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Convention Delegates Step Up to Challenge-CWA 62nd Annual Convention
CWA’s 62nd Annual Convention — just a week before Labor Day — launched a groundswell of support for the union’s endorsed political candidates, with determination to send Al Gore and Joe Lieberman to the White House.
The 2,500 delegates, in Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 28-29, provided a wildly enthusiastic welcome for Sen. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Gore’s vice-presidential running mate, who chose the convention as the site of his first major address since the Democratic Convention.
And they welcomed CWA’s soon-to-be merger partner IUE — the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Furniture and Machine Workers. The merger will strengthen both unions, bringing their combined membership to more than 740,000, and will extend CWA’s reach into the manufacturing sector.
Celebrating strength and solidarity among international unions at a critical point in the evolution of the labor movement, they also applauded addresses by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka, IUE President Ed Fire and Edward Asner of the Screen Actors Guild.
New Economy
President Morton Bahr, in his keynote address, pointed to the many successes CWA has achieved over the past year: a first contract for 10,000 US Airways employees, numerous organizing victories, a global campaign that stopped the Sprint-WorldCom merger and a major bargaining victory at Verizon that extended card check organizing rights to wireless workers.
“The pace of our work is breathtaking, and I can report to you that the state of our union is strong,” Bahr said.
He said the basic concerns of workers for dignity and security are common to both the old economy and the so-called New Economy, characterized by ever-increasing corporate mergers, partnerships and startups, and the growing use of contingent workers to avoid paying benefits. He challenged the union to aggressively organize technical, administrative and professional workers in the New Economy.
“If we do our jobs right, just as we are doing in SBC, with 6,000 new members at their wireless company, the New Economy jobs in North America will be union jobs,” Bahr said, to a strong round of applause.
2000 Elections
Shifting to politics, Bahr painted a “doomsday scenario” for working families if the Bush-Cheney ticket is elected and right-wing conservatives continue to control the House and Senate: repeal of the Family and Medical Leave Act; passage of a “National Payroll Deception Act” to take unions out of the political process; comp time instead of overtime; a national right to work law and other anti-worker legislation.
“Nothing is more important to us or our union over the next nine weeks than the elections in November,” Bahr stressed.
“Al Gore supports workers’ rights and labor law reform. He supports stronger federal safety and health standards. He will extend coverage of the Family and Medical Leave Act. He will improve public education, protect Social Security and pass tax cuts that help working families instead of the rich.”
Bahr noted that Gore, “a longtime friend of CWA and all union members,” promoted legislation to protect the pensions and seniority of Bell System workers, refused to cross picket lines during the NABET-CWA lockout by ABC, and had campaign staff call with a pledge to honor the recent picket lines at Verizon.
“Al Gore has been there for CWA members,” Bahr said. “Now
we must be there for him.”
CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling hammered Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s record as governor of Texas, “a right-to-work-for-less state.”
Bush is a promoter of privatization, responsible for $3 billion, five-year contracts to Lockheed Martin, IBM and Electronic Data Systems, Easterling said. In 1995, Bush vetoed a patients’ bill of rights, then in 1997, threatened to veto a bill to allow patients to sue HMO’s for malpractice.
“George W.’s tax cut would give the richest 1 percent of taxpayers 1,000 times more tax relief than middle income families. More than 60 cents of every tax dollar would line the pockets of the top 10 percent of taxpayers,” Easterling said.
She urged CWA members to participate in phone banking for the Gore-Lieberman ticket, to talk to co-workers and to organize rallies on the candidates’ behalf.
Steve Rosenthal, AFL-CIO political director and a former CWA staff member, unveiled the federation’s program to build on the gains made by working families in the 1998 elections, when voters from union households made up 23 percent of the electorate and brought to a close a right-wing reign of terror led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and scores of right-wing extremists.
In that election 66 percent of union men and 74 percent of union women voted Democratic, compared to 42 percent and 51 percent from nonunion households.
Rosenthal urged CWA locals to coordinate with their central labor councils and state AFL-CIOs to support candidate's friendly to working families.
Coming Together
Unions are coming together in cities across America to build up the labor movement by organizing new members and to elect national leaders responsive to working families, and a prime example is the merger of CWA and the IUE, said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka.
Speaking on behalf of himself, Federation President John Sweeney and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, Trumka called the merger “the best idea to hit the American labor movement since Sam Gompers said that ‘labor wants more.’”
“It means more power to bargain with, especially with corporate giants like Verizon and GE, who are trying so very hard to de-unionize,” Trumka said. “CWA is already the union that is most aggressively and successfully organizing the high-tech, service sector workers, and we are convinced that together CWA and IUE can and will do the same with manufacturing workers.”
Trumka noted that only 3 million of 10 million manufacturing workers at present are union members and that CWA and IUE are natural partners to organize high-technology manufacturing.
“Organizing manufacturing workers is a challenge that we must meet or face a weaker and weaker trade union movement,” said Trumka. To strong applause from the delegates, he stressed, “I don’t know about you, brothers and sisters, but we have been there, and we are not going back to that weaker labor movement.”
Union Democracy
Between listening to speakers, the delegates heard reports and recommendations from the union’s Credentials, Finance, Defense Fund Oversight, Equity and Women’s Committees.
They voted on 16 resolutions, enthusiastically adopting the AFL-CIO Labor 2000 political program and welcoming the IUE.
They decided 16 appeals, reversing an executive board decision to require the rerun of one local’s election, reinstating one expelled CWA member and sending two grievances to arbitration.
And they modified the CWA Constitution, granting an executive board vote to the NABET-CWA sector vice president.
Leadership
On a high note of union solidarity, delegates warmly received actor Edward Asner, past president and representative of the Screen Actors Guild.
Asner thanked CWA for its support of SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in their strike against producers of commercials for major corporations. On July 11, CWA, SAG and AFTRA members stood shoulder to shoulder against AT&T, demanding organizing rights and benefits for CWA members and that the company resume the employment of union actors in its commercials. They were successful on both issues.
Due in part to this joint union effort, negotiations between SAG and AFTRA — representing 135,000 actors on strike since May 1 — and the advertising industry resumed on Sept. 13.
Asner, TV’s “Lou Grant” and the winner of seven Emmy and five Golden Globe awards, praised CWA for its awareness of the need for solidarity among unions, particularly when they face common employers.
“We pass this way but once, and how we behave along the way is who we are,” he said. “It’s how we will be remembered when we are gone, and so it is with unions. Those who have found the way must show it to others. This is what CWA has done.”
This portion of this website is paid for by the CWA Committee on Political Education - Political ontributions Committee, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
The 2,500 delegates, in Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 28-29, provided a wildly enthusiastic welcome for Sen. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Gore’s vice-presidential running mate, who chose the convention as the site of his first major address since the Democratic Convention.
And they welcomed CWA’s soon-to-be merger partner IUE — the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Furniture and Machine Workers. The merger will strengthen both unions, bringing their combined membership to more than 740,000, and will extend CWA’s reach into the manufacturing sector.
Celebrating strength and solidarity among international unions at a critical point in the evolution of the labor movement, they also applauded addresses by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka, IUE President Ed Fire and Edward Asner of the Screen Actors Guild.
New Economy
President Morton Bahr, in his keynote address, pointed to the many successes CWA has achieved over the past year: a first contract for 10,000 US Airways employees, numerous organizing victories, a global campaign that stopped the Sprint-WorldCom merger and a major bargaining victory at Verizon that extended card check organizing rights to wireless workers.
“The pace of our work is breathtaking, and I can report to you that the state of our union is strong,” Bahr said.
He said the basic concerns of workers for dignity and security are common to both the old economy and the so-called New Economy, characterized by ever-increasing corporate mergers, partnerships and startups, and the growing use of contingent workers to avoid paying benefits. He challenged the union to aggressively organize technical, administrative and professional workers in the New Economy.
“If we do our jobs right, just as we are doing in SBC, with 6,000 new members at their wireless company, the New Economy jobs in North America will be union jobs,” Bahr said, to a strong round of applause.
2000 Elections
Shifting to politics, Bahr painted a “doomsday scenario” for working families if the Bush-Cheney ticket is elected and right-wing conservatives continue to control the House and Senate: repeal of the Family and Medical Leave Act; passage of a “National Payroll Deception Act” to take unions out of the political process; comp time instead of overtime; a national right to work law and other anti-worker legislation.
“Nothing is more important to us or our union over the next nine weeks than the elections in November,” Bahr stressed.
“Al Gore supports workers’ rights and labor law reform. He supports stronger federal safety and health standards. He will extend coverage of the Family and Medical Leave Act. He will improve public education, protect Social Security and pass tax cuts that help working families instead of the rich.”
Bahr noted that Gore, “a longtime friend of CWA and all union members,” promoted legislation to protect the pensions and seniority of Bell System workers, refused to cross picket lines during the NABET-CWA lockout by ABC, and had campaign staff call with a pledge to honor the recent picket lines at Verizon.
“Al Gore has been there for CWA members,” Bahr said. “Now
we must be there for him.”
CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling hammered Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s record as governor of Texas, “a right-to-work-for-less state.”
Bush is a promoter of privatization, responsible for $3 billion, five-year contracts to Lockheed Martin, IBM and Electronic Data Systems, Easterling said. In 1995, Bush vetoed a patients’ bill of rights, then in 1997, threatened to veto a bill to allow patients to sue HMO’s for malpractice.
“George W.’s tax cut would give the richest 1 percent of taxpayers 1,000 times more tax relief than middle income families. More than 60 cents of every tax dollar would line the pockets of the top 10 percent of taxpayers,” Easterling said.
She urged CWA members to participate in phone banking for the Gore-Lieberman ticket, to talk to co-workers and to organize rallies on the candidates’ behalf.
Steve Rosenthal, AFL-CIO political director and a former CWA staff member, unveiled the federation’s program to build on the gains made by working families in the 1998 elections, when voters from union households made up 23 percent of the electorate and brought to a close a right-wing reign of terror led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and scores of right-wing extremists.
In that election 66 percent of union men and 74 percent of union women voted Democratic, compared to 42 percent and 51 percent from nonunion households.
Rosenthal urged CWA locals to coordinate with their central labor councils and state AFL-CIOs to support candidate's friendly to working families.
Coming Together
Unions are coming together in cities across America to build up the labor movement by organizing new members and to elect national leaders responsive to working families, and a prime example is the merger of CWA and the IUE, said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka.
Speaking on behalf of himself, Federation President John Sweeney and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, Trumka called the merger “the best idea to hit the American labor movement since Sam Gompers said that ‘labor wants more.’”
“It means more power to bargain with, especially with corporate giants like Verizon and GE, who are trying so very hard to de-unionize,” Trumka said. “CWA is already the union that is most aggressively and successfully organizing the high-tech, service sector workers, and we are convinced that together CWA and IUE can and will do the same with manufacturing workers.”
Trumka noted that only 3 million of 10 million manufacturing workers at present are union members and that CWA and IUE are natural partners to organize high-technology manufacturing.
“Organizing manufacturing workers is a challenge that we must meet or face a weaker and weaker trade union movement,” said Trumka. To strong applause from the delegates, he stressed, “I don’t know about you, brothers and sisters, but we have been there, and we are not going back to that weaker labor movement.”
Union Democracy
Between listening to speakers, the delegates heard reports and recommendations from the union’s Credentials, Finance, Defense Fund Oversight, Equity and Women’s Committees.
They voted on 16 resolutions, enthusiastically adopting the AFL-CIO Labor 2000 political program and welcoming the IUE.
They decided 16 appeals, reversing an executive board decision to require the rerun of one local’s election, reinstating one expelled CWA member and sending two grievances to arbitration.
And they modified the CWA Constitution, granting an executive board vote to the NABET-CWA sector vice president.
Leadership
On a high note of union solidarity, delegates warmly received actor Edward Asner, past president and representative of the Screen Actors Guild.
Asner thanked CWA for its support of SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in their strike against producers of commercials for major corporations. On July 11, CWA, SAG and AFTRA members stood shoulder to shoulder against AT&T, demanding organizing rights and benefits for CWA members and that the company resume the employment of union actors in its commercials. They were successful on both issues.
Due in part to this joint union effort, negotiations between SAG and AFTRA — representing 135,000 actors on strike since May 1 — and the advertising industry resumed on Sept. 13.
Asner, TV’s “Lou Grant” and the winner of seven Emmy and five Golden Globe awards, praised CWA for its awareness of the need for solidarity among unions, particularly when they face common employers.
“We pass this way but once, and how we behave along the way is who we are,” he said. “It’s how we will be remembered when we are gone, and so it is with unions. Those who have found the way must show it to others. This is what CWA has done.”
This portion of this website is paid for by the CWA Committee on Political Education - Political ontributions Committee, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.