The recently opened Chobani yogurt plant—the world’s largest—in Twin Falls, Idaho, and several major construction projects—including a new steel mill—in the Youngstown, Ohio, area have been a boon for the skilled Electrical Workers (IBEW) members there who have been a blessing for the construction managers tasked with getting the jobs done quickly and efficiently.

As the launch of the AFL-CIO’s new online hub @Work continues, today we are highlighting union members’ commitment to producing the highest quality of products and services. This is one of the seven categories of the new site.

An election eve poll taken among AFL-CIO union voters in Ohio shows that Ohio working families strongly support President Obama and Sen. Sherrod Brown.

The AFL-CIO Voter Protection rapid response team has dispatched a team of lawyers to Summit County, Ohio, where there have been reports from across the country about problems with voting machines, lack of paper ballots, moved polling places and other issues.   

In one precinct, some voters were in line from 6:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. before finally voting with provisional ballots. 

Thomas N. Sico, a member of State and Theatrical Employees (IATSE) Local 12 in Columbus, Ohio, wrote the following letter to IATSE officers about President Obama’s support for using IATSE members at a Monday campaign rally in Columbus.  IATSE President Matthew Loeb forwarded the letter to us.

I know we are all tired of seeing political ads, but please take a moment to read this before you head to the polls today. Over the last few days political history happened in Columbus Ohio and IATSE Local 12 was at the center of it.

True the Vote, the Texas tea party-founded group whose main goal is to suppress and intimidate voters (especially voters of color), was barred from sending its poll monitors to polling places in Franklin County, Ohio, the AFL-CIO voter protection team and The Columbus Dispatch report.

True the Vote was denied status as official observers by the Franklin County Board of Elections yesterday after questions were raised about the veracity of the documents the group submitted. In Ohio, if a group of at least five candidates (local, state or federal) request it, the group is allowed to have poll monitors on Election Day. The Dispatch reports:

Do your part in getting friends and family out to vote for pro-working family candidates this Tuesday. Sign up for the Workers' Voice Friends and Neighbors (FAN) online social phone bank tool that is available in key battleground states. 

Start phone banking here: http://go.aflcio.org/Phone-Bank.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

The hours are long but, says Kentucky United Steelworkers (USW) member Chris Ormes, “I'm loving it. I'm at ground zero, and that's where I want to be."

Ormes, 37, president of USW Local 1241 in Bardstown, Ky., says ground zero is Ohio. The state's electoral votes likely will decide who wins the presidential election. He is a foot soldier in a small army of union volunteers who are toiling 12- and even 14-hour days to help President Obama take the Buckeye State.

This is an excerpt from the Huffington Post, "Game Changer in Ohio: Cars," by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

This election may come down to cars. That’s right, cars. 

Nothing illustrates the choice between the two presidential candidates better than the 2009 rescue of the auto industry.  And, despite Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s efforts to distort the contrast with patently dishonest claims and a new TV ad, the auto rescue may turn out to be the deciding factor in the presidential election.    

Romney can’t seem to Etch-a-Sketch that now-famous op-ed headline—“Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Despite bad weather brought on by Hurricane Sandy, voters in Franklin County, Ohio—home to Columbus—showed up more than any other day of early voting up to this point.