Legislative-Political Meeting: Economy, Health Care, Employee Free Choice Top Meeting’s Agenda

In a time of skyrocketing prices at the gas pump and the grocery store, the housing crisis, growing unemployment and stagnant wages, CWA members got a shot of adrenalin in April from political leaders who are committed to a solution that will include the most important economic stimulus plan American workers could have: The Employee Free Choice Act.

The capacity crowd of 700 at CWA's annual Legislative-Political Conference heard from a series of Capitol Hill speakers and both Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom pledged sweeping change after the November elections in the form of Employee Free Choice and a pro-worker agenda on trade, health care and retirement security.

"You can feel the excitement as we imagine the change we can bring about in the next 12 months," CWA President Larry Cohen said as he opened the conference April 6.

Earlier, as participants registered for the conference, they filled out postcards urging what will be the new Congress and new president to take immediate action to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

The labor movement is gathering 1 million postcards and will submit them with photos of many of the signers so that they can be displayed in the Capitol after the November election, putting both names and faces to the fight. CWA has committed to getting 15 percent of its membership, about 80,000 people, to sign cards.

CWA Executive Vice President Jeff Rechenbach said the key to all of it — to passing Employee Free Choice, enacting health care reform and more — is victory Nov. 4. "It's all riding on the election," he said. "For the next six months, that's our focus."

Participants cheered both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the other lawmakers and leaders who addressed the event. After morning speeches, CWA members spent the rest of their days on Capitol Hill meeting with representatives, senators and their staffs to discuss CWA's key issues.

In meetings and in speeches, leaders expressed strong support for strengthening workers' rights, grave concern about the state of the U.S. economy and anger that the world's wealthiest nation isn't providing health care for tens of millions of its citizens. They also focused on another top CWA priority: Speed Matters — high-speed Internet access for every American. Right now, the United States lags far behind other developed countries in both access and upload and download speeds.

"If we want to compete in the global economy, we need to be investing in universal high-speed broadband access," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) 

Praising CWA as an already tireless union, Van Hollen and other speakers urged members to get even more involved over the next six months, ensuring that working families across the country understand the issues, know what's at stake and will turn out on Election Day.

"We cannot turn the tide without your help," said Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), who was elected in March with labor's support to fill the seat of his late grandmother, Julia Carson.

Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.) and Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) also spoke, as did West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is credited with bringing new, living-wage jobs to his state and enacting tough worker safety laws.

On the conference's final morning, DNC Chairman Howard Dean spoke, emphasizing that the party has two extraordinary candidates.

He noted what he termed McCain's "Let them eat cake" speech in March in which he ignored Wall Street's and the administration's role in the free-falling economy and suggested instead that people struggling to pay their mortgages get second jobs and cut back on other spending. "He is completely disconnected from the struggles of working-class people," Dean said.

Speaking at her final CWA legislative conference before her retirement at June's convention, Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling called 2008 "the greatest election opportunity of our lifetime. We are here on a mission, a mission to build a political movement to restore bargaining rights in America. And if we do our jobs and work as never before, come Election Day we will win and we will usher in a powerful new movement to change America for generations to come."