It's the death of an American icon, a working-class woman who stood up for her rights and unionized her workplace. And wouldn't you know it? She fought the mills, but she couldn't make her insurance company do the decent thing until it was too late:

The woman whose life inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae has died of cancer after struggling with her health insurance company, which had delayed her treatment.

Crystal Lee Sutton was 68. She had struggled for several years with meningioma, a form of brain cancer.

She became a hero to the labor movement in the 1970s, when she took on her employer, a North Carolina textile plant, and unionized the factory floor. Her story became famous nationwide in 1975 after New York Times reporter Hank Leiferman wrote Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance.

In 1979, her story was turned into the movie Norma Rae, a thinly-veiled fictional adaptation of Sutton’s struggle to unionize the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Sally Field won an Oscar for her portrayal of the character inspired by Sutton.

As Daily Kos blogger hissyspit points out, last year Sutton gave an interview to the press where she described a struggle with her health insurer over treatment. The Times-News in Burlington, North Carolina, wrote in 2008:

[Sutton] went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn’t cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.

“How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death,” she said. “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”

She eventually received the medication, but the cancer is taking a toll on her strong will and solid frame.

In 2008, the North Carolina branch of the AFL-CIO urged supporters to donate money to Sutton’s medical fund. On its Web site, the union had stated that “after initially being denied coverage by her insurance company for life saving treatment, Sutton is now on drug and chemo therapies and has undergone two surgeries.”

In its obituary the Greensboro News-Record describes her now-legendary struggle to unionize the J.P. Stevens plant:

In 1973, a 33-year-old Sutton was working at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, where she was making $2.65 an hour folding towels. The poor working conditions she and her fellow employees endured compelled her to join forces with Eli Zivkovich, a mill worker turned union organizer, and attempt to unionize the plant employees.

Sutton eventually lost her job, but the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) won the right to represent the workers at the plant and Sutton briefly became an organizer for the union.

In 1977, she was awarded back wages and her job was reinstated by court order, although she chose to return to work for just two days.

The AFL-CIO went to bat for President Obama during the 2008 election and now they are standing their ground when it comes to one of his biggest campaign promises -- health care reform that includes a public insurance option:

WASHINGTON -- The AFL-CIO, a key ally of the White House on healthcare reform, won't support legislation unless it includes a public insurance option.

"Let me be as clear as I can be -- it's an absolute must," Rich Trumka, the labor group's secretary-treasurer, and its next president, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday morning. "We won't support the bill if it doesn't have a public option."

That could add to the pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats to pull the plug on bipartisan talks aimed at bringing Republicans along with the plan. The GOP has more or less indicated opposition to just about everything Obama wants to do with healthcare, but especially the public option. Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the lead negotiator for his party, wrote a fundraising letter to his constituents this week that asks for their "immediate support in helping me defeat 'Obama-care.'" His office later clarified -- Grassley only meant he was trying to defeat the public option. Read on...

In mid-August a group of 60 progressive Democrats stood their ground, collectively stating that they would not sign a health care reform bill that doesn't include a public option -- the chorus of support for the public option is getting louder and and louder and any Democrat who votes against their party and their constituents on this issue had better plan on a fight come reelection time.

The phrase gets used a lot, but it bears repeating: Elections have consequences, and the American people kicked the GOP to the curb in '06 and '08, choosing Democratic politicians and their platform. It's time for President Obama to follow suit, tell the Republicans to pound sand and give the American people what they want and more importantly, what they need.

Affordable, quality health care coverage for all Americans isn't just a Democratic talking point, it's an essential part of their official party platform.

From Campaign for America's Future, this stunning news. Notice how union workers are the only ones paying attention to safety issues?

In recent years, multinational corporations have become accustomed to saving money by exporting production to China without concern for labor issues, environmental standards, or product safety. In fact, China typically violates world trade laws through dumping, subsidies, and illegal currency manipulation in order to gain a cost benefit over U.S manufacturers. Unfortunately, this mercantilistic approach too often proves harmful to U.S. workers and consumers in the long-run.

One potentially alarming example of cost savings by following the “China price” is being reported by utility workers in Illinois.

Pat Dillon, an employee at People’s Energy of Illinois and a member of the Gas workers Local 18007/Utility Workers of America, says he has concerns about the gas meter bars he regularly installs as part of his job as a Senior Service specialist #1. People’s Energy recently switched from using American-made Model 6722 high-pressure gas inlet valves (which are manufactured in Iowa) to McDonald 6762 inlet valves made in China.

Click here for photos of both valves-- the American-made model #6722 and the Chinese-made model #6762.

Dillon says that the Chinese models, though similar in price to American models, lack critical O-ring washers. Based on his 30 years of experience with gas meter bars in People’s Energy’s service department, he also believes that the Chinese versions are inferior because the connection cones are not made of brass. He said, “The previous American made bars had brass cones. Anything less is not going to be as safe.”

Dillon reports that he became concerned when People’s Energy was bought by Wisconsin Power Services, which later evolved into a company called Integrys Energy Group. Shortly thereafter, People’s Energy switched to the Chinese-made valve bars, which caused concern among his co-workers.

Dillon said, “We all started to wonder why they’d switch to something that seemed less sturdy, less safe. Then I looked on the box and noticed that they were made in China. I realized that the company was probably trying to save a few pennies.”

The Service Employers International Union has vowed to help stand up against the GOP backed Astrobirthers who are being sent in to disrupt the town hall meetings of Democratic members of Congress. Since the union announced it's intentions, well-funded right wing groups and media outlets (see Fox News) have orchestrated call in campaigns accusing them of plotting violence against them -- one of the calls (audio and transcript in the video above) contained a not-so-veiled threat of armed violence:

One of the country's largest unions has been hit by a wave of hostile calls and even death threats from people upset with its involvement in town-hall health care debates.

The Service Employers International Union was, as one aide put it, "deluged" with calls on Friday after several conservative media outlets accused the organization of trying to assault demonstrators who had showed up to protest Obama's health care agenda. Making it even scarier for union employees, the address of the union's St. Louis headquarters was mentioned on air by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Callers who reached both the front desk and the communications department compared the union officials to Nazis, union aides say. On Twitter, organizers of the town hall protest urged people to take pictures and write down the license plate numbers of attending SEIU officials. More alarming than anything else, angry callers and protesters pledged to take up arms against the union. Read on...

I believe the time has come for Attorney General Eric Holder to get involved. Right wing violence is on the rise in America and the threat of bloodshed at the hands of a Fox News/GOP inspired extremist at one of these town hall meetings is real possibility.

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Hours after he was seated, Sen. Al Franken, D-MN, let it be known that he would be sign on as a co-sponsor to the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed provision that would allow unions to more easily organize, as his first legislative activity.

"I just became a cosponsor of my first bill in the Senate, the Employee Free Choice Act," the Minnesota Democrat declared at a gathering at the AFL-CIO on Tuesday evening.

Despite taking a backseat in terms of media attention, EFCA remains very much a hotly-debated measure within the halls of Congress. And while Franken's vote will likely boost Democratic efforts on health care and judicial nominations (he is poised to sit on the HELP and Judiciary Committees) it could be on labor matters where his voice is most felt. Certainly the union community, which is pushing for a vote on EFCA sometime this year, feels relieved that it is one senator closer to preventing a Republican filibuster on the measure.

Franken, who was officially sworn into office on Tuesday after an eight-month recount, told the AFL-CIO crowd that he shared common interests with them. According to Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the union group, Franken described the long tradition that exist in Minnesota of "having two Senators who are very pro workers and working families." "He said it was an honor to be sworn in today and walk through the aisles with Mondale and to be sworn in on Paul Wellstone's Bible," Vale recounted. "He stressed that both men were champions of the labor movement."

Paul Wellstone would be proud.

It looks like Arlen Specter is coming to terms with the cold reality that he can't be a "Democrat" and stand in opposition to working families. As usual, the Republican-like Ben Nelson does as much damage as he can to good progressive legislation like EFCA.

“Card Check” deal is a “fool’s errand”Sen Ben Nelson, D-NE, told me he does not see a deal happening this year at all. He sees no way to put a compromise together that’s pallatable. “You take away the arbitration issue, and you still have the ‘card check’, so that doesn’t work. You take away the ‘card check’ and you still have the arbitration problem. And if both go away, you’re left with nothing. It’s a fool’s errand to do this. I just don’t see an agreement happening,” Nelson said.

Way to go, Ben! That's acting like a good FOX News Democrat. But as soon as this report comes out, there's news of a compromise in the works with Specter being part of the solution.

Feinstein, Specter Compromises Pave the Way For Passage of Employee Free Choice Act

New compromise measures from Dianne Feinstein and Arlen Specter may pave the way for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

As Harkin says, the Feinstein compromise has the advantage of "protecting the secret ballot, so people can do it in private," which neutralizes that particular right-wing criticism of the bill.

The other bone of contention has been arbitration clause of the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter himself supports "last best offer" arbitration. It's also called "baseball arbitration," and has incentives to get both parties to quickly make their best, most reasonable offer. Bill Samuel of the AFL-CIO says "we're open to that."...read on

I'm tired of hearing excuses and I'm tired of Democrats like Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh that block real change in America.

(In the above video, Capt. Richard Phillips was interviewed by Matt Lauer yesterday about his capture by Somalian pirates.)

My father was in the Merchant Marines in WWII. He won a medal almost 50 years later and that is something he's very proud of. Capt. Phillips makes sure to give big props to all the union members. This is via a press release form the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:

I want to thank the management of Maersk and Waterman Steamship Corp. who handled the situation, the crew and our families with great care and concern. And equally important, I want to publicly commend all the officers and crew aboard the Maersk Alabama who responded with their typical professionalism in response to this incident.

The Licensed Deck Officers who are members of the Masters, Mates & Pilots Union, the Licensed Deck Officer and Licensed Engineers who are members of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, and the unlicensed crew who belong to the Seafarers International Union are dedicated merchant mariners, typical of America’s merchant seamen who are well-trained and who are ready and able to respond when necessary to protect the interests of our country. I am honored to come before this Committee today to discuss my views on making commercial shipping safer, and worldwide sea lanes more secure from the threat of piracy

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When you listen to the Fox freak shows, all you hear is union bashing. So that may explain why Phillips hasn't appeared on Fox yet ...

Just like with the miracle flight landing by America's No. 1 hero, Chesley B. Sullenberger, union workers helped save the day on that incredible experience, the crew of the Maersk Alabama are also proud union workers, as they describe the ordeal on the high seas.

The American crew members of the Maersk Alabama - a ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates - regained control of the ship. The seamen specifically cite their union membership as a reason for how they were able to beat the pirates.

In an interview with NBC, the ship's Third Engineer, John Cronan, said this about their efforts:

"We are American seamen. We are union members. We stuck together, we did our jobs. And that's how we did it."

Isn't it interesting how only the CNBC/FOX new crowd continually bash unions? Big business has their mouthpieces all lined up in a row -- but heaven forfend we should hear from working men and women.

And so it begins:

The chairman and chief executive of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, is resigning, just hours before President Obama was expected to unveil his rescue plans for G.M. and the ailing American auto industry, a person close to the decision said Sunday.

Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down as part of G.M.’s restructuring agreement with the Obama administration, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement has not been made yet. Mr. Wagoner then agreed to resign.The unexpected move by Mr. Wagoner, who has been at the helm of G.M. for eight years, was not confirmed by the company. A statement about Mr. Wagoner’s future will be issued after the president’s comments, which is expected to be Monday morning.

This is not a joke. Americans for Prosperity, an anti-Employee Free Choice Act group, is hiring Joe the Plumber to speak at rallies against the average working class in America.

Joe the Plumber is hitting the campaign trail again! He’s been pressed into service to do a series of events throughout Pennsylvania rallying opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, the organizer of the events confirms.

Mr. Plumber will speak at rallies against the measure in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia on March 30th and 31st, according to a spokesperson for the anti-EFCA group Americans for Prosperity.

“The public loves Joe the Plumber,” the spokesperson, Mary Ellen Burke, claimed to me. “They see him as a role model.”

Asked whether Joe the Plumber had any particular knowledge or expertise about EFCA that might explain the decision to enlist him, Burke said that he was being enlisted to provide a “grassroots perspective” and “the working perspective” on the measure.

Pressed on whether Joe the Plumber has any particular claim to being a spokesperson on the issue, Burke replied that “he represents the American worker.” Burke couldn’t immediately say whether Joe the Plumber was being paid for his appearances.

Wonder if he'll tell the anti-EFCA crowds they make him horny, too. Sounds like a sure recipe for success.

The public doesn't love Joe the Plumber, insane conservatives do. This only makes things look so much worse for Republicans in this country. How weak and foolish Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe must feel seeing that Joe the Plumber is being billed as a celebrity in the GOP. It's so pathetic.

I guarantee you that after his run dies -- well, OK, it may never die, because they are a leaderless party, and he's about as qualified as any of them -- but when it does and if a union job opens up for him, he'll take it in a second.

Arlen Specter dealt a serious blow to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he opposes the “card-check” union organizing measure, dealing a setback to U.S. labor’s top legislative goal. Specter said that he is likely to be the “decisive vote,” to block the Democratic-backed bill that would make it easier to form unions.

“The problem with the recession makes this a particularly bad time,” Specter said on the Senate floor today. Employers fear the measure “will result in further job losses,” he said.

Back in 2007, Specter voted for "cloture"which means that he cut off the debate of the topic and stoped Republicans from whining about it which is a show of support for EFCA, but now he's using his "cloture" vote as a way to give him a cowardly excuse not to vote for it this time.

In voting for cloture - that, is to cut off debate - in June 2007, I emphasized in my floor statement and in a law review article that I was not supporting the bill on the merits, but only to take up the issue of labor law reform. Hearings had shown that the NLRB was dysfunctional and badly politicized. When Republicans controlled the Board, the decisions were for business. With Democrats in control, the decisions were for labor. Some cases took as long as eleven years to decide. The remedies were ineffective.

UPDATE I: Specter’s Defection On EFCA Fails To Win Over Right Wing

If Senator Arlen Specter had hoped that bailing on the Employee Free Choice Act yesterday would make him the toast of the town among his right wing critics, he probably woke up this morning feeling like he has a pretty crushing hangover — after doing a lot of drinking alone.

Conservative groups and politicians, far from won over by Specter’s announcement, continue to hammer away at the embattled Senator, suggesting that his abrupt move on EFCA will do little or nothing to reduce his vulnerability to a primary challenge from the right...read on

Howie Klein sizes up the playing field to see what our options are.

The math says that if Ted Kennedy is healthy enough to vote and Al Franken gets seated and all the Democrats-- including Evan Bayh's anti-Obama bloc-- all continue to back the bill (even WalMart's cowardly Democrats, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor), then Employee Free Choice passes if Specter sticks to his guns.

With today's craven and cowardly announcement by Specter, more worried about his primary challenger from the fringes of the Republican right than about his own dignity or, more important, Pennsylvania working families, the Democrats will either have to put off the vote until after the 2010 election or persuade either Olympia Snowe (R-ME) or retiring George Voinovich (R-OH), neither of whom is a union-hater, to switch their votes.

Big Business is quite happy with his choice, but in reality it makes no sense. The right already hates him and he's in a state where jobs are needed. He's taking the path of going far right to try and appease the wingnut base, but he knows they will never be appeased np matter what he does. He will still face a primary challenge. (See Jason Rosenbaum for more on this point.)

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We've known for a long time that the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is horrifically slanted; the rest of the paper may be reasonably balanced and journalistically sound, but the edit page is a wholly owned propaganda organ of movement conservatism. Sort of like Fox News. So it only makes sense that the WSJ's Editorial Page show on Fox would make no pretense whatever at providing even a vague semblance of fairness or balance.

On Saturday's program, they had on five different people to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act. Not one of them had a single positive thing to say about it -- and predictably, spent nearly the entire segment finding different ways to repeat the Zombie Lies that have been concocted to oppose the Act.

The most popular, of course, is the one that comes popping out of Paul Gigot's mouth right out of the gate -- that the Free Choice Act is "Big Labor's drive to eliminate the secret ballot in union elections". Please. How stupid do they think we are?

Evidently, plenty stupid, because they never stop repeating it.

I know these shows are supposed to be for money people. But the only money people I ever knew who got their advice from vacuumed-out bubbles like this one were losing money. Certainly, there's no reason for anyone interested in an actual debate, a contest of ideas, to tune into this show.

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The corporate right, already almost completely besides themselves at the prospect that the Employee Free Choice Act has been trying to come up with any reason at all as an excuse for stopping the bill. Especially when the reasons they give fall apart like an old cookie whenever they're confronted with facts.

The newest talking point is the notion that unions stifle job creation, which got the full endorsement of CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (who, we're reminded, graduated from Wellesley with a degree in history!).

Look, not only do unions kill jobs, they kill companies. Look at what's happening to General Motors.

Fortunately, Jonathan Tasini of the Labor Research Association was able to point out the basic falsity of the claim:

Total nonsense. I'd like to smoke what she's smoking. The fact is this: There is absolutely zero, zero empirical evidence that unions cost jobs. None. And she can't quote a single study, a single piece of information that -- it's just rhetoric.

Unfortunately, we're going to be hearing a lot more of this in the coming weeks. The corporate Right simply can't and won't be honest about their real reasons for opposing this bill: They hate unions and don't want to make it easier for workers to form them. In fact, they want to keep the game rigged the way they have it now, and they'll do anything to keep it rigged that way. Including lie through their teeth.

When guys like Bill O'Reilly -- guys with massive public megaphones -- unleash their venom on groups they hate (particularly liberal groups) they always want you to forget that they're in fact talking about mostly ordinary people who are every bit the "real American" Bill O'Reilly pretends to be.

So when O'Reilly let loose on the SEIU the other day -- calling them a "radical left" outfit bent on conspiring with George Soros to destroy capitalism -- he wasn't just attacking some big faceless union, he was describing its 12 million members that way too.

Today, some of those members released a video urging Bill O'Reilly to come spend a day in their shoes, and he might gain an appreciation for what it is the union actually does for them.

Not that O'Reilly would ever deign to respond. When you're a big giant "battleship," no one notices when you're chickens--t.

The rhetoric being used against the Employee Free Choice Act would be hilarious if it weren't replacing real debate with phoney end-of-the-world scenarios, backed up by such huge money and anti-worker influence. SEIU:

According to CEOs and their front groups, the fabric of our nation may well fall apart, all because of the Employee Free Choice Act. Its opponents no longer debate the merits of the bill, and instead resort to hyperbolic vitriol intended to inflame the public and press.

In reality, the Employee Free Choice Act is a bipartisan, common sense economic recovery for working families that will pump billions into our nation's economy.

Tell the phoney outraged powerbrokers what you think here.