If you’re reading this blog, you know that the American Dream is slipping further out of reach of millions of working men and women every day. But you may wonder — what can we do about it?

Probably the single best start we could make on fixing things would be to pass the Employee Free Choice Act — critical legislation that would help protect the rights of America’s workers to organize and form unions — into law.

The Employee Free Choice Act came close to passing last year, but was stopped in the end by procedural stonewalling in the Senate by opponents of workers’ rights. However, next year we’ll have a new Congress and a new American Dream President — which means a new chance for working people to make their case.

To help build that case, Change to Win has joined with a wide range of labor unions and other progressive organizations in a unique campaign: One Million Strong for the Employee Free Choice Act. The goal: to rally a million working men and women to express support for this legislation before the new Congress comes to Washington. If we can do that, it will send a powerful message that the time for our leaders to start restoring the American Dream has come.

Want to help? You can join the campaign by signing our petition in support of the Employee Free Choice Act:

• Sign the petition

By signing the petition, you’re adding your name to hundreds of thousands of working people from across America, all of whom are standing up for the great cause of our age: ensuring that the American Dream is within reach of every American worker.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

The Labor Department reported today that June saw the sixth straight month of job losses in America:

Employers trimmed jobs from their payrolls in June for the sixth straight month, as the government’s closely watched report Thursday showed continued weakness in the labor market.

The Labor Department reported a net loss of 62,000 jobs in the month. That matched the job loss figure for May, which was revised higher from 49,000. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 60,000 jobs.

In the same month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 10.2% — the biggest June loss for the index since the Great Depression:

The U.S. stock market has lost $2.1 trillion in value this year — $1.4 trillion in June alone, says Dow Jones Indexes. “Talk about a tough month,” says Sam Stovall, chief strategist at Standard & Poor’s.

Wall Street is debating whether the market has now priced in the bulk of the bad economic news. Bob Doll, chief investment officer at BlackRock, said Monday he believes the market is past the worst and should “grind higher” the rest of the year.

The Bush Economy: everybody’s a loser.

UPDATE (3:15PM): Dean Baker at TPMCafe:

The economy has entered a slow motion recession. It is not seeing the dramatic plunges in jobs that characterized prior recessions, but the collapse of the housing bubble is slowly sinking more and more sectors of the economy.

Total private sector job gains in the Bush years may fall below 3 million by November. The annual average for the Clinton years was 2.6 million.

Looks like we may have Circuit City to kick around for a while longer!

Faithful readers of CtW Connect know that Circuit City is one of our favorite examples of how decisions by management to throw workers overboard can backfire on them. The Story So Far, from my last post on the subject:

If you’ve been following CtW Connect since the beginning, you’ll remember how a little more than a year ago they made the stunningly boneheaded decision to fire 3,400 of their best workers in order to replace them with cheaper labor. And how that predictably led to a sales slump so dramatic that Fortune magazine included the decision in its list of the 101 dumbest business moves of 2007. And how that led the company to try to reinvent itself by staffing its sales floors with teenagers clad head to toe in black, spouting mantras like “keep it real” — which, also predictably, didn’t exactly turn things around.

Well, now it looks like CC management have (after driving their stock down from $20/share to five and a quarter) decided to throw in the towel — word is that they have retained Goldman Sachs to broker a sale of the company to some third party, most likely Blockbuster Video.

As we noted then, Blockbuster isn’t exactly doing great themselves these days, which made them an unusual “white knight” to ride in and save CC.

Turns out that “unusual” might not have been a strong enough word — yesterday, Blockbuster announced that they were waving off the merger:

“Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster’s shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City,” said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. “We continue to believe in the strategic merits of a consumer retail proposition that would bring media content and electronic devices together under one brand. We will pursue this strategy through our Blockbuster stores as a way to diversify the business and better serve the entertainment retail segment.”

Maybe they were afraid that their people would catch Stupid Disease if they had to work closely with Circuit City’s managers? Who knows. But it looks like the deal that was supposed to save CC from itself is no more.

Just think, back in December I called “FAIL” on CC because their stock had dropped to $6.69/share. Well, today those same shares opened at a whopping $2.21 — and after an hour of trading they’d dropped to $2.11.

Losing an additional 67% of your value after reaching the “FAIL” level is pretty remarkable. We’ve clearly moved from regular “FAIL” territory to “EPIC FAIL” here, so I’ve updated our stock chart graphic to reflect that.

It takes a special kind of leader to achieve results like this — which is probably why Wall Street Journal columnist Herb Greenberg named Circuit City’s CEO, Philip Schoonover, as the most likely candidate for Worst CEO of 2008 back in January.

Somebody call Herb and tell him it looks like he’s won his bet!

UPDATE (1PM): Don Reisinger at CNet says “Circuit City is doomed”.

As John McCain prepares to fly to Colombia — the country where standing up for your rights at work can get you killed — to pledge his fealty to the doctrine of “free” trade, a new poll from CNN shows that a majority of Americans disagree with him:

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 51 percent of Americans view foreign trade as a threat to the economy — the first time in a CNN poll that a majority of Americans report holding negative views on free trade.

That compares with only 35 percent of Americans who felt free trade posed a threat to the economy in 2000, and 48 percent who felt it was a threat in 2006.

Now, only four in 10 Americans say free trade presents an opportunity for economic growth.

(Image above created by InternetWeekly.org; check out their complete library of political satire images.)

It's no secret that America's infrastructure is crumbling. But, you may wonder, is anyone doing anything about it? And is there any way you can help?

Someone is, and you can. The Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) has launched a new campaign called "Build America So America Works" that's calling for the Federal government to finally do something about our crumbling infrastructure. And to promote awareness of the campaign, they've just launched this new TV spot:

Want to help? Sign the Petition to Build America and add your name to the roll of those who are ready to turn America around. You can even sign via text message -- just text the word BUILD and your last name to 69866.