Keynote Address by President Larry Cohen to the 68th Annual Convention of the Communications Workers

Thanks, Tony, for the warm and generous introduction. 

The last 10 months have been challenging, but every day I wake up proud and honored to be President of CWA.  Much of my pride comes from serving with an amazing Executive Board and staff. 

First, Barbara and Jeff.  Barbara, an incredible global leader who is just as much at ease solving problems in Tel Aviv or Budapest as she is in reaching out to key leaders in the U.S., or running our largest departments.  Barbara, every day I am proud to serve with you.

Jeff, a wonderful colleague and leader, not only on Ready for the Future, but also telecom, politics, legislation, and human rights.  Jeff, working together has been terrific.

As I introduce the Board, I will often refer to the "Highlights Booklet" on the tables.  

Pete Catucci, District 2, the senior vice president and member of the Executive Committee, chair of the Benefits Committee, taking on every challenge every day. District 2, leading labor in the election of Tim Kaine as Governor of Virginia.

Bill Boarman, Printing, Publishing and Media Workers Sector, and chair of the Building Committee.  We highlight our sector members at New Era Cap, well-known for producing major league baseball hats, but also a labor relations turnaround story with several hundred new members after a bitter strike only three years ago.

Brooks Sunkett, Public Healthcare and Education Workers, and a leader in fighting for public workers bargaining rights around the country.  Among our highlights is the recent organizing win and recognition of 1,200 city workers in Jackson, Mississippi.  

John Clark, NABET-CWA, bargaining with GE/NBC and Disney to maintain union technician jobs and standards at both companies, and setting a goal to also expand our representation into the growth areas at our employers.

Tony Bixler, District 9, where we also highlight incredible political work, including last year's defeat of Governor Schwarzenegger's referendum attempts to silence the political voice of public workers.

Linda Foley, TNG-CWA, global leader in the campaign for media diversity and quality journalism.  Two Guild highlights were turning last fall's lockout at Canadian Broadcasting into a victory against outsourcing, and mounting a coast-to-coast campaign on the sale of Knight Ridder.

Andy Milburn, District 6, where once again a highlight has been the incredible organizing record at Cingular Wireless, which began in District 6, and the largest private sector organizing drive in the U.S.A. in 2005, with 17,000 technicians, customer service reps and retail store employees joining CWA.

Ralph Maly, Communications and Technologies, with an incredible bargaining record last fall at AT&T, and most recently at Avaya; in both cases, contending with management health care demands.

Jimmy Gurganus, Telecommunications, also moving from one crisis negotiations to the next, including strikes at Sprint in four states to fight give-back demands.

Pat Friend, AFA-CWA, and also a vice president of the AFL-CIO. Just Thursday, celebrating the largest private sector organizing victory this year in the United States at Northwest Airlines, where today, we welcome leaders of that campaign for 9,000 new flight attendant members.

Annie Hill, District 7, where highlights include tough bargaining and mobilization at Qwest, and a contract for 3,000 New Mexico state workers who only recently regained collective bargaining rights.

Noah Savant, District 3, where highlights include district-wide mobilization to support victims of last year's repeated hurricanes, as well as memorializing District 3's Norma Powell with our new organizing apprenticeship program, and also organizing thousands of Cingular members across the south.

Chris Shelton, District 1, where highlights include New Jersey statewide political mobilization, first in the gubernatorial and legislative elections last year, and just last week, an amazing mobilization in the case of a layoff of 30,000 state worker members to win a fair budget that preserves public worker jobs and contractual benefits.

Jim Short, District 13, with whom we celebrate incredible first contracts for hundreds of Comcast technicians in Western Pennsylvania, after more than 5 years of negotiations and 5 decert attempts, bringing new meaning to the cry "we will fight one day longer."

Jim Clark, IUE-CWA, and already a veteran of critical negotiations, including ongoing talks at Delphi Electronics, also in bankruptcy, where our 8,000 members have unified and mobilized like never before.

Seth Rosen, District 4, who may be junior in Board seniority, but has already made his mark in bargaining and building unity in District 4, preparing for critical November elections, and chairing the Executive Board's Organizing Committee.

Please join me in welcoming back our retired leaders, including Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus Jim Booe and his wife, Judy, and President Emeritus Morton Bahr and his wife, Florence.  Morty is fully recovered and never stopped building CWA, organizing at Verizon Wireless, promoting "Buy Union" at Cingular, volunteering at the National Labor College, working for health care reform, and giving me and others wonderful advice.

And, there are many other people who make me proud to lead this great union. 

We have an amazing staff.  It has been difficult for all of them this past year, as we have had to freeze new hiring to help balance the budget.  Last September, we had a short-term debt of $27 million.  And, we were headed for a budget year-end deficit of $7 million.

We plugged that gap and balanced our budget and we will hear more about that from the Finance Committee.  The people who have been bearing much of the brunt are the men and women who work for our union.  They have stepped into the breach because they view working for CWA as a calling – as building their union.

And, I want all of our staff to know how much I appreciate what you do for our union!

I also want to personally acknowledge the staff and administrative secretaries in our office that Jeff and I work with every day.

And, of course, all of you in this room are the vital lifeblood of CWA.  The energy and power of our union – and of our entire labor movement – lies at the grassroots…with the people on the frontlines, our local unions, officers, stewards, mobilizers, and members.

Sixty years ago, CWA -- at its birth -- was helped by the giants of that era…the Mine Workers, UE/IUE, the UAW, and Steelworkers.

These great CIO unions led our movement.  Now, today, in many ways, it's up to us.

In September, we posed the question are we "Ready for the Future?"  What kind of future is it?  Is it just about markets and consumer choices – a view held by most management, many elected officials, even many of our members?

Let's look at the results for some of these so-called choices. 

Health Care

Most management and this government propose making us pay more so we'll be more involved in our choices.  They call this an "ownership society."  No need for a national health care program like those in every other democracy.

Of course, we know all about the choices this administration would like to give us for retirement security – choices about how to risk our retirement in a privatized Social Security system.  Again, "trust the marketplace" is not a time-tested program.

Likewise, the so-called "free marketplace" and consumer choice is supposed to build our communications infrastructure.  Some are saying that consumers have lots of choices.   Consumers can choose between a wireline telecom or cable company for voice service, or pick a long distance carrier and choose among 5 wireless companies.

But what we can't choose is the kind of universal high-speed digital network that other countries are building to fuel their economies for the 21st Century.   We invented the Internet, but the U.S. has now fallen from first to 16th in the world in providing high-speed Internet.  Japan, Taiwan, Sweden, and Korea all will have at least 10 megabyte-per-second high-speed service by 2010.  Yet in the U.S., we still define high-speed broadband as a pathetic 200 kilobytes per second – or less than one-quarter of one megabyte.  All the countries that are racing ahead of us have public policies to promote high-speed roll-out -- urban and rural.  Not us.

Another example is trade.  Almost alone, the U.S. has no policy to promote U.S. manufacturing.  China, where most factory jobs are going, has a clear policy to promote jobs -- with no workers' rights, of course.  But our government in the U.S. actually rewards companies for offshoring.  These leaders say,  "let the forces of the global marketplace play out, and we'll all be fine."

Trust in the markets and consumer choice, they tell us.

And, when it comes to bargaining rights, employers again say workers have plenty of choices today if they want a union.  Of course, what they don't say is that employers like Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, General Electric, Delta Airlines, and Comcast campaign every day against CWA representation.   Sure the workers have a choice: organize and risk losing your job.

Compare this with the global democracy movement where in the past 10 years, workers in Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, and Korea have joined those in Europe, Japan and Canada to improve their collective bargaining and organizing rights.

This is our reality as we prepare to get ready for the future.  We confront a virtual corporate political state that offers phony choices and no real leadership on the vital issues that affect our lives today and tomorrow.

We want real choices for positive changes. 

We have just undertaken a remarkable process of tough self-review – one that is unprecedented in our movement.  One way or another, each of you has participated in the mission that last year's Convention gave us with Resolution No. 1 – Ready for the Future.

This democratic exchange of ideas has involved countless meetings by members, stewards and local executive boards.  Ready for the Future has been discussed at meetings of all CWA districts and sectors and at various conferences.  There have been hundreds of postings to our website.

The Executive Board met repeatedly to review all of these suggestions for new directions for our union.  We debated ideas at great length.  In the end, we came to unanimous agreement on the report that you have all seen.

It's all about one central theme – strengthening CWA's bargaining power.  And, under that umbrella, we listed four key goals that affect us all.

Number One – Jobs. Strengthening employment security.  That means halting outsourcing of core services and ensuring access to the jobs of the future for our members. 

Number Two – Health Care. Maintaining quality and affordable health care.  Besides fighting a defensive action in each negotiation, we need to battle for a solution at state and federal levels to fix a totally unsustainable system.

Number Three – Retirement.  We are determined to fight for the retirement security that our members and retirees have earned through years of hard work.

And, Number Four – It's essential that we restore workers' fundamental rights to organize and bargain collectively.  We all know that the reason union membership has fallen below 8 percent in the private sector in the U.S. has been a relentless attack by management and their government allies, which weakens union bargaining power across every industry and sector.

We fought against shameful Jim Crow laws, once the law of the land. We fought against apartheid in South Africa, once the law of that land. And we will fight to restore workers rights in this country. We will take the fight to the NLRB. This Thursday, July 13, union members will be demonstrating at NLRB offices across the country to protest a likely decision by the board -- the Kentucky River decision -- that will classify every Registered Nurse as a supervisor. Every RN a supervisor, without union rights.  

For CWA to help light the fire of a resurgent labor movement, it means energizing and educating our members.

Some leaders of other unions today say that we can "change to win" but do it mainly top down.  They took their unions out of the AFL-CIO.  We, in CWA, have the opposite view.  Real change means mobilizing more of us.  We need a more unified movement, not more splitting.  All of us here need to work to build unity on every front, from the workplace to the labor council.  We can help lead but not alone, not without resources, and it will not be easy.

A key to our strategy for the future is building a trained and motivated army of stewards and mobilizers –  50,000 strong.  We need a grassroots force ready to act to defend our members and join with stewards in other unions to create a movement for fundamental change -- a stewards' army to help get the message out.

• Ongoing discussion and education about the forces of change that are happening across each industry – not just at each workplace or employer.

• Building agreement among our members that our health care system is in crisis, threatening every worker and family – and that we can't just wait for bargaining.

• Educating our members about bankruptcy laws that can help employers break their pension commitments – and not wait until it happens to each of us.

• Deepening our understanding and commitment to organize nonunion segments of our own companies, as well as other parts of our industries, vital to our futures and to our bargaining power.

Our strategy does not stop there.  Our army of stewards and mobilizers needs to help build a political movement.

This is not a hopeless mission – far from it.  There is much evidence that a turning point is at hand.  Bush continues to fall in the polls.

You can see it and feel it in states like Ohio, a key political swing state that narrowly gave Bush the last election .For example, our members at Delphi are working to make Ohio a turning point as locals like IUE-CWA Local 84717 mobilize the valley surrounding the plant in Warren – Packard Electric – once the heart of the auto industry and still the heart of Warren.

Imagine what I saw in Warren this past February.  A local union with 2,000 members mobilizing 8,000 friends and neighbors to stand with them on a freezing winter day to declare that "enough is enough!"  Ten thousand yard signs for miles around, and a mayor shouting that if you go out on strike, we will all be with you.

Also, there were two members of Congress, Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland, now running for the U.S. Senate and Governor of Ohio.  And they talked about our four issues: health care, jobs, retirement, and collective bargaining rights, and committed to run their campaigns on those issues.

Imagine the message it will send this November when they win and Ohio tells us – don't give up, aim higher.  Trust in each other – we can do it!

And, imagine a turning point in Mississippi where CWA keeps growing, and only two weeks ago, Local 3570 won recognition for 1,000 Jackson city workers.  That local, despite having no public worker bargaining law, is now 4,000 members strong.  That local, along with Local 3511, won the President's Award last year for their joint union-building efforts.  Working together, members in telecom, manufacturing and public workers are building CWA into Mississippi's largest union – creating, not just imagining, a new Mississippi.

We accomplish so much when we work together.  We set high goals like those on page 4 of the "Ready for the Future" booklet.

We have eleven action points as well – all focused on stronger bargaining power: doubling Retiree Membership, increased commitment to local union organizing, nearly doubling COPE fundraising, continued work on structure and Executive Board diversity.

The strategy is to build greater unity internally, working through our differences, and moving resources to take on the challenges coming at us from the outside. 

Importantly, there is the issue of diversity, and the Executive Board has adopted a proposal for a committee, chaired by Secretary-Treasurer Easterling, that includes Executive Board members and local leaders working together to report back by the 2007 Convention on an approach to Executive Board diversity.  We are creating a Canadian Region, recognizing national diversity there.  Public workers with no right to strike have begun a process to fund joint campaigns.

In building unity on the inside, as we focused on "Stronger Bargaining Power," we all began to see clearly how so much of what we do now is "defense."  Yesterday, the World Cup ended and even there, with low- scoring games, it is obvious that you need more than defense.  Players have to run down the field with the ball and try to shoot.

With health care, jobs, retirement, and our bargaining rights on the line, we have much at stake, but we can't  just defend.  Defense alone has never worked, you simply end up with less and less to defend.

To begin to take these bold steps we need to work together, build solidarity and trust. Republican leaders since their Southern Strategy of 1968 have been telling us that you can't trust any government, that people of different colors and cultures should not trust each other, that John Kerry lied about Swift Boat, that you should just depend on yourself and rely on markets and consumer choices -- that no one can be trusted.

Well, working people aren't going to be able to change that attitude unless we trust that we can work together.

I don't mean blind trust.  People are a little more complicated. But, we can find common ground and build the trust necessary to accomplish great things.  I'm talking about trusting that we have the same goals and that we can only reach them together.  CWA districts, sectors, locals, and members - working together to do things we can't do on our own.  Trusting that we can figure things out together, make a plan and act on it – and that we can do amazing things with our collective power and energy.

All eleven points in "Ready for the Future" depend on us working together, the trust that we can do big things, not just as one local, but as CWA and as a key part of a movement.  Decent health care, secure jobs, good retirement, and collective bargaining rights can be a reality in the richest country in the world.

We know that our stewards' army cannot march on air – we need to fund the campaigns that we fight for.  Offense, not just defense – that is the point of the Strategic Industry Fund.  Those campaigns will involve local unions at every stage – leading, planning, implementing, and the DFOC for oversight.  Many, if not most of these campaigns, will be big, lengthy and not a sure thing.  But right now, we are back trying to guard the goal.  We need to play offense, too – we need to imagine that we can lead – and when CWA leads this labor movement, we can imagine and do amazing things.

The Strategic Industry Fund is a bold plan that I believe is of such importance to CWA's future that I would put it on  par with other path-breaking steps we have taken in our history – going back to creation of a two-level structure and the original Defense Fund in the early '50s and the Members' Relief Fund in 1990.

The Strategic Industry Fund will give us the means for major, long-range action programs to change the terms of engagement with our employers and reshape the economic landscape in which we bargain.

We have real enemies who right now are engaged in planning to take all of us out.  We all know about the "Union Facts-dot-com" crowd, bankrolled by the Chamber of Commerce and other corporate groups that are mobilizing against the Employee Free Choice Act.  In the last round of bargaining with Verizon, we know that they plotted for two years to devise a campaign to try to force us to strike.  We didn't fall into that trap.  But you can be sure that Verizon and others right now are drawing up strategies for their future.

This is a proposal to help us actually take charge of our future, and build our bargaining power in every major industry group.

This contract is in my office right next to pictures of my family.  It was given to me 20 years ago by a Western Electric leader who himself received it from an officer in his local.

It's a contract between the Association of Communication Equipment Workers and Western Electric from 1947-1949.  By the end of the contract, the Association joined with others to help form CWA, making it our first national agreement.

The contract is simple – 37 pages.  But the recognition agreement on page 2 designates the union as "the exclusive agent on behalf of all communication equipment workers" in the field organization.  Wall-to-wall recognition was attainable then, but today, it typically is only possible for rail and airline workers.

I keep this contract out where I see it everyday for many reasons, in addition to national recognition.  First, 60 years of our history; second, a union that was independent and helped form CWA; third, installers – always nearly 100 percent organized, north and south.

Today, installers have a contract that expires in 2012, and we are still united but1,500 strong, no longer 15,000.  Lucent is being acquired by Alcatel and by 2012, when our next bargaining begins, most of our work could be nonunion.

All too often, this is the story of American labor, so what do we do?  We can pretend that defending our contracts is the only answer or we can move out of the box, adopt the SIF and fight for the future.

Sixty years later, even though our strategies and tactics change, our hopes and dreams – our belief that every family deserves to live in dignity – remains just as strong.

Let me read from our first "Steward's Manual."

"Our membership extends into every state of the United States and into Canada, into giant industrial cities and small rural areas.  These workers all have one thing in common.  They are determined, through united efforts, to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.  In taking their place in the ranks of trade unionists, communications workers have demonstrated their appreciation of the past, and their responsibility for the future."

Those words -- appreciation of the past...responsibility for the future – have not changed in six decades. 

In one way or another, each of us is standing on the shoulders of the men and women who carried this steward's manual.

We're the inheritors of what they built.

Now it's up to us – this Convention – to decide what kind of legacy we'll leave the next generation of CWA members.  This Convention will be a turning point.

We can aim higher.

Offense, not just defense.

Building an army of stewards.

Organizing new members and retirees.

Building a political movement.

And, staying focused on our mission of "stronger bargaining power," we will stand together and demonstrate that CWA is "Ready to Fight for the Future."