraudulent practices that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Depression. State Attorneys General have been investigating bank fraud, and these critical investigations must not be undermined by a premature and inadequate settlement. We call on the administration to reject any deal that insulates banks from full responsibility.

We commend state Attorneys Generals like New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden for their leadership and courage in calling for a real investigation and relief on a scale that helps the millions of homeowners who face a new wave of foreclosures.

The economy is currently weighed down by $750 billion in negative home equity, so relief on a massive scale is needed to lift home values and stimulate the economy by increasing consumer demand. A comprehensive settlement must force banks to write down underwater mortgages. A sum significantly larger than the rumored $25 billion is needed for the economy to grow and create jobs.

Specifically, the administration must stand strong against the Big Banks and insist on:

1. A full and thorough investigation into problems tied to the residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market, and

2. A guaranteed minimum amount of money set aside for reducing the mortgage principal of “underwater” homeowners in key states impacted by the foreclosure crisis.

This is an opportunity for the administration to demonstrate leadership and show that it has the political will to do what’s right for homeowners and right for our economy.

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Men's magazine Esquire has named AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka as one of 14 individuals or groups awarded as "Americans of the Year" for 2011. In a profile that is at times insulting ("A big beefy guy with a bristling mustache and Blagojevich hair...") and at times glowing ("He came in with a lifetime's worth of dreams for reviving labor and saving America."), author John H. Richardson explains why Trumka was chosen:

Although Trumka has been saying these things for decades, more and more economists are starting to agree with him. This year, the United Nations' annual Trade and Development report said that austerity policies are a "major risk for the global economy" because cutting deficits slows growth, reducing tax receipts and making the deficits bigger. In September, the International Monetary Fund argued that "equality appears to be an important ingredient in promoting and sustaining growth." The Congressional Budget Office has agreed with him on many things: that last year's health-care-reform law will reduce the deficit, that the Republican austerity budget put forward by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan would increase it, that Obama's proposed jobs bill would in fact create jobs. A recent survey of thirty-four leading economists by Bloomberg News showed that most of them agreed, reporting that Obama's plan would raise the GDP and "add or keep 275,000 workers on payroll" next year. And the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the crash of 2008 hit "right to work" states hardest — five of the ten states with the highest unemployment are in the South, while the more heavily unionized states in the East and Midwest are starting to come back.

His ideas are gaining traction with the public at large as well. "When you tell people you want a millionaire's tax, 80 percent of the people agree. When you say, 'I want a financial-transaction tax, a half a cent on each share that's sold,' more than 80 percent of the people agree. Seventy-eight percent of the American people disagree with our free-trade policy. Go ask them. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, rednecks, whoever, go ask them about the trade policy! They agree with us! That it hasn't worked and it hurts this country 'cause it's sucking jobs out of this country! So if 78 percent of the people agree, why do the other 22 percent dominate?

He sounds frustrated.

"Not frustrated," Trumka says. "Determined."

Of course, the list also includes Paul Ryan as one of the "Americans of the Year," so the compliment can't be that valid, what with Ryan being one of the people this year who did the most to tear down the American dream.

Others named to the list are: astronaut Mark Kelly, theator director Julie Taymor, South Park and Book of Mormon creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, blogger and pundit Andrew Sullivan, consumer advocate and senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, investor Warren Buffett, "Patriots," referring to active military, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, farmer Todd Carmichael, anti-death penalty activist Rais Bhuiyan, Joplin, Missouri, tornado hero Ruben Carter, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka felt strongly enough that we need good progressives like Alan Grayson in Congress to fight for us that he filmed this video for him. Grayson himself has a strong connection to unions and labor in this country. We asked him if he had something to add and he sent us this:

My mother and my father were union members their whole working lives. When I was a very sick child, their union benefits meant that I could go to the hospital to get the treatments that I needed. And when they went out on strike – twice – the union made sure that I still could get those treatments. That’s something that a 10-year-old never forgets, even when he’s 53.

Richard Trumka is the President of the AFL-CIO, and the leader of the labor movement in America. He has contributed this video to our “money bomb” this weekend at CongressmanWithGuts.com. It fills me with pride to hear him say about me in this video, “every single time we needed help, he was there.” Because every single time my parents needed help, the union was there. If my father were alive today, that’s what he would say.

The eternal message of the labor movement is this: The People, united, will never be defeated.

This country could do with a whole lot more Graysons in Congress. Don't forget this is the man who is never afraid to stand for the 99%. If you want to help him get there, please participate in today's money bomb. Go to either Congressmanwithguts.com or his Blue America page.

Let's put Alan Grayson back in office.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka came out strongly Friday in opposition to reports that Democrats are offering significant concessions in hopes to make a deal on the congressional "Super Committee" whose job it is to cut the deficit. He said the union opposes any cuts to Social Security and Medicare or to the federal contribution to Medicaid. Trumka made it clear that he thinks draconian cuts to the social safety net are a bad solution for what he called a fabricated crisis.

He called on those who agree to show their support by texting DEBT to 225668.

The text of the full press release:

People around the country are raising their voices in protest because they’re fed up with a system that is stacked in favor of the richest one percent of Americans -- at the expense of the other 99 percent of us. Unfortunately, what reportedly happened this week in the so-called “Super Committee” just proves their point.

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Labor support for Occupy Wall Street protesters continues to grow as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka visited Zucotti Park this week, releasing a video of his visit. Trumka also responded to the use of tear gas against protesters in Oakland and the arrests of peaceful protesters in Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere:

It is a tremendous dishonor to America when the voices for the powerless are suppressed by the powerful – the top 1 percent. We are extremely alarmed by the increasing number of arrests of peaceful protestors across the country and call on elected leaders to stop ordering the police to make these arrests. The Occupy Wall Street movement has elevated the national conversation by shining overdue attention on the struggles of the 99 percent for whom the economy is broken. When people can't raise their voices around pervasive inequality, there is a fundamental problem with how we're functioning as a nation.

Mayor Bloomberg of New York City listened to reason from the community and did not forcibly disband the original Wall Street protestors at Zuccotti Park. We urge all elected leaders across the country to enable peaceful protestors to continue to exercise their most American of rights.

Trumka and the AFL-CIO, as well as many other labor organizations, have showed strong support for the Occupy movement almost from the very beginning.

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You know things are bad in this country when you have Tom Donohue, President of the US Chamber of Commerce, and Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO agreeing with one another. And when you have that kind of agreement, that means something so inarguable, so unassailable that to take a differing stance would forever paint you as an unserious idiot, unworthy of any attention.

And Tom Donohue, despite his treading on ethical and legal edges in his GOP pandering and international campaign money laundering, is no idiot. Despite all of his wailing and whinging over the deficit just a few short months ago, Donohue is fully on board the "let's get jobs" wagon.

And where do we get these jobs? Infrastructure.

[F]or too long, the nation's infrastructure policies have been kept separate and apart from the larger conversation about the U.S. economy. The benefits of infrastructure are frequently framed around short-term goals about job creation. While the focus on employment growth is certainly understandable, it is not the best way to target and deploy infrastructure dollars. And it means so-called "shovel ready projects" are all we can do while long-term investments in the smart grid, high-speed rail, and modern ports are stuck at the starting gate.

So in addition to the focus on job growth in the short term, we need to rebalance the American economy for the long term on several key elements: higher exports, to take advantage of rising global demand; low-carbon technology, to lead the clean-energy revolution; innovation, to spur growth through ideas and their deployment; and greater opportunity, to reverse the troubling, decades-long rise in inequality. Infrastructure is fundamental to each of those elements.

Yet while we know America's infrastructure needs are substantial, we have not been able to pull together the resources to make the requisite investments. And when we do, we often fail to make infrastructure investments in an economy-enhancing way. This is why the proposal for a national infrastructure bank is so important. If designed and implemented appropriately, it would be a targeted mechanism to deal with critical new investments on a merit basis, while adhering to market forces and leveraging the private capital we know is ready to invest here in the United States.

See, it's not that hard to figure out. Even Donohue admits as much. The issue is whether we're going to let this country be taken hostage over the GOP's overriding need to take Obama out of his job.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined a host of labor leaders and organizations that are supporting Occupy Wall Street. He released the following statement on Tuesday:

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation's policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs. We are proud that today on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers are joining students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change. Across America, working people are turning out with their friends and neighbors in parks, congregations and union halls to express their frustration – and anger -- about our country's staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites. The people who do the work to keep our great country running are being robbed not only of income, but of a voice. It is time for all of us—the 99 percent—to be heard.

As we did when we marched on Wall Street last year, working people call on corporations, big banks, and the financial industry to do their part to create good jobs, stop foreclosures and pay their fair share of taxes.

· Wall Street and corporate America must invest in America: Big corporations should invest some of the $2 trillion in cash they have on hand, and use it to create good jobs. And the banks themselves should be making credit more accessible to small businesses, instead of parking almost $1 trillion at the Federal Reserve.

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Looks like unions have found the silver lining in the Citizens United ruling - namely, Super PACs and the ability to go after non-union voters:

But the ruling also changed the rules for unions, effectively ending a prohibition on outreach to nonunion households. Now, unions can use their formidable numbers to reach out to sympathetic nonunion voters by knocking on doors, calling them at home and trying to get them to polling places. They can also create their own Super PACs to underwrite bigger voter identification and get-out-the-vote operations than ever before.

As part of this overhaul, Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., has said organized labor will be more independent of the Democratic Party, sitting out races where unions are disappointed with the Democratic candidate’s positions on issues important to them and occasionally financing primary challengers to Democratic incumbents.

The unions said they even intended to back a few Republicans they judge to have been generally supportive of their agenda, like Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio.

Mr. Trumka said unions were tired of Democratic politicians taking them for granted after labor shoveled millions of dollars into Democratic campaigns. In distancing themselves, at least a bit, from the Democrats, unions are becoming part of a trend in which newly empowered outside groups build what are essentially party structures of their own — in this case, to somewhat offset the money flowing into conservative groups that are doing the same thing.

What do you think? Good idea or not?

Republicans are trying to pass legislation in the House of Representatives that would prevent the National Labor Relations Board from enforcing the law and protecting workers. H.R. 2587 would prevent the NLRB from remedying unfair retaliation against workers by corporations. The bill is a response to a recent punishment handed down to Boeing, who allegedly attempted to move a plant from Washington state to right-to-work state South Carolina after the workers attempted to strike.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka condemned the bill:

If a group of workers walk out of a plant because of unsafe working conditions, the company could decide to move the work and the jobs rather than fix the problem, and the NLRB would be powerless to protect the workers and their jobs.

If a group of women or African Americans joined together to protest race or sex discrimination by their employer, the company could simply transfer the work somewhere else, and the NLRB would be powerless to protect the workers.

Mitt Romney has jumped on board with the legislation and the attacks on the NLRB, calling its members "labor stooges."

Conservatives from the National Federation of Independent Business are launching an online campaign to defend the legislation, with a series of Google ads:

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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is very active in advance of the Labor Day holiday. In addition to releasing the video above (and another video, see below), the organization released it's "America Wants To Work Action Plan." The plan (which can be read in detail here) includes six planks:

1. Rebuild America’s schools and transportation and energy systems: The plan argues that reinvesting in this critical, but crumbling, infrastructure will create millions of new jobs.

2. Revive U.S. manufacturing and stop exporting good jobs overseas: A number of policy proposals are included in this section, including strong opposition to free trade deals.

3. Put people to work doing work that needs to be done: This one is largely a repeat of No. 1 above, but also includes other policy options proposed by progressive members of Congress.

4. Help federal, state, and local governments avoid more layoffs and cutbacks of public services: This is an important focus -- the bipartisan assault on government workers at all levels is a big problem with the current failure in boosting the job market.

5. Help fill the massive shortfall of consumer demand by extending unemployment benefits and keeping homeowners in their homes: These moves are so obvious, it's a crime that they haven't been done yet.

6. Reform Wall Street so that it helps Main Street create jobs: Wall Street used to help Main Street, but they've moved away from that. Maybe we should do something about that.

The organization also launched a "Who Do You Heart" campaign for Twitter and Facebook, asking everyone to let everyone know what group(s) of workers they are thankful for this Labor Day. Anyone can post to Facebook or Twitter via a web interface for the campaign.

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