CWA Ready for the Future: Stewards' Army Would Be a Force for Growth

A key "Ready for the Future" proposal of the CWA Executive Board would create an "army of stewards" within CWA. These activists would be on the front lines of every CWA effort, helping support strategic campaigns in CWA industries and sectors and carrying out the work of the CWA Triangle: building political support for working families, regaining workers' rights through the Employee Free Choice Act and building CWA's power.

The AFL-CIO currently is putting together a steward-based education and mobilization program to develop tens of thousands of local union activists, based on a proposal from CWA President Larry Cohen. CWA's Executive Board has outlined a specific proposal for the union's own army of activists.

"Within CWA we can train an army of 50,000 stewards on what is happening in the labor movement today, on the forces that reduce our power with employers and within industries, on how earlier generations organized and mobilized a movement from a similar starting point and the role of stewards in building that movement," Cohen said. "Our stewards, in turn, will train and mobilize thousands more CWA members to fight for collective bargaining and organizing rights."

Union membership in the private sector today — at about 8 percent — is the lowest it has been in decades. But the labor movement has faced hard times throughout its history, and real gains have come when an army of activists has been on the front lines. From some of the earliest fights of the labor movement — the railroad strike of 1877, the fight for the eight-hour day in 1886, the steel strike at Homestead, Pa., in 1892 — to the sit-downs of the 1930s, activists, stewards and leaders set the course for the labor movement and won many of the gains we have today.

Today, employer tactics may have changed — a multibillion-dollar-a-year union-busting industry has replaced, in most cases, the Pinkertons and thugs — but the fight goes on. Unions are still battling employers — who now have help from the government — over the eight-hour day. Unions are still fighting for jobs, fair treatment, safe and healthy workplaces and economic justice. The stewards' army can make a huge difference.

Another element of the Board proposal calls for working with the AFL-CIO's Voice@Work program to train stewards and mobilize members to elect lawmakers this fall who support working families. A key goal is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to level the playing field for workers who now have to battle employers to join unions.

In the public sector, stewards can lead the charge at the state and local level, pressing officials to support public worker bargaining rights and other key issues.

CWA stewards already are a major part of CWA's outreach to community, student and faith-based groups such as Jobs with Justice. That work would be expanded.

Stewards also would be more active with AFL-CIO labor councils to more coordinate across the campaign's labor movement.

"Our CWA stewards to date have done a tremendous job representing our members in the workplace," Cohen said. "As we go forward, they will lead thousands of others in the fight for our future."