Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Beaumont Caps 60 Years of Activism: Former VP and Top Aide to Two Presidents Retires
Over a remarkable 60-year career of union activism, Dina George Beaumont has seen a lot of CWA history—including the seminal 1947 Bell System strike that led to the formation of the modern union—and she's made some history as well.
For the past 25 years, Beaumont has served as the chief assistant to two of CWA's three presidents—Glenn Watts, who stepped down in 1985, and Morton Bahr, who also is retiring the end of August at the 67th Annual Convention.
Recognized as a path-breaker for union women, she has been one of only a small number of women in organized labor in a position to participate daily in setting and implementing policy and programs for a major union.
From 1974 to 1980, Beaumont served as vice president and head of what was then District 11 covering Southern California.
Among career milestones, she helped organize and served as chair of CWA's first National Women's Conference in Minneapolis in 1978. Citing her as an inspiration to women throughout the union, delegates to this year's Women's Conference passed a resolution naming Beaumont "chairperson emeritus" of all future conferences.
Beaumont also has served as a member of the executive board of the Coalition of Labor Union Women since its founding in 1975 and has chaired CLUW's resolutions committee for the last several years.
An Original 'Rosie'
Beaumont's first experience with workplace and feminist issues came at an early age, 16, when she worked in a wartime defense facility in the converted machine shop of her Los Angeles high school. "I was a Rosie the Riveter," she says, referring to the famous poster of that era. She spent afternoons after classes inspecting the riveting of bomb bay doors for warplanes.
One day when her male supervisor, hired by a large defense contractor, made inappropriate advances, Beaumont took direct action. She headed downtown to the contractor's headquarters and confronted the man's boss, threatening to go to her school principal if he didn't deal with the abusive supervisor. She also told him, "I quit."
Almost immediately afterward, Beaumont was recruited off the street for a part-time job by a manager for Pacific Bell, which was desperate to hire telephone operators at a time of severe labor shortages.
"In the following years, I was able to tell Pac Bell managers, 'Hey you guys recruited me—I didn't come to you asking for a job.' And of course by then they probably regretted that they had," she says.
Beaumont was soon serving as a shop steward and later an elected vice president of her then-independent union, the Federation of Women Telephone Workers, representing about 18,000 members in Southern California. By the mid-fifties she was already serving on the union bargaining committee, getting the negotiating experience that would become one of her strengths.
Toward Merger with CWA
Beaumont was elected president of the FWTW in 1962. Among her achievements in that role, she won what no doubt was the first card-check organizing agreement in the Bell System for 750 unrepresented workers in the traffic department in 1968.
In 1974, following discussions with CWA President Joseph A. Beirne and other union leaders, Beaumont led the FWTW into CWA, with her members voting by a 10-to-1 margin for the merger. "And that's despite the fact that it said right on the ballot that this meant raising their dues," she says. "We were upfront about everything and carefully explained the benefits of joining with CWA."
One major point was the greater need for union solidarity now that the giant AT&T Bell System, with its 22 operating companies and Western Electric manufacturing and installation units, had finally agreed to Joe Beirne's lifelong goal—one national bargaining table.
Beaumont was on the bargaining committee in 1974 for that first round of national Bell System talks, which produced a record pay and benefit package that set the pace not only for telecommunications but other industries as well.
As vice president of newly created District 11 in Southern California, she became the first woman to chair the board of the United Way in Los Angeles, and in 1977 she was the first recipient of the United Way of America's Joseph Anthony Beirne Community Services Award, the group's annual top award to union activists.
After running unsuccessfully for Executive Vice President in 1980, she accepted President Watts' invitation to come to Washington as the executive assistant to the president.
One of her major assignments over the years was assisting with major rounds of collective bargaining, although as top aide to Watts and then Bahr, Beaumont was involved in virtually every issue, task and challenge that came before the president's office.
Having lived through the turbulence ignited by the AT&T divestiture and telecom deregulation in the early 1980's, and all the other changes as CWA has expanded its base into new industries, Beaumont says: "One of our greatest strengths is that we are adaptable. We can take an honest look at ourselves and our environment. We maintain what's important in our traditions, but we can change with the times."
Beaumont plans to move back to Los Angeles and, among other activities, spend a lot more time with her grandsons, Adrian, 4, and Alexander, 6, the children of her son Walter, and with her daughter Madeleine.
For the past 25 years, Beaumont has served as the chief assistant to two of CWA's three presidents—Glenn Watts, who stepped down in 1985, and Morton Bahr, who also is retiring the end of August at the 67th Annual Convention.
Recognized as a path-breaker for union women, she has been one of only a small number of women in organized labor in a position to participate daily in setting and implementing policy and programs for a major union.
From 1974 to 1980, Beaumont served as vice president and head of what was then District 11 covering Southern California.
Among career milestones, she helped organize and served as chair of CWA's first National Women's Conference in Minneapolis in 1978. Citing her as an inspiration to women throughout the union, delegates to this year's Women's Conference passed a resolution naming Beaumont "chairperson emeritus" of all future conferences.
Beaumont also has served as a member of the executive board of the Coalition of Labor Union Women since its founding in 1975 and has chaired CLUW's resolutions committee for the last several years.
An Original 'Rosie'
Beaumont's first experience with workplace and feminist issues came at an early age, 16, when she worked in a wartime defense facility in the converted machine shop of her Los Angeles high school. "I was a Rosie the Riveter," she says, referring to the famous poster of that era. She spent afternoons after classes inspecting the riveting of bomb bay doors for warplanes.
One day when her male supervisor, hired by a large defense contractor, made inappropriate advances, Beaumont took direct action. She headed downtown to the contractor's headquarters and confronted the man's boss, threatening to go to her school principal if he didn't deal with the abusive supervisor. She also told him, "I quit."
Almost immediately afterward, Beaumont was recruited off the street for a part-time job by a manager for Pacific Bell, which was desperate to hire telephone operators at a time of severe labor shortages.
"In the following years, I was able to tell Pac Bell managers, 'Hey you guys recruited me—I didn't come to you asking for a job.' And of course by then they probably regretted that they had," she says.
Beaumont was soon serving as a shop steward and later an elected vice president of her then-independent union, the Federation of Women Telephone Workers, representing about 18,000 members in Southern California. By the mid-fifties she was already serving on the union bargaining committee, getting the negotiating experience that would become one of her strengths.
Toward Merger with CWA
Beaumont was elected president of the FWTW in 1962. Among her achievements in that role, she won what no doubt was the first card-check organizing agreement in the Bell System for 750 unrepresented workers in the traffic department in 1968.
In 1974, following discussions with CWA President Joseph A. Beirne and other union leaders, Beaumont led the FWTW into CWA, with her members voting by a 10-to-1 margin for the merger. "And that's despite the fact that it said right on the ballot that this meant raising their dues," she says. "We were upfront about everything and carefully explained the benefits of joining with CWA."
One major point was the greater need for union solidarity now that the giant AT&T Bell System, with its 22 operating companies and Western Electric manufacturing and installation units, had finally agreed to Joe Beirne's lifelong goal—one national bargaining table.
Beaumont was on the bargaining committee in 1974 for that first round of national Bell System talks, which produced a record pay and benefit package that set the pace not only for telecommunications but other industries as well.
As vice president of newly created District 11 in Southern California, she became the first woman to chair the board of the United Way in Los Angeles, and in 1977 she was the first recipient of the United Way of America's Joseph Anthony Beirne Community Services Award, the group's annual top award to union activists.
After running unsuccessfully for Executive Vice President in 1980, she accepted President Watts' invitation to come to Washington as the executive assistant to the president.
One of her major assignments over the years was assisting with major rounds of collective bargaining, although as top aide to Watts and then Bahr, Beaumont was involved in virtually every issue, task and challenge that came before the president's office.
Having lived through the turbulence ignited by the AT&T divestiture and telecom deregulation in the early 1980's, and all the other changes as CWA has expanded its base into new industries, Beaumont says: "One of our greatest strengths is that we are adaptable. We can take an honest look at ourselves and our environment. We maintain what's important in our traditions, but we can change with the times."
Beaumont plans to move back to Los Angeles and, among other activities, spend a lot more time with her grandsons, Adrian, 4, and Alexander, 6, the children of her son Walter, and with her daughter Madeleine.