It’s time to get the U.S. Senate back on track and end the gridlock of the “silent filibuster” and actually force filibustering senators to take the floor and talk if they want to block legislation. You can help.

While activists today deliver tens of thousands of letters to their senators on Capitol Hill urging them to stop the misuse and abuse of the Senate filibuster, you can, too, by calling 1-866-937-5062 and telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) to publicly support strong rules reform by co-sponsoring Senate Resolution 4.

Given the choice between supporting American workers or the corporations that ship U.S. jobs overseas, Senate Republicans sided with the job exporters today and blocked a vote (56-42) on the Bring Jobs Home Act. That’s not a surprise to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.):

It's no surprise Republicans are on the side of corporations making big bucks sending American jobs to China and India. After all, their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, made a fortune outsourcing jobs, too.

In May, on the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week in Broward County, Fla., Cherine Akbari was honored “with a fancy embroidered jacket and handed a pink slip.”

If 80,000 people are out of work when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) runs out of spending authority tomorrow, they can blame Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Coburn is single- handedly blocking a bill to reauthorize the FAA that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House earlier this week.

The Republican shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can still be resolved before Congress returns to work in September and all it would take, says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is for Congress to:

Come back to Washington. Leave your vacations, just for a couple hours. Come back, Congress. Help your friends and neighbors get back to work.

Today as we hear that Social Security cuts may be on the table in the federal budget deficit talks, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other union and progressive leaders, including House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, have come out strongly in opposition to such moves. Trumka says that “at a time when retirement security remains an elusive goal for most Americans, cuts to Social Security benefits – in whatever form they take – should not be on the table.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) modest, common-sense proposed rule to remove roadblocks for workers who want to vote on whether to form a union has drawn praise from working men and women, political leaders and activists around the country.

Tom Dalzell is business manager and financial secretary of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, which represents electrical workers in the state of Nevada (excluding Las Vegas) and Northern California. He describes how online organizing complements traditional organizing—and why both need to work together.

When I started with the United Farm Workers of America in 1972, some of the old hands taught me a trick: Before you organize people, you have to meet them. To meet them, you have to know where they are. Back then, that meant fields, parking lots where crews gather in the morning, their homes  and the occasional bar. Now, with more than 500 million people on social networks like Facebook, that means going online.

“Disgraceful and dangerous” is how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today described attempts by Republican senators and state attorneys general to intimidate the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They are demanding the NLRB drop its complaint against the Boeing Co.

The Senate last night rejected a Republican move to repeal the health care reform law. Maybe now they will focus on the nation’s most pressing need—JOBS.