Community groups and unions who want to put the state’s 307,900 unemployed workers back on the job are rallying at the State House for a federal proposal to create 1 million jobs nationwide.

With working families trying to stretch every dollar to make ends meet, the City Council in Northampton, Mass., last night unanimously gave final approval to a resolution defining a living wage as a human right.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, has agreed to pay $40 million to as many as 87,500 current and former employees in Massachusetts, the largest wage-and-hour class-action settlement in the state’s history.

Nearly 600 workers at Norwood Hospital, ranging from respiratory therapists to housekeepers, will join the Service Employees International Union as the result of an election yesterday.

"Hundreds of angry union workers marched through downtown Boston yesterday to protest recent layoffs at the Hyatt Hotel and planned cutbacks at other firms including Verizon."

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School committee members voted through a sweeping package of cuts and layoffs aimed at closing a $60 million shortfall as hundreds of horn-blowing, sign-toting teachers, custodians and parents mobbed school department headquarters last night in a raucous protest.

Advocates for voter participation and for low-income families are joining forces in an effort to defeat initiative petitions that would chop the state sales tax to 3 percent from 6.25 percent and repeal the new state sales tax on alcohol purchases.

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St. Louis-based Belden will close a manufacturing plant in Leominster, Mass., by July 2010, leaving 170 people out of work.

"Fire Department officials are preparing their most compelling argument for federal stimulus funding to hire several firefighters, Chief Kevin Roy said Thursday."