The Competition Is On! CWA Locals Spread Employee Free Choice Message

New York and Pennsylvania locals hung banners on highway overpasses to spread the Employee Free Choice message.

Take the challenge and hang a banner or two or five. Send us your photos and stories and we'll publish them in the CWA Newsletter or on The Source website. Send to news@cwa-union.org.

CWA Locals Spread Employee Free Choice Message 

Tens of thousands of motorists across New York and Pennsylvania viewed CWA's message of support for Employee Free Choice over the last week thanks to the enterprising efforts of local union activists who hung banners on highway overpasses and bridges.

Last Friday morning when the U.S. Department of Labor released the economy's rising unemployment numbers, dozens of CWA members from locals throughout New York State coordinated their actions and unfurled banners that read, "Fix the Economy! Employee Free Choice Act Now" and other slogans, from 10 highway overpasses.

CWA locals in New York put up banners at overpasses across the state, this one in Suffolk County.

In Syracuse, three members of Local 1123 hung a sheet-sized banner from a pedestrian bridge near the state fairgrounds during the morning rush hour. Local members stood by the sign for 45 minutes before the police told them to take it down; they received honks of support from motorists passing underneath, they said.

Other District 1 locals joined in hanging banners from highway overpasses in Utica, Binghamton, Poughkeepsie, Suffolk County, Staten Island, Waterloo, Queens, Nassau County, and Westchester County. Not to be out done, members from Local 1109 carried a large banner across the Brooklyn Bridge. Other participating locals were 1103, 1104, 1106, 1108, 1111, 1120, and 1126.

Outside Philadelphia, CWA locals used overpasses in the Philadelphia area to show support for Employee Free Choice.

In Pennsylvania, members of Locals 13000 and 13500 used the same tactic to encourage workers to contact Sen. Specter and urge him to support Employee Free Choice. Yesterday a banner was hung from an overpass over a jammed highway leading into Philadelphia. Today local activists will hang a banner in Chester over Interstate 95.

District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton and District 13 Vice President Edward Mooney said the banners will remind people that rebuilding the middle class is the only way to restore our economy. "We can't build an economy on Wall Street gimmicks, sub-prime mortgages and credit card debt," said Shelton. "The only way to fix this economy is to expand collective bargaining."

"We are hanging the banners to remind Sen. Specter, as well as others in Congress, that labor's support for them depends on their support for legislation to protect workers' organizing and bargaining rights," said Mooney.