Standing Together, One Day Longer

By CWA President Chris Shelton

CWA is in some tough fights. The good news is that we’re a union where members have each other’s backs. That’s how we know we can take on greedy employers and the 1 percent, and win.   

The 15,000 workers at AT&T West have been working without a contract since April, and are mobilizing against the demands of this company to cut health care and retirement security and for other concessions. 

At United Airlines, bargaining for an integrated contract covering 25,000 Flight Attendants is continuing, under the direction of a federal mediator.

In New Jersey, CWA public workers are building support for a constitutional amendment that will be on the November ballot that requires the state government to fully fund the public worker pension fund. Governor Christie had no problem protecting billions in tax relief for big corporations and big earners, but has broken promises to state workers.

We’re fighting a pension fund grab by Nokia as part of its takeover of Alcatel-Lucent that could put the health care of thousands of retirees and spouses at risk.

At Verizon, 29,000 CWA members and another 10,000 members of the IBEW have been on strike since April 13. Picket lines are strong, and the solidarity of other unions and allies has been amazing. Strikers are determined to last one day longer than this greedy, multi-billion company, but as we all know, the decision to strike is a tough call. After 10 months of bargaining, with Verizon refusing to move off its demands for givebacks and concessions, our members had no choice.

We believe that this strike can be a real beginning when it comes to restoring the American Dream for working families. 

All working families deserve a decent standard of living, secure jobs, good health care, and retirement security. Those are our core issues in every negotiation and in every contract fight. To that I’d add that all working families want to provide for a solid future for our children and grandchildren.

That’s what we are fighting for, whether we’re on strike at Verizon or standing up to any other employer. 

We’re playing offense, too. We’re organizing and growing, with new members from DirecTV customer care centers, technical and administrative units joining almost every day. With allies, we’re taking on the Big Banks and the financial institutions that prop up the 1 percent at the expense of the rest of us. 

With AFA-CWA, we’re fighting the attempt by Norwegian Airlines International to gut worker protections in the airline industry by hiring crews from Thailand and other low-wage countries. The Department of Transportation tentatively has approved a foreign carrier permit for NAI, and we’re fighting to block that action, because the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Flight Attendants, mechanics, pilots, passenger agents and other airline workers in our country and in Europe are at stake.

We have supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other bad trade deals scrambling, and have won commitments from the Democratic presidential candidates that TPP is a non-starter. 

With allies, we’re mobilizing to take back our democracy, so we can put an end to big money contributions that are devastating our political process. We’re fighting back against attacks on the right to vote and taking a stand for justice.

And we’re looking ahead to the November elections, when we have a real opportunity to elect a President, Senators and other elected officials who we know are on the side of working families, not the 1 percent.

We’re standing together for what’s right, what’s fair and what will ensure that working families have the opportunity to live the American Dream.