Working Together for Good Jobs, Strong Communities

We can’t do it alone. That’s why we’re uniting with people of faith, environmentalists, civil rights activists, neighborhood organizers, students, immigrant groups and many others, to win real change and real programs benefiting workers’ goals of good jobs, bargaining rights, and health care and retirement security. We’re in this together, and we will win.

50 Years Later, the March for Jobs and Freedom Goes On

CWAers make their way to the 50th anniversary March on Washington.

CWA D4 Vice President Linda Hinton, center, Sonny Morgan, IUE-CWA, left, and Sylvia Ramos, assistant to D6 Vice President Claude Cummings, are at the Lincoln Memorial, and the march ends at the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument.

It’s no mistake that the 1963 March on Washington’s official slogan was “For Jobs and Freedom.” The historic demonstration intertwined the goals of civil rights and economic justice, as people of all races demanded equality on the National Mall.

This August, as tens of thousands commemorated the 50th anniversary of the march, much of the movement’s work — such as a real living wage — remains unfinished. Nearly 2,000 CWAers joined with their union brothers and sisters and civil rights activists to once again push for jobs, workers’ rights and economic justice for all Americans.

CWA activists are fighting to ensure our democracy works for all Americans — not just the wealthy 1 percent.

The Time Is Now

The time is now for comprehensive immigration reform. CWA has joined with tens of thousands of labor, immigrant rights, faith, environmental, civil rights and community activists to take that message to Congress. In August, CWA Larry Cohen was among the immigration reform leaders who were arrested at a sit-down protest that focused on the failure of the House of Representatives to take action on a bill already passed by the Senate. The civil disobedience action sent a strong message to lawmakers that the fight for immigrant families will continue until there is a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. Over the summer recess, CWA activists join the largest caravan in California history to call on GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy to pass a comprehensive bill. Earlier, CWA, Center for Community Change, National Immigration Law Coalition, AFL-CIO, Gamaliel, SEIU, Greenpeace, United Farm Workers, America’s Voice, US ACTION, CASA de Maryland and many others all rallied outside the U.S. Capitol chanting, “Si, se pude!” and “Time is now!” America needs to create an immigration process that works for all working people — not a system that benefits corporate employers at the expense of everyone else. Current U.S. immigration policies are a blueprint for employer abuse, and CWA workers are suffering the consequences of this race to the bottom. CWA Local 9416’s Rob England, who has been raising awareness about the reform movement, said, “Once you educate them, then they get it. Education is key.”

CWAers joined 100,000 immigrant rights activists who rallied outside the U.S. Capitol,
calling on Congress for action now on immigration reform.

CWA activists caravan to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office in Bakersfield.

CWA Local 1180 members call for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrant workers.

Demanding Fairness at Patriot

For months, Patriot Coal has schemed to slash health care coverage for retired workers and shed that obligation in bankruptcy court. But CWA members have teamed up with the United Mine Workers of America’s campaign for fairness, joining rallies and civil disobedience actions in Missouri, West Virginia and Kentucky. CWAers in West Virginia have an especially strong partnership with UMWA miners who also are standing with CWA members in their contract fight at Frontier Communications. Peabody had created Patriot Coal in 2007 and gave that company 11 percent of its assets, 43 percent of its retiree liability and some underwater coal contracts, the UMWA said. The overwhelming majority, some 90 percent, of retirees whose retiree health care will be cut never worked for Patriot. Then, in 2008, Patriot bought Arch-spinoff Magnum Coal, and Arch saddled that company with 12 percent of its assets and 96 percent of its retiree health-care liabilities. It’s clear that this new company was designed to fail.

UMWA members have ratified a contract covering miners in West Virginia and Kentucky, but the fight goes on to secure the health care benefits that retirees were promised.

CWA and allies will continue to hold these corporations accountable.

Police arrest CWA President Larry Cohen at a St. Louis rally.

CWAers stand with UMWA workers and retirees.

Fighting for the Right to Vote

CWA members join the Moral Monday action outside the statehouse in Raleigh, N.C.

When the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in June, it dealt a major blow to ordinary citizens’ right to vote. Section 4 said states with a history of racial discrimination were required to get federal approval before they make any changes to election law. As soon as the court issued its decision, Texas, Florida and other states announced their plans to make big changes in voting law, restricting early voting, limiting polling places and implementing other punitive changes. North Carolina has enacted the nation’s most extreme voter suppression law to date. It eliminates same-day registration, bars students from pre-registering to vote and slashes the early voting by an entire week. Led by the NAACP, thousands of activists, including many CWAers, have been rallying around “Moral Monday” civil disobedience demonstrations at the statehouse to protest these attacks on the right to vote, along with plans to slash unemployment benefits and cuts to education and social programs that the state legislature and governor are pushing. “Moral Monday” protests have become more than just weekly demonstrations, but a movement to fight for social, economic and environmental justice.

Launching the Democracy Initiative

In Richmond, Calif., 3,000 demonstrators marched to protest safety concerns and other issues at the Chevron refinery. CWAers joined more than 50 environmental, labor, community, and religious groups at the action.

Early this year, CWA, along with the NAACP, Sierra Club and Greenpeace, launched the Democracy Initiative to restore the core principle of political equality. Our democracy is under siege, and it’s become impossible for any one group, whether it’s CWA or the AFL-CIO, the NAACP or Common Cause, to achieve our goals of economic and social justice. That’s why labor, civil rights, voting rights, environmental, good government and other like-minded organizations with broad memberships are committing to build a movement to halt the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics, prevent the systemic suppression of voters, fix the broken Senate rules that allow a small minority (or even one senator) to block action on legislation that working families need now, and more. Keep up with the latest at www.democracyforus.org.

Can’t Survive on $7.35

In St. Louis, Mo., United Media Guild activists and allies took to the streets to support striking workers. The TNG-CWA local organized staffers at STL 735, a group that supports fair wages and the right of fast food workers to form a union without retaliation at more than 15 restaurant chains.

Across the country, CWA activists are supporting fast-food workers striking for a living wage and respect in their workplaces. In St. Louis, the United Media Guild organized staffers at STL 735, a group that supports fast-food workers’ fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation at more than 15 restaurant chains. And in a show of unity after a recent one-day strike, St. Louis faith and union leaders walked strikers back to their jobs. So far, there have been no firings. In New York City, CWAers supported fast-food workers — from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC and many other chains around the city — who also walked off the job in a mass protest for higher pay. And in New Jersey, CWA has focused on an upcoming ballot initiative on Nov. 5 to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $8.25. TNG-CWA represents workers at three Dunkin Donuts locations in New York’s Penn Station.