(Laura Clawson)

The debt ceiling is obviously the story of the week, and it's a class warfare story as much as anything else. It's kind ofclass warfare story, really. The same people who pushed to defend tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires are turning the deficit created by those tax cuts into a financial crisis for the nation, one that can supposedly only be solved by major cuts to the programs working people have paid into through their lives and depend on. And if there's no resolution ... yeah, those same working people suffer again. Under the alternatives the Republicans deem acceptable, we lose no matter what.

Meanwhile, the FAA's partial shutdown, which under other circumstances would be a major story, is getting buried. Nearly 4,000 government employees and tens of thousands of private sector construction workers out of work, safety upgrades put on hold, and more than $200 million a week in lost tax revenue, all to force a standard on union elections by which no member of Congress would have been elected.

And of course second-quarter GDP growth was wretched.

Against those giant issues, the day-to-day little blows against workers seem like nothing, almost, but they're how we get to the place where the big stuff is possible, and stuff like Florida making it more difficult to file for unemployment or Detroit cutting pay and benefits for teachers and other school workers and the governor of Maine literally copying his regulatory agenda from lobbyist wishlists seems small in comparison.

So here are some of the blows, the victories and the ideas that made up the week in the war on workers and efforts to fight back:

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry writes at Modern Healthcare : Working together, employers and healthcare workers need to think creatively about the new roles caregivers can play in addressing the cost drivers of chronic illness and long-term care. Community-based healthcare workers can improve the quality of care for chronically ill patients in their homes and prevent costly hospital readmissions. Coordinated home care services can ensure seniors and people with disabilities the choice to live at home and save families and taxpayers the cost of institutionalized care. [....] Hospitals and long-term-care facilities added tens of thousands of jobs since the beginning of the year, and yet nearly one in three home-care workers doesn't have health insurance and the majority work for poverty wages. These working conditions result in skyrocketing turnover rates and an opportunity to grow a new healthcare career for an entry-level worker perishes in the process. We cannot lose sight of the fact that our healthcare system is only as strong as our entire healthcare workforce. The National Employment Law Project has a policy brief on extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers.

: Ikea Swedwood workers aren't the only American employees of Swedish firms to unionize this week. In the New York area, 240 H&M workers joined 1,200 Manhattan H&M employees already in the United Food and Commercial Workers. H&M accepted majority sign-up and didn't force an election.

Like Verizon workers, Miami security guards have voted to authorize a strike. In their case, it's because their employer is paying at levels below what Miami's living wage ordinance calls for.

Nifty. The Minnesota Nurses Association has an iPhone app for nurses to report unsafe staffing conditions and take action.

A foundry worker in Indiana died of a heart attack complicated by extreme heat last week.

Isn't it awesome to be valued on the job?

Speaking of being valued ... As you may have read in the Midday Open Thread, a member of the Daily Kos family won the people's choice prize in Working America's Bad Boss contest. Check out her story and the other two winners to see the kind of bosses American workers are struggling with.

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