CWAers Meet with Arkansas Senators to Build EFCA Support

In Arkansas, CWAers and other union members have put the Stewards Army to work on the union movement's biggest priority: passing the Employee Free Choice Act. CWA members and union activists met in January in Little Rock with Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act and its importance to working people.

Lincoln and Pryor, both Democrats, are critical to building enough support in the U.S. Senate for the measure so that opponents can't filibuster the bill and prevent an up or down vote despite its majority support.

Meeting with Lincoln (at left in photo), Regina Cain, a steward and member of Local 6507, contrasted conditions at her workplace today — the AT&T Mobility call center in Little Rock — with those under previous management when workers who wanted a union voice were harassed and intimidated. At the Little Rock location, as at scores of other AT&T Mobility operations, workers are able to freely choose a union voice and gain a union contract.

Cain told Lincoln about the real value a union contract brings to the lives of the mainly women workers at the call center and called on the senator to support the Employee Free Choice Act so more workers could make a fair choice about union representation. Alan Hughes, president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO also attended that meeting, along with representatives of the USW.

Separately, Ricky Belk, president of CWA Local 6502 and secretary-treasurer of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, had a similar meeting with Sen. Pryor. Both senators have agreed to future follow-up meetings with CWAers on the Employee Free Choice Act.