Fighting Back: Mobilizing Half a Million Activists for Workers' Rights

One of the most important efforts for CWA and the entire labor movement is building a volunteer "Stewards Army" of activists who will take on the labor movement's critical fights and mobilize our forces for change.

The Stewards Army isn't about knowing the contract or handling grievances but instead is focused on the tough fights working people face — for jobs, health care, retirement security and bargaining rights.

The Stewards Army plan, inspired by CWA President Larry Cohen, was adopted by the AFL-CIO Executive Council last January. The goal is to recruit at least half a million volunteers who will be a part of actions and education campaigns across the labor movement. The Stewards Army will include both active union members and retirees.

Cohen told the 600 participants at the AFL-CIO's recent organizing summit in Washington, D.C., that "we need the organizers of this country not just to organize new workers, as important as that is, but to help every union build an army of stewards so that we're there for each other's fights."

We need to have this army of activists ready, "so that when we have a strike like the Steelworkers do now at Goodyear, we have a structure ready and we will be able to bring out hundreds of thousands of activists to support those fights," Cohen said.

It's critical that "corporate management knows that in every fight, the Stewards Army will be there," he said. That's the only way we'll win bargaining rights or health care or safeguard retiree health care and pensions, and we need to build that together, he added.

At the organizing summit, participants from unions, state and local AFL-CIOs, Jobs with Justice, American Rights at Work, and other groups split into workshop sessions to talk about how to make the Stewards Army a reality.

The organizing summit marked the beginning of labor's drive to build a Stewards Army capable of confronting and winning the fights workers face.

In CWA, the Stewards Army is a critical part of "Ready for the Future," with an initial goal of recruiting 25,000 activists over the next six months, then building an army of 50,000. Those numbers would be multiplied across the unions and support groups of the labor movement.