2001 Convention Delegates Make IUE-CWA Merger Official

It’s official: IUE and CWA have tied the knot. Acting on several constitutional changes, delegates to the 63rd Annual Convention finalized the affiliation of the 110,000-member International Union of Electronic Workers and for the first time welcomed delegates from the new IUE-CWA Industrial Division as convention participants.

“One of our great achievements last year was the decision by the IUE to select CWA as its merger partner,” CWA President Morton Bahr said in his opening day speech. “We are excited about the many opportunities this merger brings us. It will increase our power and effectiveness at the bargaining table, and in local, state and national politics.”

Nearly 200 IUE-CWA officers and members were among 1,537 delegates from CWA locals across the country who attended the convention July 9-10 in Minneapolis. In addition, 276 alternates attended, along with 525 guests, including many retirees.

In their resolutions, motions and energetic applause as speakers called them to action, delegates made it clear that CWA isn’t waiting for next year’s mid-term elections to fight for fair trade, a patients’ bill of rights, improved family leave and a host of other workers’ rights and working family issues.

They wildly cheered the fiery words of Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, who said, in introducing himself, “I am without any equivocation, without any weaving or bobbing, a strong labor senator.”

“I thank you and I thank your parents and your grandparents and I thank my mother, who is a cafeteria worker, for all that you have done for our country,” Wellstone said.

“Because of you, we have eight-hour days, a 40-hour week and the right to join a union. Because of you, minimum wage. Because of you, the civil rights movement, which made this country better, not just for people of color, but for all of us. Because of you, a safe workplace. Because of you, a better country for all of us, more bread, more justice. Because of you, more democracy.”

"Growing Stronger Every Day"
With IUE’s 110,000 members, CWA’s family has swelled to 725,000. IUE-CWA already has won two significant organizing drives and “our future opportunities are limitless,” Bahr said.

He applauded the IUE’s “courage” for making the difficult decision to merge rather than remain independent.

“The IUE did not enter into this merger lightly,” Bahr said. “They are a proud part of labor history. They have made enormous contributions to the development of industrial unionism in the United States.”

But, like other strong unions, he said, IUE and its members in manufacturing are gravely affected as corporations send their jobs overseas, chasing the lowest possible wages.

“While IUE continued to effectively represent its membership, the leadership recognized that they did not have the additional resources necessary to mount the kind of organizing campaigns that would keep the union viable in the years ahead,” Bahr said. “Instead of trying to maintain the status quo, the leadership decided to seek a merger that would lead to greater growth and power.”

CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling said there’s no end to what the two unions can accomplish together.

“Together we will be a force in thousands of communities across North America, with members in every congressional district,” she said. “You can count the unions that are able to say this on the fingers of one hand.”

“Together, we will wield more clout than ever in the halls of Congress on the issues that matter to working families,” she continued. “Together, we will elect candidates to office who support the rights of workers and their unions. And let the message go forth to Corporate America: Together we will make a difference at the bargaining table.”

Fired Up
Delegates got their exercise during Wellstone’s speech, jumping to their feet again and again as he took on the Bush administration and anti-worker forces in Congress. He described their agenda as “an effort to undo over half a century of people’s history.”

“There’s a piece of legislation, it’s called the ‘Family Friendly’ Workplace Act,” Wellstone said. “You know what it does? It overturns the 40-hour week?

“There’s another piece of legislation called the SAFE Act. You know what it does? It guts OSHA,” he said, and continued to name pending anti-worker bills.

Then he delivered his applause line: “None of that legislation is going to pass the United States Senate,” he said, reminding delegates that since the Democratic takeover in the Senate, he chairs the labor subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the bills.

“I will block every bit of it,” he said. “It’s going nowhere. It’s dead on arrival.”

He challenged the notion that politics is about being “left” or “right” or “center.”

“People don’t talk in that language,” he said, describing, instead, conversations with seniors who spend more than half their limited income on prescription drugs, workers laid off without health care coverage, parents who can’t afford child care yet can’t afford not to work.

“That is what people focus on,” Wellstone said. “So hear me loud and clear: You want to reduce poverty in this country? Focus on a good education, good health care and a good job. You want to have a stable middle class? You want real welfare reform? You want to end the violence?”

Over and over, he said the answer is “a good education, good health care and a good job.” And labor can make it happen, he told the roaring crowd.

“I’ve got a piece of legislation and I have a commitment from my leadership that I can bring this to the floor at least as an amendment,” he said. “It’s called ‘Right to Organize’ legislation. I’ve wanted to do this forever, and now I chair the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the National Labor Relations Act.

“We say, no longer will companies be the only ones to give the speeches to employees. They get to hear from the union. We say, no longer will it be profitable to break the law and illegally fire people. You’re going to have to pay three times the back pay and can be taken to court for more damages,” he continued.

“We say, if 60 percent of the workers sign cards saying they want a union, within 14 days, you’ve got to have the election. And we say that if workers vote for a union, you can’t stonewall our contract.”

Strength through Organizing
CWA’s focus on organizing won high praise from AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who pointed to the union’s 280 victories over the last year involving more than 16,000 workers.

“Nobody does a better job than CWA of understanding your industries and crafting growth strategies like the ‘Bargaining to Organize’ provisions you negotiated at Cingular and the card-check agreement you won in the Verizon strike,” Sweeney said. “You are setting a brisk pace and I thank you for your leadership.”

He pledged the AFL-CIO’s continuing support to hold Verizon to the card-check language. “We will be there with you as many times as it takes to make sure every Verizon worker gets a chance to join CWA (with) absolutely no employer interference,” he said. “Count on it.”

CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen brought several workers to the stage to give personal accounts of organizing battles at Verizon and AT&T. Their stories illustrated Cohen’s message: Organizing isn’t necessarily easy, but standing still isn’t an option.

“It is stronger together or weaker forever,” Cohen said. “Standing still will lead to weakness. Energy and risk can make us stronger.”

Cohen said all of CWA’s efforts to organize and mobilize come down to a single goal: “Stronger CWA locals enable our members to work and fight for a future that we helped build, not just a future that management creates.”

No Time to Waste
Bahr ended the convention by challenging delegates to take action now on several political fronts. At the top of the immediate list is the fight for global trade pacts that recognize worker and human rights. A patients’ bill of rights is another priority, he said, urging members to call, e-mail and write members of Congress.

He also urged members in Virginia and New Jersey to support the worker-friendly candidates for governor in elections this fall.

“These two races can be our launching pad for Labor 2002 and Labor 2004,” he said. “You have the opportunity in New Jersey, Virginia and the city of New York (where a CWA member is running for council) to start us down the road to success.”

But politics isn’t the only area where CWA can make a difference. Bahr applauded the generosity of CWA families, whose donations in times of disaster have helped hundreds of fellow members throughout the country. At the convention alone, more than $2,700 was raised for CWA families in Houston whose homes were damaged or destroyed in June by what’s been called the “flood of the century.”

In closing, Bahr passionately implored members to fight hate wherever it exists, angrily noting that a policy considered by the White House would have allowed faith-based charities that receive government money to discriminate against gays in hiring.

“We leave this convention as a union family that believes all Americans have worth,” Bahr said. “We return home as part of a union that is 725,000 strong and still growing. We are united. We are together. We are strong.

“We are going to fight with all of our power those in government who promote hate policies. They don’t speak for us. They don’t speak for America.”