President Obama is traveling across the nation to rally people behind health care reform. One of this biggest stops happened yesterday, with a speech in Pittsburgh before hundreds of members of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union. The labor movement was one of now-President Obama's biggest supporters during his campaign. How does the group feel about the president, and his policies, eight months in? We talk with Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers of America, and labor journalist Philip Dine about the current relationship between the president and workers.

If you missed the president's speech at the AFL-CIO convention, here it is:

With Labor Day right around the corner, we speak with Annette Bernhardt, one of the authors of a report showing a surge in wage and workplace violations: Confronting the Gloves-Off Economy: America's Broken Labor Standards and How to Fix Them. The report compiled interviews with more than 4000 low-wage workers in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. What they described was an astounding number of violations — from unpaid overtime to employers not paying minimum wage — and an overall lack of enforcement.

Bernhardt is the policy co-director for the advocacy group National Employment Law Project. We also hear from Amy Carroll, an attorney at a community center in Brooklyn, New York: Make the Road New York.  The group represents thousands of workers who have seen workplace violations firsthand.

The U.S. Labor Department just released productivity numbers for the spring quarter and they are on the rise—productivity is the highest in six years. We talk to Kelly Evans, economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

On Friday the Department of Labor announced fewer job losses for the month of July since the current economic crisis hit bottom last Fall. Even the credit markets seem to be thawing out and returning to more normal levels. Joining The Takeaway is Louise Story, finance reporter for The New York Times.

Labor leaders had pinned their hopes on a new bill in Congress called the Employee Free Choice Act. They hoped something called a "card check" would be part of that bill, which would have made it much easier for employees to unionize. But it looks as though Congress will pass the bill without the card check provision. To talk about what labor unions will do without the card check is Anya Kamenetz, writer for Fast Company Magazine. We've also got Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the largest unions in the U.S.

This morning the unemployment numbers come out and there is a strong chance that they could reach the double digits. The economy is hitting men particularly hard. From the corporate suites to the construction sites, since November, more than 80 percent of job losses in the U.S. have fallen on men. For a look at what this means for both men and women in the workforce, we are joined by Kelly Evans, she is the economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal. We are also joined by Riehan Salam, a fellow at The New America Foundation; he’s written a new piece on this for Foreign Policy magazine titled The Death of Macho. And for an up close look on how the recession is affecting men we turn to Michael Doyle. Doyle is the Vice President and General Manager of the Southeast Division of Manpower, which is an employment service provider.

Transit systems around the country are facing higher fares, service cuts and layoffs; with little help from government agencies. Some are facing increased stress because of what once seemed like a win-win financing scheme called “sale-leaseback agreements.”

Rick Karr, a reporter for the PBS production Blueprint America talks about the situation. His two-part series begins airing tonight on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

With men getting laid off at a faster rate than women, we ask is there such a thing as a gender that's recession proof?