The Guild-represented Truthout looks at the erosion of pension promises made to state workers around the country. “If they knew that that promise didn’t really mean anything, people might have made different decisions about what job to do,” professor and labor historian Joseph Slater said. “This is part of the reason why they decided to dedicate their lives to public service.”

Forget the CDs and your local corporate-owned station for Christmas tunes as you celebrate and open presents. Go to www.RadioFreeSaintJohn.fm, where our seven brave strikers (six months-plus) are playing wall-to-wall holiday music through Wednesday, or, as they say in Canada, Boxing Day. And starting at 3 p.m. Eastern Monday, they'll be tracking the progress of Santa Claus, with the seven strikers making a trip to the North Pole. Read more about their long strike and fight for fair wages here.

When the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star recently published a cartoon featuring so-called “union thugs” in trench coats talking in “does and dem” patois expressing dismay about the "right to work" for less vote in Michigan, with American manufacturing encased in cement ready for a deep six off a pier in the background, and inferring workers were the reason for the demise of Hostess, Seafarers (SIU) Communications Director Jordan Biscardo fired off a letter to the editor in protest. Not only was the letter published, but the paper apologized for the cartoon.