The Florida sky was lit in a surreal glow early this morning as NASA's space shuttle Endeavor blasted into the sky at 4:14 a.m. TWU Local 525 members were an integral part of sending Endeavour to space and ensuring safe pre and post-launch conditions here on Earth. They represent the ground crew at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral space centers.

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As kids, we all loved the sugar-coated fairy tales of handsome and brave princes rescuing beautiful princesses from despotic kings.

The new CBS “reality” show “Undercover Boss” that debuted last night after the Super Bowl is a 21st century sugar-coated fairy tale. But this time, the brave prince is actually a CEO who goes undercover as a regular worker near the bottom of the food chain. There he finds how hard and dirty the job is; how stifling and draconian the company’s workplace rules are; and how crappy the pay is.

Then after walking so many miles in an employee’s work boots, the boss sees the light and promotes workers, raises pay, eases rules and promises a new found respect for all workers.

(If your boss isn’t going undercover anytime soon, be sure to check out American Rights at Work’s new website, Fix Our Jobs, where you can vent about how lousy—and even how great—your job is and learn how to make it better. Click here to watch the video.)

But just like our childhood stories ignored the dark, bloody and scary Brothers Grimm originals, “Undercover Boss” ignores the grim reality of too many of today’s workplaces.

“Undercover Boss” is a sweet, happy-ending tale for a handful of workers, but make-believe for millions of others. The best way to make workplace improvement and worker rights a reality is with the Employee Free Choice Act, that would restore the right of workers to form unions and bargain for a better life.

The bosses portrayed on the show may indeed be sincere and a handful of workers will enjoy the benefits of their foxhole conversions. But what about the millions of workers whose CEO’s will never be on TV? That’s where unions come in: to ensure employees have a voice at the workplace, with family-supporting pay and affordable health care and retirement security.

Along with the restoring the freedom to form unions, rebuilding the middle class means fighting for health care legislation, strong enforcement of wage and hour laws, holding  Wall Street accountable and most importantly creating jobs. Unions and their members at the forefront of all these battles—out in the open—not undercover.

As Congress considers whether to renew unemployment insurance (UI) for long-term jobless workers and extend COBRA to help unemployed workers maintain health care, they should take time to find out about the experiences of workers beyond the Washington, D.C., beltway.

Richard Duncan, who works for the Tennessee AFL-CIO technical assistance program, has met many unemployed workers. The assistance program helps union workers who have been laid off (see video above).

I’ve traveled the state of Tennessee and seen an enormous number of union brothers and sisters lose their jobs. Since 2006, I’ve seen the same people. They lose their job at one facility. Then they go to another facility, then there’s an additional layoff and they lose their job again.  

The extensions for UI and COBRA expire Feb. 28. Click here to tell your lawmakers it’s time to act.

Duncan’s video highlights workers urging Congress to act on the AFL-CIO’s five-point jobs program. Union members across the nation are rallying behind the AFL-CIO plan to create jobs now and President Obama’s jobs legislation. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said after Obama’s state of the union address:

Now it’s time for all of us to get busy and work together to bring the big changes that are essential-starting with enacting a jobs bill that is big enough to create jobs for the millions of people who want to work and can’t find jobs.  The time for small change is long gone.

Looking for the latest in international labor news? Now it’s just a click away with the launch of RadioLabour.net and its Solidarity News program. The weekly podcast will focus on union and workers’ activities and issues from around the world with special emphasis on emerging market and developing countries.

A new report, hosted by labor educator Marc Belanger, debuts each Monday morning. RadioLabour reporters will provide regular weekly presentations, and the audio cast will feature reports from unionists on particular events.

For union activists interested in learning more about progressive podcasting, be sure to check out the Labour Podcasting group on UnionBook. 

Don’t forget these working family, union friendly broadcasts, all available live streaming or via podcasts on their websites. 

• Workers Independent News-The daily broadcast looks at top worker-oriented news.
• Building Bridges-The weekly one hour program covers local, national and international labor and community issues.
• The Rick Smith Show-Pennsylvania activist Rick Smith, a Teamster member and ILCA vice president, hosts a two-hour labor talk each Saturday and Sunday, 12-2 p.m., broadcast and webcast on WHYL AM.
• America’s Workforce-Ed “Flash” Ferenc host the nation’s only daily labor radio program,  from 4-5 p.m. on  Cleveland’s WERE AM.
• The Solidarity Effect-Every Friday on KNDS FM in Fargo, N.D., Machinists Kevin and Heather Murch engage in-studio guests and the listening audience “in the social issues of our times from a working class perspective and also play some great music as well     
• The Union Edge-Long-time AFGE member Charles Showalter hosts this daily labor talk show.  
• Democratic Talk Radio-The weekly broadcast on WGPA AM advocates for American workers and consumers.
• Inside Government-AFGE’s weekly one-hour radio program on Federal News Radio features interviews and commentary on a wide range of subjects that impact the lives and livelihoods of federal and D.C. government workers and the general public
• Heartland Labor Forum-The Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) produces the weekly show for working people and has been “agitating on the air since 1989.”

The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January, with 14.8 million workers now without jobs. Employment continued to decrease in construction and transportation and increase in retail, health care and temp work, according to U.S. Department of Labor data out this morning. Unemployment among black workers continued to worsen.

When both unemployed and underemployed workers are counted, there still are 25.5 million people without jobs or full-time work.

As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December. These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along. Working families need bigger and bolder actions—in the short, medium and long term—to create jobs in the immediate future—or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.

Among the worst aspects of the nation’s unacceptably high unemployment rate—and there are many—the growing numbers of long-term jobless workers is something that can, and must, be addressed immediately. Long-term U.S. unemployment (those without a job for 27 weeks or longer), with more than 6 million unemployed workers out of a job for more than six months. In January, the number of long-term unemployed workers worsened, to 6.3 million workers.

But the unemployment insurance (UI) extension for millions of workers expires Feb. 28, unless Congress—specifically, the Senate—takes action.

In December, the U.S. House passed a jobs bill that included a long-term UI and Cobra extension, but the U.S. Senate failed to act and Congress was forced to pass a short-term extension of both programs. (Click here to tell your lawmakers it’s time to act.)

According to National Employment Law Project estimates, of the nearly 1.2 million U.S. workers facing a cut off of benefits in March alone:

• 380,000 workers will exhaust their 26 weeks of state benefits without accessing the temporary EUC extension program or the permanent federal program of Extended Benefits.
• Another 814,000 workers will not be eligible to continue receiving EUC past their current tier of benefits.

A one-year extension of unemployment insurance is part of our AFL-CIO five-point jobs program, and the Obama administration supports a long-term extension. But it’s unclear what shape a Senate jobs bill will take. Senate Republicans say they will oppose any jobs legislation on a scale large enough most economists say will do real good.

After all, why should those senators worry? They have a job. For now.

Our friends at Union Plus have just launched the Union Plus Book Club that will delve into the latest publications by leading experts on vital working family and workplace issues. The books will be available at the AFL-CIO’s The Union Shop OnlineTM and chosen every two months by union leaders based on their interest and expertise in a subject.

The club’s first selection, from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, is Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, by Thomas Croft.

In the forward to the book, Trumka writes that Croft ”uses real life stories” to show how

responsibly investing savings assets, pensions, insurance funds and other trusts can generate positive social, economic and environmental benefits, while bringing solid financial returns.

Up From Wall Street, lays out high-road alternatives to the reckless loans and dicey short-term bets that have savaged the economy and ravaged working people’s savings and pension funds.

The book makes a strong case that there are strategic and union-friendly investment paths that have the capacity to rebuild our economy and infrastructure, reinvigorate our cities, and finance a clean energy economy that creates and retains good jobs.

The Union Plus Book Club’s goal is to “create labor movement dialogue about current issues and to inspire thought-provoking conversations within our union community.”

Upcoming topics and selectors include:

• Young Workers (AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer Liz Shuler).
• Communications and Partnerships (AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker).
• Innovation (Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen).
• Organizing (UNITEHERE! President John Wilhelm).
• Green Jobs (United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard).

Remember, go to The Union Shop Online.TM for Up from Wall Street and future selections and after you’ve read the book, share your thoughts and questions on the Union Plus Facebook Fan page.

We’ll keep you posted on each new selection.

Staging a symbolic soup and bread line and carrying shoes to encourage state legislators to walk a mile in a jobless worker’s shoes, some 500 Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC) workers rallied for jobs legislation in Dover last week.

The rally at the steps of the state Capitol spotlighted the tremendous loss in construction jobs throughout the recession. Although state unemployment stands at 9 percent, construction unemployment is more than twice that and more than 2,100 construction and trades jobs vanished in 2009.

Delaware BCTC President Harry Gravel says the state legislature needs to move on jobs legislation, such as a stalled bill to allow casinos that some estimate could create thousands of jobs.

I support jobs period. If it’s a casino, good. I don’t care if it’s Jack in the Box, a Wendy’s, a school or an outhouse, we want to build it. We’re out of work, we need to go work, we’ll build it, period.

Workers also called on lawmakers to boost the state’s unemployment benefit that is far lower than surrounding states, including just slightly more than half of what jobless workers in neighboring New Jersey receive.

Following the rally, workers donated the shoes to Haitian relief efforts.

Click here for more photos from the rally.