CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. Addresses the 80th CWA Convention

Good morning union family! Welcome to the 80th Convention of the Communications Workers of America. It’s great to be here with you in Pittsburgh.

Thank you Vice President Davis for that introduction, and thank you to Congresswoman Summer Lee and Congressman Chris DeLuzio for your remarks and your steadfast support in Congress. It was great to hear from Governor Shapiro, a true leader who is committed to protecting and expanding the right of Pennsylvanians to join unions and bargain fair contracts.

It’s hard to believe it has only been two years since we met in St. Louis and you elected me president of this great union. The love and constant support I have had from my wife Ruth and our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, has sustained me as I have navigated the challenges of this position. Ruth has had to put up with a lot - all of my travel, and zoom meetings and phone calls at all hours of the day and night. I could not do this work without her by my side, and I am truly grateful to God for blessing us with our three children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren, including Milah, my unofficial campaign manager

I also want to thank my Senior Staff - Chief of Staff Sylvia J. Ramos, Senior Director of Government and International Affairs Shane Larson, Senior Director of Organizing Tom Smith, and General Counsel Matt Holder. I remember meeting with them backstage right after the Convention adjourned in St. Louis to set priorities, and they have been working hard for you every single day since then. And I could not do my job without Kelly Aiken, the executive office manager for the President’s Office. Please give them all a round of applause.

You’ll be hearing directly from Secretary-Treasurer Ameenah Salaam later in the Convention. So much of the work she and her staff do happens behind the scenes, but I know you appreciate the resources and support they provide. Ameenah spends every minute of her time making sure that your union dues are being used in the most efficient and effective way possible to build our power and strengthen our union. Thank you Ameenah.

Your Executive Board has been a crucial part of our success over the past two years. Executive Board members, please stand. We have a lot of tough issues facing our union. You can rest assured that every member of this board is working together to find solutions and move our union forward. Thank you all.

Will the retirees who are here today stand up as you are able? To every retiree here today, you have my thanks for all you’ve done, and for all you have yet to do. I know our retirees are fired up and still very active. Your knowledge and experience is a resource and we should all be making the most of what you bring to the table. Let’s give our retirees and RMC leadership some applause.

I always acknowledge our military, currently serving or veterans, whenever I can. Thank you so much for your dedication to our country and your dedication to our union.

Finally, thanks to all of you who have assembled for this Convention. As our Constitution states, the Convention is the highest governing body of our union, and I know you take this responsibility seriously. As we consider the business before us, I know we will have differences of opinion - and that’s OK. I will always be honest with you about where I stand and why. I absolutely believe that everyone is entitled to have their say, but we must also be respectful of one another. Let me say that again - we must be respectful of one another. Remember that we are all here because we believe in our union and want to do what is best for our members.

When you elected me President of this union I promised that I would not be sitting in my office at headquarters barking out directions. That’s just not me. That’s not the kind of leader I am. I am a problem solver, and I have learned over the years that in order to solve problems you need to hear directly from people about what is going on. And that’s what I have had the pleasure of doing these past two years. I have shown up to rallies, to walk picket lines, and to visit workplaces. And every single time I have learned something new.

I haven’t just been listening. I’ve also been talking to everyone I can about the incredible work our union is doing and what they can do to support us. I was proud to address the Democratic National Convention and to be the only CWA president to ever speak at the World Economic Forum. It was an honor to represent our great union. But more importantly, it was a chance to bring our issues and our perspective to a bigger audience. To have the power we need to stand up to giant corporations we need to work with our allies across North America and across the world, it’s as simple as that.

I also promised you that I would never back down from a fight and we have not backed down. What you and the members and retirees of this union have accomplished over the past two years has been a remarkable testament to our strength and our solidarity.

CWA members have never been afraid to strike when companies are not showing us the respect at the bargaining table that we deserve. Our members at AT&T Southeast showed incredible grit and determination last year when they spent a month on the picket line. The company was determined to divide us, but the strike only made us stronger. Our members held the line and non-members saw them standing up for what they deserved and joined the union! And we won a historic contract there which actually lowered the health care cost sharing percentage. AT&T Southeast members please stand up! Let’s give them a round of applause.

Our Park City Colorado Ski Patrol members from Local 7781 built incredible community support for their 12-day strike just after Christmas last year. Resort visitors were captured on video chanting “Pay your workers!” as they stood in long lift lines due to slope closures. Their groundbreaking contract is a milestone in the fight for a fair and sustainable ski industry.

Our New York Times Tech Guild members from The NewsGuild of New York showed their power during an 8-day strike, with thousands of supporters across the country breaking their Times games streaks to avoid crossing the digital picket line. They won a strong first contract that lays the foundation for tech workers not just at the Times, but at other tech employers. These workers walk the talk when it comes to solidarity. They raised more than they needed for their strike fund, and donated $114,000 to our striking Pittsburgh Post Gazette workers as they entered their third consecutive holiday season on the picket line.

Our members at UPTE-CWA Local 9119 at the University of California have held several one- and two-day strikes as they fight for a fair contract, safe staffing, and better care for patients. While that fight is ongoing, they have won some concessions and sent a clear message that they won’t back down.

Of course, no one in our union has been stronger than our members at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Would our Post-Gazette members please stand up. Stand up! Our production workers reached a settlement a few months ago but our NewsGuild-CWA members are still on strike - the longest running active strike in the United States. Justice has been delayed time and time again, but it will not be denied!

Our Post-Gazette workers are fighting not just for themselves and their families, but for the respect that every single worker deserves!

We have won major victories at the bargaining table against some of the biggest corporations in the world including American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, GE Appliances, GE Aerospace, NBC Universal and at AT&T, not only in the Southeast but also in the West and Southwest.

Our Public, Healthcare and Education Workers sector is growing and thriving. In Hays County, Texas, EMS workers fought a union-busting campaign and in the process set a new NLRB precedent for similar workers who want to join unions. When they ratified their first contract at the beginning of this year, representatives of the county hosted a ceremonial signing with Local 6115 to signal their commitment to working together for the betterment of EMS workers in Hays County.

Just last month CWA nurses from Local 7181 fought off a decertification campaign supported by the Right to Work Foundation. They even added 13 new members as a result of their positive, proactive one-on-one conversations.

Our Florida locals have overcome Governor Ron DeSantis’s attempt to destroy public sector unions in the state through remarkable internal organizing. Many locals have signed up record numbers of members after strengthening their steward structures and raising awareness of the benefits of union membership.

Although the national 2024 election was a huge setback for working families in the U.S., public workers in Colorado notched a major win with the passage of the ballot measure to bring collective bargaining to all Denver city and county public workers. Quad 7, Local 7799 and The Denver Newspaper Guild initiated and led that effort, collecting over 20,000 signatures and successfully organized the entire Denver City Council to put the matter to public vote.

We had other political wins in 2024. We had more members participating in the AFL-CIO Labor to Labor program than any other union - if you were one of them, thank you!

Let me tell you something. We are not the largest union in the AFL-CIO. But because of the work that all of you do, we are one of the most respected and influential. I was recently appointed to the Democratic National Committee’s Executive Committee, the first CWA President to ever serve in that role. We now have a seat at that very important table because of the many hours that you, our members and our retirees have put in knocking on doors, making phone calls, and visiting elected officials. I am there because CWA shows up!

Several CWA members were elected or re-elected to state legislatures in 2024 including Erika White in Ohio, Chris Ryan in New York, Kaela Berg in Minnesota, Priya Sunderashan and Lauren Kuby in Arizona, Linda Foley in Maryland, and Nikki Merritt in Georgia. We need more members to run for office so we can take power back from the corporations who control too many politicians - from both parties!

Earlier this year, CWA activists knocked doors, phone banked and text messaged our members for our endorsed candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race Susan Crawford. We beat the millionaires and billionaires and won that race to give us a pro-worker majority on the court.

We played a key role in enacting the Social Social Security Fairness Act, which ends unfair provisions reducing the Social Security benefits of many public sector workers. We secured provisions in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 that strengthen protections against assaults on passenger service agents, require a study and governmental call to action to protect workers on the tarmac. Our work on this bill will save lives.

In Canada, our members made funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation a key issue in the 2025 federal elections. Pierre Poilievre (pwa-lee-EHV) took a page from the MAGA playbook and ran on promises of defunding the CBC with baseless accusations of bias and propaganda.

Our Canadian locals launched a comprehensive campaign to fight back by building support for local journalism, public broadcasting, and a strong and free Canadian press. They reached 3.3 million Canadians in only 30 days and got 63,000 signatures in support of saving public broadcasting.

They won, and secured a promise from the new Prime Minister of better and sustainable financing for the CBC which could impact more than 3,000 of our members.

Over 25,000 new members have joined our union since our last convention, across every district and sector, the highest two-year total in over a decade.

We have welcomed thousands of video game workers into CWA as a result of our neutrality agreement with Microsoft. Quality Assurance Workers at Microsoft’s Zenimax studios in Maryland and Texas - and Raven studio in Wisconsin, stayed strong at the bargaining table and recently won standard-setting first contracts. We launched United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433 with a direct-join model so that we can build even more power for workers in the industry.

Although we have long represented New Flyer bus manufacturing workers in Minnesota, other U.S. facilities remained non-union. As a result of the neutrality agreement we negotiated with the company in 2022, workers at three additional plants organized to join IUE-CWA and negotiated life-changing first contracts last year.

Wells Fargo workers at 29 branches have joined CWA, the first workers ever to organize at a major U.S. bank. Now they are mobilizing for a fair contract. A few weeks ago I joined them in Charlotte, North Carolina to deliver a petition to management demanding action.

In telecom, we are organizing IHX workers at AT&T. A District 9 Strategic Industry Fund project focused on developing local telecom industry organizers has already produced results. Local 9333 helped workers at broadband provider UnWired win a tough election to join our union and I am sure there are more to come.

We should all be proud of the work we have done - together. These wins have been possible because we have the financial resources to support our work. Our Members’ Relief Fund, Strategic Industry Fund, and Growth Fund support members and their families when it is necessary to strike to win a fair contract while enabling us to build our bargaining power and our union through innovative programs.

The CWA Unbreakable resolution that is before this Convention makes adjustments to provide more consistent funding for our Strategic Industry and Growth Funds so we can be prepared for all of the challenges that we face.

I would like to thank the Defense Fund Oversight Committee for providing feedback as the Executive Board developed this resolution. Their expertise and insight allowed us to find a balanced solution that will keep our union strong today, tomorrow and in their future. Let’s give the Defense Fund Oversight Committee a round of applause!

We gather today just seven miles from the historic site of the Homestead Strike where, in the summer of 1892, steelworkers fought bravely for better pay and their share of the incredible profits their work created. At the time, their expiring contract had some of the best wages and working conditions in the country.

Andrew Carnegie and his business partner Henry Clay Frick looked at the expiring contract at the Homestead mill and saw their chance to wipe out  the union and keep more of the profits for themselves. Sound familiar?

When the workers wouldn’t accept the concessions, Frick laid them off, and an overwhelming majority of the 3,800 workers voted to strike. When the company sent an armed private police force, the Pinkertons, to break the strike, they were met with a crowd of 10,000 strikers and supporters. A gunfight broke out, seven protesters and three Pinkertons died.

Frick succeeded in breaking the union. In 1892 there was no right to organize and no government agency to protect the rights of workers. To make matters worse, starting in 1894, the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that outlawed strikes, boycotts and picketing. The court held that most labor laws were unconstitutional because they infringed on the rights of employers. That’s the same thing Musk, Bezos and others are attempting to do today.

Despite the lack of legal protection, workers continued to organize and engage in collective action to build power. Forty years later, in 1934, 1.5 million workers went on strike, creating pressure on Congress to pass the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act, giving most private sector workers the right to join unions and collectively bargain.

You know, I hear from members who don’t think we should have a legislative and political program. That we shouldn’t be involved in the creation of the laws our union depends on for its very existence. That we should just cede the fights in Congress, state capitols and local governments all across the country to the army of corporate interests and lobbyists pushing their agendas. If the founders of our union had adopted that narrow view, CWA would have never survived for as long as it has. In fact, if it had not been for the political engagement and struggle that led to the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act, we might not have a union at all.

We once again find ourselves in the age of robber barons who have captured and corrupted our government. As was the case during Carnegie and Frick’s time, the Roberts’ Supreme Court has put their thumb on the scale in favor of corporations. In the 2010 Citizens United decision a narrow majority on the Court allowed a new generation of oligarchs bent on seizing control of our country to use their obscene wealth to take control of our politics, and in decision after decision they have sided with corporations and taken power away from the working class who make this country run.

Which brings me to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump and the billionaires who funded his campaign want to take control of our lives and our futures. They are ransacking federal programs, shutting down essential services to put more money into their own pockets and throwing millions of people out of work, including thousands of CWA members.

One of the first things Donald Trump did was illegally fire NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the Board without enough members to function properly. He also issued an illegal executive order terminating the union contracts of nearly a million federal workers. This is the single biggest union-busting action in American history.

Donald Trump wants to ensure that any boss can fire any worker for any reason or no reason at all. He’s making it clear that as long as he’s in charge, union contracts can be ignored and his administration will have the boss’s back. He’s saying that experience and competence don’t matter - his priority is to make sure that we are too scared to demand what we’re owed.

The unfettered power that Donald Trump and his corporate backers are seeking is extremely dangerous. The rapid progress they have made rolling back the basic democratic system we have spent almost 250 years trying to perfect is alarming. The founders of our country established a government of checks and balances so that no one person could gain full control of the levers of power. Now, we are witnessing something none of us - none of us - ever thought we’d see in the United States - the rise of an authoritarian regime.

This regime is crossing red lines that political scientists and historians who study democracies that have fallen under similar pressures recognize as steps toward a full reversal of our fundamental rights. These include:

• Pardoning the violent January 6th insurrectionists who tried to halt our peaceful transfer of power;
• Issuing an executive order stripping almost a million federal employees of their collective bargaining rights ;
• Prioritizing political loyalty over competence for federal nominees and employees;
• Seizing authority away from Congress by abolishing government agencies like USAID and the Department of Education and shutting down Voice of America;
• Underminding the independent media by defunding PBS and NPR and dismantling the remaining restrictions on media consolidation;
• Deploying the military domestically;
• Arresting and threatening to arrest elected public officials;
• Seizing and sending U.S. citizens to overseas political prisons in violation of due process;
• Violating and ignoring federal court orders;
• Firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because Donald Trump thought the jobs report data made him look bad.

University presidents, partners in big law firms, media moguls, CEOs, and even some elected officials and heads of state have been responding to Donald Trump’s threats by trying to appease him. But it doesn’t work that way. Donald Trump is a bully. And if you give a bully your lunch money on Monday you better believe he’ll be back for more on Tuesday.

Do you know who is not running scared? Us. Our union and our labor movement. We have a whole lot of experience standing up to bullies, whether it is a manager who thinks the contract doesn’t apply to them or a hothead at the bargaining table with a take it or leave it attitude.

Yes, we have to take the threat to our democracy seriously. But when the bullies come for us, for our co-workers and our families do we back down? No! Let me hear you say it, do we back down? No!

Political scientists and historians also tell us when countries have successfully prevented or reversed authoritarian control, unions have played a critically important role.

Why? Because we don’t back down. We fight back.

We’re fighting in the courts, filing suits to preserve the independence of the National Labor Relations Board and to protect our members’ jobs.

We’re fighting in Congress, making sure our representatives know where we stand. We absolutely must take back Congress from the MAGA Republicans in 2026! The vote on Trump’s budget was truly a life or death matter, and almost every single Republican chose death. Seventeen million people will lose their health care. Millions more will see their costs increase. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities, particularly in rural areas, will close. Some have already closed. Millions of working people, many of them CWA members, will lose their jobs as essential programs are cut.

This is not what the majority of Americans want. It is the opposite of what we want.

We want better, cheaper healthcare. We want to improve Social Security and Medicare so they will be there when we are ready to retire. We want to fix our tax system so that very rich people pay what they should and corporations aren’t rewarded for sending jobs overseas. We want to be free to join unions and bargain for the wages and benefits that we deserve.

Members of this administration show no sign of slowing down their attacks. Our union has always been at the forefront of protecting our democracy and we cannot let up.

We cannot be afraid to challenge incumbents who pay more attention to their donors than to their voters, no matter what party they are from. We will no longer direct our political spending to ineffective third-party Super PACs run by consultants who are out of touch with the realities of everyday Americans. I believe that pro-worker candidates can win in every state, city, county, and district.

Challenging the Trump administration in the courts and winning in 2026 are critically important, but they are not enough. No one is coming to save us. We must save ourselves.

We will save ourselves by using our collective power to bargain strong contracts for our members and to protect every worker in our labor movement. We stand shoulder to shoulder with allies across the country and across the globe. We are all in the same boat, all facing the same future and, win or lose, we’re all we have.

During a time when public perception of most institutions has declined, perception of unions has gone up. Labor unions are viewed more positively than big business by Americans right now by the biggest margin on record. Working people see us sticking to our values standing up to corporate power and it gives them hope. When we put those values out front, when we champion the rights and freedoms that truly make this country great, that’s when those without a union see the true strength of our movement and want to be part of it. They see solutions to their own personal struggles, on the job and in their own lives, and they want to be part of a winning team.

We are all we have. But we are all we need.

The CWA of today is very different from the union my father joined when he started work at AT&T as a janitor, the only position a Black man could hold at the company at that time.

In 1965, the CWA Convention adopted CWA Growth Resolution #1, a program for broadening the membership base and expanding CWA’s influence in the areas of politics and legislation as well as collective bargaining. That same year, 2,300 New York City workers voted to join CWA, and Local 1180 became CWA’s first public sector local.

Our public sector expanded in 1981 when 34,000 New Jersey state workers organized to join CWA. The International Typographical Union merged with CWA in 1987 and in the 1990s we continued to expand beyond the telecommunications sector, organizing at college and university campuses, welcoming UPTE into our union, and merging with NABET and the Newspaper Guild.

The 1990s were a difficult time for private sector organizing, but 10,000 passenger service agents at US Airways overcame the challenges and voted to join CWA in 1997. A few years later, IUE and AFA merged with CWA, strengthening our union further as we entered the 21st century.

Our union leadership also changed to better represent our members. Today 45% of our Executive Board are women and 50% are people of color. That didn’t happen by accident. In 1973 we established the National Civil Rights and Equity Committee and the National Women’s Committee, and in 1983 we held the first Minority Leadership Institute. In 2007 during our Convention in Toronto, I was proud to second the resolution that established our Executive Board diversity seats. We have created leadership pathways to ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute to our union’s success.

So yes, we are a very different union today. Fewer than half our members work in telecommunications. We work in different industries and have different job titles. We live in rural areas, in suburbs, and in cities. We are straight and we are LGBTQ+. We are able-bodied and disabled. We are of different races and genders, and, yes, we hold different political views. But we are united by our values and our vision for the future.

We love our families and our COUNTRIES. We want everyone in our communities to have the freedom to be themselves, pursue their dreams, and have a good life. We believe in prosperity, justice, and security for all, not just the very rich.

Look around this room. Each one of us has a reason for being here. The work we do is not easy. The hours are long and the stakes are high.

The history of our union is filled with stories of people just like you who made sacrifices because they believed in the promise of a better tomorrow. To build the future we want, the future we and our children and our grandchildren deserve, we have to cultivate a mindset that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. That doesn’t just hold true when the person under attack is a member of our workgroup, or our bargaining unit, or our local, or our union. When any worker is under attack, it is an attack on all of us. When federal workers are under attack, when they are being fired without cause, that is an attack on all of us! When immigrant workers are under attack, when they are being abducted in the streets and sent to prison in El Salvador, or a concentration camp in Florida, that is an attack on all of us!

Our momentum is strong! We will not be stopped by billionaires or bullies!

If your local went on strike in the past two years, stand up and remain standing! If you are currently bargaining a contract or will be bargaining soon, stand up! If your local is helping workers organize to join CWA, stand up! If you are mobilizing to elect pro-worker candidates, stand up!

If you still believe in democracy, this is your fight, stand up!

If you still believe in the rule of law, this is your fight, stand up!

If you still believe in the power of a union, this is your fight, stand up!

Are you ready to fight for each other?

Are you ready to fight for our union?

Are you ready to fight for a better tomorrow?

Then say it with me: 
When we fight! We win!
When we fight! We win!
When we fight! We win!

Let’s go!