America, What Happened?: Like Father, Like Son - CWA Leaders on Opposite Coasts Fight for Change

On two coasts, a CWA father and son — both local leaders steeped in union values — are spearheading change in the political landscape for working families.

Says Bob Morrow, executive vice president of Local 1108 on Long Island, N.Y., "Politically, our main hope is for the Democratic Party to take back both houses of Congress, and I would like to see them make the first bills that come out on the floor pro-labor. We need the right to organize and binding arbitration if we can't get a first contract."

Working with the Long Island Federation of Labor, he'll hit the streets this fall as part of Labor to Neighbor, the AFL-CIO member-to-member process of political education.

Meanwhile in Spokane, Wash., Bob's son Sean Morrow, president of Local 7818, already has been going out weekends with Labor to Neighbor, working in conjunction with the Spokane Regional Labor Council.

"I think health care is the most important issue we're facing. I know people who are paying out of pocket more than $200 in premiums, even if they have health care through their employer," Sean says.

Sean's excited about the prospect of electing Peter Goldmark to Congress from Washington's 5th District. "Protecting Social Security and health care are two of Goldmark's main issues," Sean says, expecting to mobilize about a dozen volunteers for Goldmark out of his small Qwest local of about 300 members. He's already increased CWA-COPE participation from 2 percent to over 10 percent of the local's members.

Bob Morrow of New York noted that, "We've got some good races here. Probably the most contested House seat is Peter King's in New York's 3rd District."

Republican King sometimes supported workers' interests, but Bob says, "Lately, it seems like he's gone over to the other side." CWA is backing Democrat Dave Meijes. "He supports labor and continued funding of Social Security. We like what he has to say."

Politics has always been important to the union movement, Bob says. "We utilized our political force during strikes in 1989 against Nynex, 1998 at Bell Atlantic and 2000 at Verizon."

Political pressure helped bring about a successful conclusion to negotiations with Verizon In 2003. "Legislators — state and county assembly people — came out and rode with us, sent letters to Verizon, joined our picket lines," Bob says.

Bob and Sean — and Bob's nephew Jimmy Morrow, a Local 1108 business agent — inherited their union values from Bob's father, a steward for the Operating Engineers during the Great Depression.

"My father used to tell a story about how he had appendicitis and someone drove him to the hospital," Bob said. "The last words he heard as they pushed him out of the car were, 'You're fired.' That was the last time he worked without a union card."

So when Bob, 59, was discharged from the Marines after Vietnam, he went to work for New York Telephone, joined CWA and became a steward in his local. Sean, 34, served in the Air Force during Desert Storm, went to work for Nynex in Queens, N.Y., and later moved to US West, now Qwest, and his current CWA local. He remembers walking the picket line with his dad during the 1989 Nynex strike, so he knows the political clout of the companies his union often runs up against.

"We're working for corporations that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on politicians who look out for their interests," he says. "I think the union is the only avenue that working people have to counter that."