Oklahoma City sixth-grade teacher Cheryl Brouwer’s classroom has no math books. No math workbooks, either.

“Collective action is alive and well here in the South,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler to more than 300 labor leaders gathered in New Orleans this week. Southern union leaders from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia joined together to unite around a common strategy to build worker power in their states.

In January, delegates to the Texas AFL-CIO COPE Convention unanimously approved a far-reaching resolution calling for the state federation and affiliates to conduct citizenship drives across the state, with the long-term intent of registering new voters and changing the political environment.

Equal Pay Day calls attention to the persistent moral and economic injustice working women face. For a woman to earn as much as a man, she has to work a full year, plus more than a hundred extra days, all the way to April 10. The problem is even worse for women of color, LGBTQ women and part-time workers.

The U.S. economy gained 103,000 jobs in March, and unemployment was unchanged at 4.1%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.