The experience of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America has shown that working people—union and nonunion—“hold closely to the belief that workers need to have power and a voice,” reports Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars, based on an interview with Working America’s Executive Director Karen Nussbaum. “….There is strength in numbers and…working families and their allies have numbers they can mobilize to make positive change.”

Our colleagues at Working America have a new online look. The new WorkingAmerica.org is not just a face-lift, but a website that adds many new sections and features.

When working people come together in political action and successfully fight to elect lawmakers who back working families, they are at least guaranteed someone who will listen to their concerns. But in too many cases corporate money has propelled politicians like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett to office where they turn a deaf ear to working people.

In this cross-post from Working America’s Main Street blog, Ruth Oditt shows that even the loss of thousands of jobs and the economic devastation of communities isn’t enough to move Corbett to act, let alone listen.

If Congress doesn’t act and renew unemployment insurance benefits for the nation’s jobless workers by Feb. 29, millions of workers like Kenny Wilkes will be left without a vital lifeline to keep their families head above water.

There’s still time to show your love to the special someone who Occupies your heart on Valentine’s Day, and Union Plus and Working America members can get a 20 percent discount on flower arrangements through Teleflora. (Click here to join Working America and get your flower discount.)

This is a cross-post from Working America’s Main Street blog.

Working America members, teachers and unemployed Pennsylvanians on both sides of the state delivered more than 1,000 handwritten postcards to Gov. Tom Corbett’s regional offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. We wanted Corbett to know the drastic, widespread and ultimately disastrous results of the budget cuts he enacted last year. We wanted him to make good on the rhetoric used in his first year, which called for “shared sacrifice.”

Tell your state attorney general to demand real accountability from the Big Banks for the collapse of the housing market by clicking here. The action, sponsored by the AFL-CIO community affiliate, Working America, comes as state and federal officials are negotiating a settlement with the Big Banks for their role in driving the U.S. economy into a ditch and often recklessly defrauding consumers seeking mortgages.

While most of us know what the goal is of the Occupy Wall Street movement—economic justice for the 99 percent and all that it entails—pontificators from Fox News and other right-wingers derisively dismiss it.

Conventional wisdom says don’t talk politics at big family gatherings, especially with Uncle Earl. But our friends at Working America are offering a unique guide on how to talk about today’s biggest political topic, the Occupy Wall Street/99 Percent movement, without sending Uncle Earl into one of his legendary fits.

AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards sends us the latest from Ohio.

Thousands of Ohio working families went door to door canvassing across the state over the weekend to get out the vote against Issue 2/S.B. 5. With a little more than two weeks left until Election Day, Nov. 8, Ohioans are working furiously to talk with as many Ohioans about how Issue 2/S.B. 5 is unsafe, unfair and has hurt our communities because it takes away the ability of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.