Cohen to AFL-CIO: Organizing is Key to Playing Offense for America's Workers

More workers with bargaining rights means a bigger, stronger voice for all workers, which is why organizing – even in the toughest of times – is labor's number-one job, CWA President Larry Cohen told delegates to the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh.

CWA Pres. Larry Cohen, chair of the AFL-CIO Organizing Committee, gets delegates fired up.

"Every leader in this room, every delegate, every shop steward, this is our message: We don't flinch. We can't just play defense. We can't just defend the contracts that we inherited," Cohen said.

Cohen recognized CWA members at Comcast in Pittsburgh who struggled for years to join the union and flight attendants at Delta who are fighting to be AFA-CWA members.

"These are the real heroes of our movement," Cohen said, asking the CWA members to stand and recognizing members of other unions who were invited to tell their organizing stories at the convention.

Cohen applauded President Obama's Labor Day speech in Cincinnati, saying it lays the groundwork for a vote in Congress soon on the Employee Free Choice Act.

"It's been decades since we heard something like this, the president of the United States saying, 'Every American owes something to America's labor movement, even if you're not a union member,'" Cohen said.

"In our darkest moments, we need to take that to heart. We need to tell our members that if the president of the United States can say that, we can't forget it. That becomes the enthusiasm and the groundswell that will now drive our movement forward."