House of Labor:
"As the AFL-CIO gathers in Washington today for a post-election organizing summit," reports the Washington Post's Dale Russakoff, "the labor movement is assured of a seat at the table in the new Democrat-controlled Congress, and it has an ambitious agenda: raising the minimum wage, restricting trade agreements, beefing up worker health and safety protections and rewriting the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier to organize unions." LINK
Amidst the unity on most issues, be sure to Note the split on immigration.
"The SEIU is aggressively organizing low-wage janitors whose ranks are heavily immigrant and undocumented." Thus, it supports the immigration bill sponsored by Sens. Kennedy and McCain that would "create an expansive guest-worker program for immigrants. The AFL-CIO and several other Change to Win unions view temporary workers as ripe for exploitation and also a threat to jobs and higher wages."
Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller are expected to rally today in support of a measure to make it easier for workers to unionize — a measure that many businesses and Republicans oppose writes Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times.