Young Manufacturing Workers in Mentorship Program Learn Union Activism, Leadership Ropes

Continuing a year-long training program, 11 young IUE-CWA members visited Capitol Hill this week to lobby their members of Congress on a range of issues affecting union members and working Americans.

IUE-CWA President Jim Clark said the workers are in a mentorship program that he initiated to help younger manufacturing workers who are union members find their own roles as future activists and to help them see not just what's happening in their own locals but nationally in our movement and in our union.

He said the CWA Stewards Army training program is an inspiration. "The way I look at this is we are building our special forces," Clark said.

IUE-CWA General Counsel Lela Klein said these young members, earlier in the year, undertook steward training, learned about health and safety in the workplace and labor history. The Capitol Hill visit was the next phase. "We brought them to D.C. to train them on the political side of being in a union," Klein said.

Young manufacturing workers in a mentorship training program came to the U.S. Capitol this week to lobby Congress on a range of issues.

The workers include Jas Alexander of IUE-CWA Local 84809 in South Bend, IN, who visited the office of Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-IN); Jessica Moore, a chemical operator from IUE-CWA Local 81359 in Waterford, NY, who talked to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY); and Stephen Cassanio of IUE-CWA Local 755 in Dayton, OH, talked to the staff of Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH).

Amber Brooks of CWA Local 81380 and Jessica Moore of IUE-CWA Local 81359 at the U.S. Capitol for a day of lobbying on a range of issues important to union members.

For the lobbying visit, the workers asked their members of Congress to reject the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade deal that was negotiated in secret by the U.S. Trade Representative. They also asked for support for the Export-Import Bank, a critical tool to ensure that American exporters have the financing that they need to compete on the open market, and they encouraged the members to co-sponsor the Workplace Democracy Act, an effort to ensure that workers will have their right to decide whether or not to join a union protected by law in a meaningful way.

"What has been good for me is the empowerment because, a lot of the time when you are dealing with these companies, they are large and you're small and you can't really do anything," Alexander said. "Being able to converse with people on the national level and regional level, you begin to realize that you are not as small as you think you are as an individual, that we can do some things in negotiations and dealing with our companies."

Moore said she never realized how involved CWA is in the political process and was anxious to get to Capitol Hill to begin to change minds and to get elected leaders to support legislation that workers care about.

And Christopher Cauchon, who is part of an IUE-CWA Local 89119 unit that does aircraft maintenance services for the U.S. Navy, said being part of the program introduced him to several different aspects of labor.

"I wasn't aware of the different ways of getting involved so it's been a year of processing and figuring out where I fit in best," he said.