We're fighting back against the negative stories the national news media is putting out about our movement by establishing a Message Movers team—folks who are willing to push back against biased stories about unions through social media and email.

Can you join in? You're a powerful voice in making sure that the great work of the union movement is being spread far and wide.

Become a message mover. 

The union membership rate was 11.3% in 2012, down from 11.8% in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which released updated figures today. This decrease in union membership highlights the painful fact that people are working harder but are making less and less. 

One area that saw a significant loss was in the public sector. There are nearly 400,000 fewer union members, from teachers in the classroom to police and firefighters that keep us safe. In manufacturing, the jobs that have returned so far are largely low-wage, nonunion jobs. 

The AFL-CIO wishes you and your family a Happy New Year filled with solidarity, justice and peace.  

We hope you'll continue to be active readers and commenters in our AFL-CIO Now blog community. 

Have a BCTGM-Made Holiday Season is a cross-post from the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM).

Delight your friends and loved ones with holiday treats made by hard-working BCTGM members! Listed here is a sampling of the BCTGM-contracted companies that produce seasonal specialties.

This is an excerpt of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's "Opposing View: Union Jobs Build the Middle Class" from USA Today.

It's a tough time to work for a living.

Middle-class families have been losing ground for more than a decade. Today, working people have a smaller piece of the pie than at any time in the past 50 years. During that period, the number of people belonging to unions also declined steadily; in fact, if you look at the decline of the middle class beside the state of union membership, those numbers are parallel. This should concern everyone who cares about a strong America.

Outside of hardcore trade policy wonks, few in the United States or Canada have ever heard of the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as TPP) or know much about it—and it's time that changed. The TPP is a trade agreement based around the current "P-4" (Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore). 

The 2013 edition of the Union Communication Services Inc. (UCS) Labor Books Catalog has been released, offering titles on topics about labor, including negotiating and grievance handling, organizing, health and safety, labor law and labor history. It includes many worker-friendly fiction, young adult and children’s books as well.

While Oregonians exercised power at the polls in the 2012 elections Tuesday, workers in Portland also were gearing up for another election that would give them a powerful voice on the job.

After electoral wins across the state and three successful organizing drives in the past three months, full-time, part-time and extra board paratransit drivers and dispatchers with First Transit Region 3 voted Wednesday to form their own union with the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 757. By an overwhelming margin, 160 employees voted to form the union in the election yesterday, which was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

After Tuesday's historic election victories for President Obama and many pro-working family candidates, newspaper headlines give credit where credit is due.

Here's a roundup of some headlines highlighting how labor got out the vote:

We covered the 2012 election live on the AFL-CIO Now blog all day Nov. 6. Read the blog below:

RT @evale72: Lots of lines in OH still, if you live near polling place go keep em happy, bring food, hats & go sing

— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) November 7, 2012