Baystate Medical Center in Springfield made a commitment beyond the world class health services that it delivers every day.  It worked with local building trades unions to build its new 600,000 square foot leading edge hospital providing jobs to 450 union trades men and women from the community to build the Hospital.  Watch the video.

President Obama has called on Congress to come together and advance common sense policies that will continue to turn our economy around while strengthening core economic fundamentals that will pave the way for continued growth and shared prosperity moving forward.  We commend the President and agree that this is a make or break moment for the American middle class and those who are striving to reach it.

The New England Carpenters Training Fund (NECTF) will be conducting interview's to establish an "Eligible Pool of Apprentice Applicants". Interviews will be conducted in late March and early April of 2012.

Unfortunately, too many firms have turned to other methods of gaining a competitive advantage, i.e., engaging in the illegal practices of the growing underground economy that include misclassifying employees as "independent contractors," failing to pay the appropriate state and federal tax and insurance obligations, cutting back on safety, and exploiting undocumented immigrants.

Contractors using laborers from a Philadelphia church shelter to renovate Boston’s Marriott Copley Place hotel are under investigation by state authorities for potential violations of wage laws and other worker protections, according to people briefed on the matter.  Attorney General Martha Coakley is investigating whether workers from Victory Outreach International, a church that provides shelter and rehabilitation services to people with drug and alcohol problems, were brought into the state to be used as cheap labor for the renovation project, according to those familiar with the case.

Multi enforcement agencies in Massachusetts have ordered five subcontractors employed by Pulte Homes on sides in Eastern Massachusetts to pay workers more than $400,000 in owed wages and make payments totalling $141,000 to cover unpaid taxes.

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President Obama named three members to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday.  Obama appointed Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block, union lawyer Richard Griffin and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn to fill vacancies on the five-member board.  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "We commend the president for exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers' rights and consumers are not shut down by Republican obstructionism."

"But today, a new crop of union leaders - including Dorchester State Representative Marty Walsh - are pushing to change the way unions do business. Walsh, secretary-treasurer of the Boston Building Trades Council, is egging unions on to recruit those who have traditionally been left out."