In a huge voter outreach push in the final days of the election cycle, the AFL-CIO political program in Ohio completed more than 800,000 voter contacts. That far exceeds previous election years. The unprecedented level of voter communication capped the massive effort under way since Labor Day that reached more than 2 million Ohio voters with 80,000 volunteer shifts.

Ninety-year-old Augusta Thomas, national vice president for women and fair practices at AFGE, knows each step gets her closer to helping elect candidates who will work for working families.

Thomas is canvassing in Cleveland, telling America's workers what's at stake for them and their families in this election.

Communications giant Clear Channel—bought by Mitt Romney’s former firm Bain Capital in 2008—continues to refuse to take down billboards in Ohio and Wisconsin that voting rights experts say have just one purpose: to intimidate and suppress the African American and Latino vote in those two states. Those votes could mean the difference between President Obama winning re-election or Mitt Romney taking the White House.       

Sign a petition from Color of Change to Clear Channel demanding that it take down the billboards.

On May 8th, the Ohio AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council held its first lobby day at the Ohio Statehouse. Veterans made the trip to the Capitol from all over Ohio—Dayton, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Lancaster, Youngstown, Canton, Akron, Columbus and everywhere in between to lobby their legislators on issues important to veterans and their families.

Mike Gillis, Ohio AFL-CIO communications director, sends us this.

A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Ohio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio state lawmakers.

Deborah Dion with the Ohio AFL-CIO field program sends us this.

Speaking at a Cleveland rally on the eve of Nov. 8, Election Day, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka brought down the house yesterday when he spoke passionately about why we must join together and beat back Issue 2/ S.B. 5. More than 500 union volunteers from 30 different local unions as well as community activists and Columbia University students from New York City rose to their feet repeatedly cheering before hitting the doors to canvass city neighborhoods  to spread the message about voting “No” vote on Issue 2/S.B. 5.

More than 11,000 people today rallied at the Capitol in Columbus to launch the campaign to overturn a law backed and recently signed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) that eliminates the rights of 350,000 public employees to bargain for middle-class jobs.

With the state House expected to take up Senate Bill 5 next week, Ohio working people are stepping up their grassroots opposition to the legislation that takes away the right of public employees to bargain for good middle-class jobs.

Ohio’s working people served notice that they are more energized than ever to defeat S.B. 5, Gov. John Kasich’s anti-worker bill that takes away bargaining rights from public employees. The state Senate passed the bill by one vote in a last-minute, dirty-trick maneuver, and the state House began hearings yesterday.

“Today is a sad day for Ohio’s middle class,” said Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga, after the state Senate passed, by a 17-16 margin, Senate Bill 5, which would remove the freedom of public employees to bargain for a better life.