The vote for union representation among passenger service agents at American Airlines fell 150 votes short of the required majority of voting agents, but the Communications Workers of America will continue to work with agents for a voice on the job and in their future. The National Mediation Board announced the vote Tuesday.

This is a cross-post from the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Flight attendants who work for Spirit Airlines filed a lawsuit against the airline for reneging on a contractual commitment to provide equal benefits for all employees by forcing employees who want health care coverage for their domestic partners into a lower-quality health care plan than the plan covering other employees. The flight attendants, members of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), said that management is using procedural loopholes to avoid providing equal benefits.

Some of the most vocal opponents of the move to change U.S. Senate rules, including a proposal to help unblock Senate gridlock by ending the “silent filibuster” and actually forcing filibustering senators to take to the floor and talk if they want to block legislation, are lobbyists who profit from Senate dysfunction.

The Nation’s Lee Fang outlines how Republican-led filibusters and “silent holds” on nominations have resulted in some Big Business windfalls for corporations that just happened to be large contributors to the senators’ campaigns.

In March 2012, the AFT helped lead a public-private partnership to help struggling McDowell County, W.Va., and the participants were hopeful that things could be turned around economically and educationally. A year later, the Reconnecting McDowell project has begun to show that investment in communities can change people's lives.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is leading a campaign to change the current rules that govern the U.S. Senate that hurt the democratic process. 

CWA writes on its "Fix the Senate Now" site:

In the past, our nation was able to move forward on landmark legislation that put in place workers' rights, civil rights, retirement security for seniors and much more.

But today, obscure tactics—like the "silent" filibuster—allow individual senators to hold the nation's work hostage while cutting backroom deals. And the problem is getting worse.

The 22,000 Communications Workers of America (CWA) members employed at AT&T West will soon vote on a new contract after a tentative agreement was reached late last month. The workers are employed at AT&T operations in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.

This post originally appeared at The Huffington Post.

For several years now, the Communications Workers of America has been working with Fix the Senate Now, a broad coalition of democracy, community, women, faith-based and civil rights groups that are fed up with a Senate that functions more like Cicero's Senate of ancient Rome than a 21st century democracy. Despite being considered the world's model deliberative body, in reality it's a place where little gets done because of the abuse of the Senate rules. This isn't news.

Pick up the phone right now and urge your Senator to support Senate Rules Reform. Call 1-888-966-9836 or text RULESREFORM to 69866. 

This is an excerpt of The Huffington Post column "Right-to-Work Laws are Killing the American Dream," by Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen. 

The campaign to make Michigan a so-called "right to work" state is not really about individuals paying union dues. It's all about the 1 percent limiting the ability of working people to work together for a real voice on the job and better wages and conditions.

Working people across the United States in more than 100 events last night called on their representatives to reject benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and to stop tax giveaways for the richest 2%. 

View photos from events around the country on the AFL-CIO Facebook page. 

T-Mobile, the telecom company that earlier this year closed seven call centers in the United States and shipped more than 3,300 jobs overseas, is running its remaining U.S. call center operations under what workers describe as a “climate of tyranny,” says Lothar Schroeder of German union ver.di, which represents workers at Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company. Schroeder spoke with Reuters.