Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
No Time to Lose: 2004 Legislative-Political Conference Sets Course for Critical Campaign
Four years ago, the economy was strong, unemployment was low and, for a few more months, labor unions and working families had a friend in the White House.
But one speaker after another at CWA's Legislative-Political Conference in 2000 made it clear how quickly the outlook - especially for workers and unions - would change if George W. Bush were elected that November.
This year, delegates and speakers said their worst fears had come true. CWA President Morton Bahr ticked off a short list of some of the damage done since January 2001:
"Repeal of the ergonomics regulations. Removal of 8 million workers from overtime protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The loss of 3 million jobs. Calling the movement of our jobs offshore a 'normal' part of trade. A tax policy that rewards the wealthy and has resulted in the richest 13,000 families in the United States holding more wealth than the 20 million Americans at the bottom of the ladder. And the list goes on," Bahr told the nearly 600 CWA activists who came to Washington, D.C., to learn and lobby, March 28-31.
Bahr and other speakers implored CWA members to speak out to co-workers, friends and neighbors, to register people to vote, to rally and distribute literature - to do everything they can over the next six months to ensure that the Bush administration doesn't have another four years to wreak havoc on America's working families.
"The stakes have never been higher," CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling said. "When I say that our union's survival is on the line, when I say that our members' livelihood is on the line, when I say that the American dream is on the line for tens of millions of hard-working families, that is the unvarnished truth."
Taking Back America
When they said it, they knew their audience had heard it before - in 2000 and again in 2002. But with the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives all controlled by leaders deeply antagonistic to workers and indifferent to growing unemployment and poverty, speakers said it had to be repeated: November's election will the most important in generations.
"We have a fight on our hands folks," Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) told CWAers at the conference's closing breakfast. "That fight is going to determine your future and the future of our country, so it's a fight we can't afford to lose."
In a thunderous speech that touched on the woeful economy, the assault on labor rights and Republican leaders' contempt for workers, as evidenced most recently by the pending overhaul of overtime rights, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said., "This is the most anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union administration I have ever seen."
But he and others said that can end Nov. 2. "We can get the White House back. We can get the Senate back," Kennedy said. "But we are going to need your help and your support."
No one at the podium denied that it will be a tough summer and fall but all said staying on message won't be hard, as AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka illustrated:
"Today in our country, 43.6 million people have no health insurance. The rest of us live in fear of losing ours," he said. "Today and every day, 4,227 people file for personal bankruptcy. Today we have record mortgage foreclosures and record gas prices. Today and every day in this wealthiest of nations, 6.8 million people who are working 40 hours a week will still be poor."
Ann Lewis, former White House communications director under President Clinton and now chair of the Women's Vote Center, said the deep corporate pockets bankrolling the Bush campaign can't match what CWA members have to offer when it comes to taking the message to voters.
"The people in this room have the contacts and the credibility to deliver the message about this election personally - and that's better than any 30-second TV ad," she said.
Union Patriots
The idea that patriotism means blindly supporting the Bush administration - or any administration - sparked anger from many speakers. They said CWA members don't just talk about patriotism, they practice it every day by standing up for the rights and economic security of all Americans, whether or not those in need belong to CWA or any union.
"Patriotism is not reserved for the brave young men and women who serve our country overseas," CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said. "Patriotism must include fighting for our communities, our jobs, our children's and parents' health care - in short our future."
Former Michigan Representative David Bonior, chair of the new advocacy and education group American Rights at Work, spoke of how distinctly un-American it is that 10,000 workers every year are fired for trying to organize at work.
"The right wing wants to break the labor movement because they know the more there are of you, the more there are of Democrats," Bonior said. "The fewer there are of you, the fewer progressives in Congress. They want to control the whole ball of wax."
Invoking the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Representative James Clyburn (D-S.C.), said, "The loudest noise you can make is not the drumbeat of war, but the marching feet of voters going to the polls on Election Day."
Representative Robert Menendez got a standing ovation as he denounced those in power, and their followers, who have tried to shut down critics by labeling them "anti-American" and unpatriotic. "We take a backseat to no one in the protection of our country. But we want the truth," he said. "Arguing for the truth is the fulfillment of democracy. It is not a lack of patriotism."
Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights leader who has served 18 years in Congress, said union members must be more dogged than ever in their pursuit of justice, recalling his own battles in the South 40 years ago. He remembered his mother worrying and telling him, "not to get in trouble, not to get in the way."
"I got in the way and I got in trouble," he said, his voice booming as the crowd roared. "It's time for organized labor to get in the way."
Critical Issues
Speakers decried the specter of tens of millions of uninsured Americans, spiraling health care costs, greed-driven drug companies and the new Medicare bill that Republican leaders coerced moderates to support - a law that does little for seniors while enriching drug and insurance companies at taxpayer expense.
One "travesty" of the bill, Senator Barbara Boxer said, is that it specifically bars Medicare from negotiating with drug companies to lower prices - something the Veterans Administration does with great success to keep veterans' costs well below the market rate.
"There are 40 million seniors on Medicare," Boxer said. "Imagine the power to sit across the table from the big drug companies and say, 'I'll put your drug on our formulary, but you need to give us a better price.'" But the Bush administration wouldn't stand for it.
Representative James Moran (D-Va.) expressed similar anger about the bill, saying, "What this Congress did is a miserable disaster, a scandal." He said it's just one way that "we are in a battle to save our children's future. And that's why the Communications Workers, a large and powerful and thoughtful union, has to a play a decisive role in taking our country back."
Trade was another key issue. Representative Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) spoke of the deplorable situation created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, and expressed fears that exploitation of impoverished people and communities will spread as a result of the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Solis and Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) both told of visiting Mexican border cities where American companies set up factories in prison-like encampments. Workers - even some children - may work 12 to 15 hour days yet are paid so little they continue to live in what Solis described as "shanty towns" with no clean water or sanitation.
Kaptur said globalization is dealing a double-blow: "The Mexican people are totally exploited while Americans are losing their jobs."
The irony now is that even Mexican workers are losing out. "Companies that moved to Mexico and created jobs are now closing shop there, too, and moving to China, where the wages and labor standards are even lower," Solis said.
Another key concern for lawmakers is the FCC's rollback of rules governing media ownership, making it possible for media conglomerates to grow even bigger, further squeezing independent voices from TV, radio and newspapers.
Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) said while Democrats and moderate Republicans are fighting the changes, House Republican leader Tom Delay and others on the far right want to pave the way for more consolidation. Hinchey said it would be "fatal to our democracy."
"There is not one person or one group that has all the truth," he said. "The only way we come close to the truth is by having our ideas bounced off someone else's. If we lose that marketplace of ideas … then you can see quite clearly the end of the American democratic system."
A moderate Republican who has been a strong labor supporter received a warm welcome as he told the crowd that he and 20 to 40 other Republicans in Congress are eager to work with unions on worker issues. "We are not the monolith that you might think," Representative Peter King of New York said.
King has been especially outspoken in fighting the Labor Department's overtime rollbacks, drawing loud applause as he said overtime after 40 hours a week is one of workers' "absolute rights."
After listening to speakers Monday and Tuesday mornings, conference participants went to Capitol Hill to talk to lawmakers and their staffs about issues critical to CWA members and working families.
A key goal was support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would require employers to recognize workers' right to organize through card check, with strong penalties for employer violations of the law.
Another major topic was the pending Consumer's Right to Know Act, which aims to stem the flow of call center jobs overseas by requiring call-takers to identify themselves and their location when customers call.
The CWA member-lobbyists also sought support for maintaining and strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act, opposing legislation that will make it more difficult for families to move from welfare to work, extending federal unemployment benefits for another 13 weeks, ensuring future media diversity and strengthening hate crime legislation.
Toss Your Hat in the Ring
Three CWA members who serve on their state legislatures said they couldn't have got where they are without help from fellow members, and urged activists in the audience to consider running for office themselves.
"If it weren't for CWA and the people in my local, I wouldn't have won my election. As union members, we've got a ready-made network," said Oregon Representative Diane Rosenbaum of Local 7901, appearing on the panel with Washington State Representative Zack Hudgins of WashTech-CWA Local 37083 and Texas Representative Garnet Coleman of Local 6186.
Whether the office is the state legislature, a school board, city council or even a community water or sewer board, the state representatives said it's essential to have members who are sensitive to union and worker issues.
The conference also welcomed first-time participants from the National Coalition of Public Safety Officers-CWA. NCPSO President Rich Anemone of Tucson noted how the overtime fight in particular had galvanized members of his union. "The regulations cutting overtime pay are a slap in the face to police officers and to every worker," he said.
Delegates also gave a hearty welcome to Susan Phillips, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, who profusely thanked CWA members for their financial and moral support during the California grocery strike.
"You walked with us literally and figuratively every step of the way and we are forever grateful," Phillips said.
But one speaker after another at CWA's Legislative-Political Conference in 2000 made it clear how quickly the outlook - especially for workers and unions - would change if George W. Bush were elected that November.
This year, delegates and speakers said their worst fears had come true. CWA President Morton Bahr ticked off a short list of some of the damage done since January 2001:
"Repeal of the ergonomics regulations. Removal of 8 million workers from overtime protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The loss of 3 million jobs. Calling the movement of our jobs offshore a 'normal' part of trade. A tax policy that rewards the wealthy and has resulted in the richest 13,000 families in the United States holding more wealth than the 20 million Americans at the bottom of the ladder. And the list goes on," Bahr told the nearly 600 CWA activists who came to Washington, D.C., to learn and lobby, March 28-31.
Bahr and other speakers implored CWA members to speak out to co-workers, friends and neighbors, to register people to vote, to rally and distribute literature - to do everything they can over the next six months to ensure that the Bush administration doesn't have another four years to wreak havoc on America's working families.
"The stakes have never been higher," CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling said. "When I say that our union's survival is on the line, when I say that our members' livelihood is on the line, when I say that the American dream is on the line for tens of millions of hard-working families, that is the unvarnished truth."
Taking Back America
When they said it, they knew their audience had heard it before - in 2000 and again in 2002. But with the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives all controlled by leaders deeply antagonistic to workers and indifferent to growing unemployment and poverty, speakers said it had to be repeated: November's election will the most important in generations.
"We have a fight on our hands folks," Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) told CWAers at the conference's closing breakfast. "That fight is going to determine your future and the future of our country, so it's a fight we can't afford to lose."
In a thunderous speech that touched on the woeful economy, the assault on labor rights and Republican leaders' contempt for workers, as evidenced most recently by the pending overhaul of overtime rights, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said., "This is the most anti-worker, anti-labor, anti-union administration I have ever seen."
But he and others said that can end Nov. 2. "We can get the White House back. We can get the Senate back," Kennedy said. "But we are going to need your help and your support."
No one at the podium denied that it will be a tough summer and fall but all said staying on message won't be hard, as AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka illustrated:
"Today in our country, 43.6 million people have no health insurance. The rest of us live in fear of losing ours," he said. "Today and every day, 4,227 people file for personal bankruptcy. Today we have record mortgage foreclosures and record gas prices. Today and every day in this wealthiest of nations, 6.8 million people who are working 40 hours a week will still be poor."
Ann Lewis, former White House communications director under President Clinton and now chair of the Women's Vote Center, said the deep corporate pockets bankrolling the Bush campaign can't match what CWA members have to offer when it comes to taking the message to voters.
"The people in this room have the contacts and the credibility to deliver the message about this election personally - and that's better than any 30-second TV ad," she said.
Union Patriots
The idea that patriotism means blindly supporting the Bush administration - or any administration - sparked anger from many speakers. They said CWA members don't just talk about patriotism, they practice it every day by standing up for the rights and economic security of all Americans, whether or not those in need belong to CWA or any union.
"Patriotism is not reserved for the brave young men and women who serve our country overseas," CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said. "Patriotism must include fighting for our communities, our jobs, our children's and parents' health care - in short our future."
Former Michigan Representative David Bonior, chair of the new advocacy and education group American Rights at Work, spoke of how distinctly un-American it is that 10,000 workers every year are fired for trying to organize at work.
"The right wing wants to break the labor movement because they know the more there are of you, the more there are of Democrats," Bonior said. "The fewer there are of you, the fewer progressives in Congress. They want to control the whole ball of wax."
Invoking the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Representative James Clyburn (D-S.C.), said, "The loudest noise you can make is not the drumbeat of war, but the marching feet of voters going to the polls on Election Day."
Representative Robert Menendez got a standing ovation as he denounced those in power, and their followers, who have tried to shut down critics by labeling them "anti-American" and unpatriotic. "We take a backseat to no one in the protection of our country. But we want the truth," he said. "Arguing for the truth is the fulfillment of democracy. It is not a lack of patriotism."
Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights leader who has served 18 years in Congress, said union members must be more dogged than ever in their pursuit of justice, recalling his own battles in the South 40 years ago. He remembered his mother worrying and telling him, "not to get in trouble, not to get in the way."
"I got in the way and I got in trouble," he said, his voice booming as the crowd roared. "It's time for organized labor to get in the way."
Critical Issues
Speakers decried the specter of tens of millions of uninsured Americans, spiraling health care costs, greed-driven drug companies and the new Medicare bill that Republican leaders coerced moderates to support - a law that does little for seniors while enriching drug and insurance companies at taxpayer expense.
One "travesty" of the bill, Senator Barbara Boxer said, is that it specifically bars Medicare from negotiating with drug companies to lower prices - something the Veterans Administration does with great success to keep veterans' costs well below the market rate.
"There are 40 million seniors on Medicare," Boxer said. "Imagine the power to sit across the table from the big drug companies and say, 'I'll put your drug on our formulary, but you need to give us a better price.'" But the Bush administration wouldn't stand for it.
Representative James Moran (D-Va.) expressed similar anger about the bill, saying, "What this Congress did is a miserable disaster, a scandal." He said it's just one way that "we are in a battle to save our children's future. And that's why the Communications Workers, a large and powerful and thoughtful union, has to a play a decisive role in taking our country back."
Trade was another key issue. Representative Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) spoke of the deplorable situation created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, and expressed fears that exploitation of impoverished people and communities will spread as a result of the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Solis and Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) both told of visiting Mexican border cities where American companies set up factories in prison-like encampments. Workers - even some children - may work 12 to 15 hour days yet are paid so little they continue to live in what Solis described as "shanty towns" with no clean water or sanitation.
Kaptur said globalization is dealing a double-blow: "The Mexican people are totally exploited while Americans are losing their jobs."
The irony now is that even Mexican workers are losing out. "Companies that moved to Mexico and created jobs are now closing shop there, too, and moving to China, where the wages and labor standards are even lower," Solis said.
Another key concern for lawmakers is the FCC's rollback of rules governing media ownership, making it possible for media conglomerates to grow even bigger, further squeezing independent voices from TV, radio and newspapers.
Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) said while Democrats and moderate Republicans are fighting the changes, House Republican leader Tom Delay and others on the far right want to pave the way for more consolidation. Hinchey said it would be "fatal to our democracy."
"There is not one person or one group that has all the truth," he said. "The only way we come close to the truth is by having our ideas bounced off someone else's. If we lose that marketplace of ideas … then you can see quite clearly the end of the American democratic system."
A moderate Republican who has been a strong labor supporter received a warm welcome as he told the crowd that he and 20 to 40 other Republicans in Congress are eager to work with unions on worker issues. "We are not the monolith that you might think," Representative Peter King of New York said.
King has been especially outspoken in fighting the Labor Department's overtime rollbacks, drawing loud applause as he said overtime after 40 hours a week is one of workers' "absolute rights."
After listening to speakers Monday and Tuesday mornings, conference participants went to Capitol Hill to talk to lawmakers and their staffs about issues critical to CWA members and working families.
A key goal was support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would require employers to recognize workers' right to organize through card check, with strong penalties for employer violations of the law.
Another major topic was the pending Consumer's Right to Know Act, which aims to stem the flow of call center jobs overseas by requiring call-takers to identify themselves and their location when customers call.
The CWA member-lobbyists also sought support for maintaining and strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act, opposing legislation that will make it more difficult for families to move from welfare to work, extending federal unemployment benefits for another 13 weeks, ensuring future media diversity and strengthening hate crime legislation.
Toss Your Hat in the Ring
Three CWA members who serve on their state legislatures said they couldn't have got where they are without help from fellow members, and urged activists in the audience to consider running for office themselves.
"If it weren't for CWA and the people in my local, I wouldn't have won my election. As union members, we've got a ready-made network," said Oregon Representative Diane Rosenbaum of Local 7901, appearing on the panel with Washington State Representative Zack Hudgins of WashTech-CWA Local 37083 and Texas Representative Garnet Coleman of Local 6186.
Whether the office is the state legislature, a school board, city council or even a community water or sewer board, the state representatives said it's essential to have members who are sensitive to union and worker issues.
The conference also welcomed first-time participants from the National Coalition of Public Safety Officers-CWA. NCPSO President Rich Anemone of Tucson noted how the overtime fight in particular had galvanized members of his union. "The regulations cutting overtime pay are a slap in the face to police officers and to every worker," he said.
Delegates also gave a hearty welcome to Susan Phillips, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, who profusely thanked CWA members for their financial and moral support during the California grocery strike.
"You walked with us literally and figuratively every step of the way and we are forever grateful," Phillips said.