News

More than 40 CWA and RMC members from seven CWA locals filled the hearing room of the Maryland Senate Finance Committee with a sea of red shirts this week. Their mission: to spotlight a bill that would allow Verizon to sell its landline assets without any review by the Public Service Commission.

This past week, CWA lost two committed members, two men who spent their working lives and their retirement years building CWA and supporting the rights of working people. Both died as they lived, as CWA activists.

"Retirement Heist" is a new book by Ellen Schultz, a former investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She carefully describes how companies plunder and wring profits from the defined benefit pension plans of American workers. It's required reading for union leaders engaged in bargaining with the country's biggest corporations.

In District 2-13, CWAers leafleted more than 50 Verizon Wireless retail stores with the message: "We've given you so much, but now you're breaking our hearts. If you want to 'be ours,' focus more on good jobs and less on corporate greed."

This Tuesday, 43 delegates and 8 guests convened to found the Virginia Alliance for Retired Americans. The Virginia Alliance will be an active part of the four million member national organization that works to mobilize retirees, senior and community activists into a nationwide grassroots movement to advocate a progressive political and social agenda - one that respects work and strengthens families. Members of the state and national Alliance come from a variety of trades and backgrounds.