Labor Day Message from CWA President Larry Cohen

Washington, D.C. -- This Labor Day, we are celebrating some victories and looking ahead to big challenges. We know that times are tough and bargaining can be brutal. But we’re encouraged, because we’re armed with a strategy that enables us to build our power by building a movement of allies – civil rights activists, labor, greens, community organizers, people of faith, immigrant rights groups, the LGBT community and others -- who share our vision of social and economic justice.

We know that we can’t reach our goals of secure jobs and bargaining rights on our own. No one group can go it alone. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its allies are too entrenched, too wealthy, too able to exert pressure and control over our democracy. But by working together, like-minded people are bringing about real change.

That’s why National People’s Action’s Sunflower Community partners with our local and T-Mobile activists in Wichita, Kansas, to help win workers’ rights and real immigration reform. That’s why CWA locals in North Carolina are joining the “moral Monday” demonstrations against that state’s assault on voting rights. That’s why CWA members are working with the Sierra Club, Citizens Trade Campaign and Jobs with Justice activists to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership that’s a bad deal for workers, consumers and the environment. That's why CWA activists have teamed up with faith leaders to support fast-food workers' strikes for fair wages in St. Louis and other cities. And it’s why 2,000 CWAers joined the crowd at the 50th anniversary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, to remind our nation that the American dream is not a reality.

Contact: Candice Johnson or Kendra Marr Chaikind, CWA Communications, cjohnson@cwa-union.org and kmarr@cwa-union.org