The nearly 600 adjunct faculty at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., made a strong statement this week for better pay and benefits by voting for the Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO), an affiliate of AFT.

The faculty members are concerned about low pay scales that maxed out at $1,700 a course, lack of job security and health insurance and no access to office space for preparation work or to meet with students.

Even though AFT represents regular faculty at the college, Henry Ford officials fought the adjunct faculty’s desire for a voice, says Mary Beck, AFO’s interim president. But the workers overcame the school’s anti-union campaign the old-fashioned way: with shoe leather and door knocking.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.

The union, which represents 600,000 federal and District of Columbia government employees, made the endorsement after extensive member polling and a meeting of its national Executive Council.

John Gage, president of AFGE, says Obama’s energetic campaign and support of working families will mobilize voters around the country and help pro-working family candidates up and down the ticket in the fall. Gage said Obama would tackle the challenges facing the federal workforce and all working families, including job privatization and underfunding and understaffing of Social Security and veterans’ programs.