CWA Local Leaders Learn New Skills at MLI

Minority Leadership Institute graduates.

Local union leaders honed their skills in public speaking, political action and more, graduating this week from CWA's 2012 Minority Leadership Institute.

The diverse group, which included African-American, Asian and Latino CWAers, spent ten days studying topics such as labor history, union leadership, organizing, collective bargaining and voter suppression.

District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings was this year's graduation speaker. An MLI graduate himself, Cummings told participants, "You should understand clearly that you are elected to represent your members and work to grow our union through organizing internally and externally. You should all also embrace the importance of building coalitions with constituency groups and other organizations to start a movement to ensure we re-elect the president and other legislators that will stand with workers in this country on our issues."

Since 1983, over 100 men and women of CWA have completed the MLI training.

This year’s participants included CWA Local 81381 President Evelyn Evans, CWA Local 13000 Senior Clerk Wynetta Ward, CWA Local 3204 Vice President Ed Barlow, CWA Local 4603 Steward Clarice Collins, CWA Local 6507 President Gerald Murray, CWA Local 7019 Area Vice President Mariano Godoy, CWA Local 9003 Steward Myesha Glover, IUE-CWA Local 84913 President Joe Nguyen, AFA-CWA Local 27019 Council Representative Tonnette Monroe, and TNG-CWA Local 34071 President David Pollard.