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Consumers Union has more than 500,000 online activists who help work to change legislation and the marketplace in favor of the consumer interest.

Consumers Union (CU) is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves.

We want to make sure that politicians promoting solutions listen to your voice, not just the voices of the big money lobbyists. You can take action today on many issues: healthcare reform, hospital infections, money, identity theft, safe food, media/communications and more.

Get involved! You can make a difference. Counter the power—and dollars—of special interests!

CU publishes Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org in addition to two newsletters, Consumer Reports on Health and Consumer Reports Money Adviser with combined subscriptions of more than 7 million. Since its founding in 1936, Consumers Union has never taken any advertising or freebies of any kind. For more about Consumers Union, click here.

People who have a story to tell or just want to make products safer in their community. Your willingness to tell your personal stories has helped pass laws in many states.

Here's some people who shared their story about their mortgages. Visit DefendYourDollars.org to see more videos.

Pass and sign credit card reform--www.CreditCardReform.org
Credit card companies can increase rates and fees, decrease credit limits, and change the rules at any time. We need to be able to say “no” to rate increases on our existing balance. Card companies must apply our payments fairly to all our balances, not just to the lowest interest balance. We need fair notice for rate increases on future purchases. And we need to stop the heavy marketing of cards to young people who cannot afford them.

Health reform--www.PrescriptionForChange.org
Health insurance costs too much and does too little for too few. We need to know how much treatments will cost, how safe they are, and the track record of the doctor or hospital giving us the care. We need to make sure that every American has access to coverage, and no person should go bankrupt because they need treatment. Cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases are tragedy enough without mortgaging our homes or loading charges onto our credit cards to pay for care.

Public disclosure of medical errors and infections--www.StopHospitalInfections.org
Every year millions of patients suffer or die from medical errors and hospital-acquired infections. Doctors and hospitals know that most of these deaths and disabilities can be prevented, but have been slow to adopt the simple procedures that can prevent errors—like proper hand-washing and regularly changing a patient’s position to prevent bedsores. Health care needs to be safer, and patients need better information to make informed choices before treatment. Public disclosure of the infection rates and medical errors at each hospital in the U.S. should be a part of any health reform plan.

Mortgage reform--www.DefendYourDollars.org/video.html
The very foundation of our nation’s economy has been cracked by a series of big bank miscalculations that started with mortgage fraud and predatory lending. Housing prices have always been cyclical. But this time around, people selling mortgages to borrowers were paid up front, so they had no incentive to make sure those borrowers could repay the loans. They booked loans to people who clearly couldn’t afford them, leaving borrowers underwater from the start. The loans were then sold off to investors who didn’t know what they were buying. When housing prices began to fall, and rate increases bumped up mortgage payments, borrowers started to default in record numbers. We need immediate mortgage loan reform—for people currently struggling to stay in their homes and for all future borrowers--so the taxpayers won’t have to bail out the banks the next time housing prices take a downward turn.

Food safety--www.NotinMyFood.org
Our food safety system is broken--melamine in infant formula, salmonella in peanut butter, e.coli in ground beef, mercury in tuna, sick cows forklifted into slaughter houses, toxic chemicals in baby bottles. Rather than protecting us from foodborne illnesses, the FDA and USDA are keeping us in the dark-- chickens raised in tiny cages can be labeled "naturally raised," while milk and meat from cloned and genetically engineered animals don't have to have any label at all. We need tougher safety standards and vastly beefed up enforcement, so that inspectors visit food producers more than once every 10 years and look at more than 1 percent of food imports. And we need a federal government commitment to support local, sustainable and organic growing practices.